A politics disadvantage argues that adopting the Affirmativeadvocacy will cause political fallout that produces negative impacts. Forexample, the Negative might argue that if the President initiates ahumanitarian intervention in Syria, he won’t be able to push through defensebudget cuts necessary to address national debt and deficit, and this will hurtthe economy. These can be powerful arguments when deployed properly; here are afew tips to make sure you get bang for your buck with Politics DAs.
1. Stay Current
The touchstone of a good politics disadvantage is veryrecent evidence. The political dynamics of many major issues can change almostdaily, so it’s important to stay abreast of current events as they relate toyour DA. There are a couple of tools that are handy for doing this.
First, there are a number of programs that willautomatically cull major news sources for stories on particular topics. Themost widely used is probably Google News Alerts. From the Google News Homepage, search for thesubject of your DA. For the example above, I might search for “Syria” or “Obamaand Syria.” Then scroll to the bottom of the results and click “Create an emailalert for..." You will have options about what kind of content to receiveand how often. This is an invaluable tool for keeping up with current eventseven when they don’t necessarily make the front page.
Second, use RSS feeds to track expert blogs. There are anumber of blogs maintained by professionals or interest groups that trackcertain political issues and offer consistent commentary on them. For instance,there are a number of Supreme Court blogs maintained by credible legal expertsand journalists that produce a great deal of commentary on the major casesbefore the Court this term. If you find such blogs relevant to the subject ofyour DA, they can be a good source of evidence. I stress expert bloggers, not Joe Schmoe Nutcase. You have to use especiallycareful judgment in evaluating the credibility of blogs because they are notpeer-reviewed journals or books. Make sure that the author is qualified tooffer commentary in the topics about which she writes, and that she is citingfacts that can be verified through independent third party news sources.
2. Structural v.Linear Impacts
Politics DAs are often associated with long link chains thatculminate in a high magnitude, low probability impact, but they need not becomethis kind of caricature. Politics DAs can credibly claim a high magnitudeimpact by citing structural impacts rather than linear ones. For example, passingstrong support for criminal rehabilitation might legitimately trade-off withDemocrats’ ability to pass gun control legislation, which many believe is keyto curbing very high rates of gun violence in the United States. This is alreadya high magnitude impact, and one could also discuss other effects of widespreadgun violence like the breakdown of disadvantaged communities. These impactshave great magnitude because they are widespread and systematic throughoutsociety. They are more realistic than the average nuclear war scenario becausethey don’t rely on a series of tenuous link chains to arrive at a one-time,super-high magnitude terminal impact. So, when constructing your politics DA,look for structural rather than linear impacts; it will generally improve thequality of your argument.
3. Look for RealIssue Linkage
Politics DAs are built on the idea of issue linkage.Political officials don’t just get together to make a decision about a singleissue; they have to cooperate over time to address a whole range of issues.This can mean that seemingly unrelated problems become closely tied to oneanother because elected officials and bureaucrats need to cultivate politicalsupport and cooperation. Often such issue linkages happen because policies arerelated to a common objective. For example, Democrats have periodically offeredto support certain spending cuts if Republicans will support certain taxincreases. These issues are naturally linked, because both programs are aimedat reducing Federal debt and deficit.
Politics DAs seem implausible when they are not built onreal issue linkages. The generic, unpersuasive version of these cases goes:
Card 1: The President needs political capitalto pass X.
Card 2: The resolution represents apolitically unpopular action.
Conclusion: Adopting the resolution would cost too muchpolitical capital and therefore prevent the President from passing importantprogram X.
Constructed this way, the positions usually aren’t veryplausible. The fact that some issues are linked doesn’t mean that all issuesare linked. Political capital does matter in the big picture, but it’s very difficultto say with confidence that any particular political effort will preclude anyother. It’s not uncommon for the government to undertake more than one majorlegislative initiative at a time; only enormous political undertakings like theeffort to pass The Affordable Care Act plausibly trade off with virtually allother political priorities.
The best politics DAs are those that draw on genuine issuelinkages. For example, rehabilitation initiatives may trade off with otherefforts to reform the War on Drugs, because it is politically untenable forvulnerable Congressmen to appear “soft on crime.” The best indicator that issuesare linked is that there is good evidence indicating as much. If crediblesources are reporting on the connection between two issues, then it’s unlikelythat one effort hinges on the other.
Conclusion
So, (1) stay current on your DA using internet researchtools, (2) where possible deploy structural rather than linear impacts, and (3)construct your politics DAs using real issue linkages. Your politics argumentswill improve in no time.