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It Seemed Like a Good Idea...
By DHinMI

Karl Rove thought imposing tariffs on steel was the perfect wedge issue—he just never realized that the electoral coalition it would drive a wedge through would be his own.

In 2002 George W. Bush ordered tariffs on steel imported from overseas. Russia, China, Brazil and other developing nations were being accused of dumping steel on American markets., and despite raising their productivity by shifting production from the obsolescent big mills to efficient mini-mills, domestic producers still couldn’t compete against the cheaper foreign steel. Bush touted the tariffs as a tool to protect American jobs from unfair competition—he was conveniently silent about price supports to American farmers—but it was really nothing more than policy dilettante Karl Rove’s gambit to hold Republican votes in West Virginia and Ohio and gain a few more in Pennsylvania.

Rove was surely pleased with himself for securing a policy meant to lure union voters in steel-producing states. Too bad for him that he didn’t consider how this “socialization of conflict” was not likley to divide labor unions but was likley to expose rifts between steel producers and manufacturers, thus undermining Rove’s reelection strategy of milking big dollars from small manufacturers and big votes in the industrial Midwest.

Over forty years ago the political scientist E. E. Schattschneider described the process by which private competition between business or pressure groups draws the public into the “socialization of conflict.” “One of the characteristic points of origin of pressure politics,” wrote Schattschneider, “is a breakdown of the discipline of the business community… It is the losers in intra-business conflict who seek redress from public authority. The dominant business interests resist appeals to the government.” Seen in this light, it is natural for steel producers to band together to secure government protection from their lower-charging competitors. But it is just as natural for steel consumers to fight a government policy that bumps up their production costs—the reaction that Karl Rove expected from Brazilians, Russians, Chinese and Europeans, but which he never anticipated from Republicans in Grand Rapids and Nashville....