Muncie Merle
| 🎩 | |
| Era | The Seventies |
|---|---|
| Age | 70-76 |
| Home | Muncie, IN |
| Demographic | small-city, white, retired business owner |
| Lean | Strong Republican |
| Race | white |
Merle is a retired hardware wholesaler in Muncie, Indiana, who has opposed every federal programme since the New Deal and still funds politicians who share that view. He is the cast's Old Guard business Republican, disciplined and never persuaded.
Who they stand for
Muncie is the city that the Lynd studies called 'Middletown'. Merle is a representative figure from that city's business class, a Main Street proprietor in the tradition of Senator Taft. He paid income tax under Coolidge and never accepted that Roosevelt's federal government was owed any more of it. His bloc is old, based in small cities, concentrated in the Midwest, and mostly Protestant. It is strongest in Indiana, Kansas and Ohio. It votes Republican in every election, but by the 1970s it is a faction whose money the party takes while ignoring its advice. Nixon's declaration in January 1971 that he was now a Keynesian in economic policy offended Merle. So did the wage and price controls imposed that August, and the closing of the gold window that same year. The 1972 increase in Social Security benefits, and its indexation to inflation from then on, confirmed his view as prices rose through the rest of the decade. Ford's vetoes of federal spending bills pleased him. Reagan's challenge in the 1976 Republican primaries gave him a candidate. The Kemp-Roth tax cut proposal gave Reagan's 1980 campaign the argument Merle's side had been making for forty years.
Playing to them
Merle responds to a balanced budget, a strong currency, and a presidential veto of spending bills, and to very little else. A president who cuts spending, refuses wage and price controls, lets the Federal Reserve raise interest rates, and treats Social Security as a liability rather than a promise wins his support, and what a president does matters more to him than what a president says. A Republican who talks about thrift but signs a deficit into law is worse in his eyes than an honest supporter of spending. He will not forgive wage and price controls, a new public pension bill, or any accommodation with the unions. He cares nothing for the culture war, so a president can lose the support of Concordia Hilda and Zeeland Dena over manners without losing his support. Winning his support is expensive. Cutting the federal programmes he names loses the support of Nonna Concetta, Coalfield Roy and Farmer-Labor Lars outright. It also costs some support from Motor City Moses and Hamtramck Stan, and it risks Milwaukee Marv's job if it causes a recession. Sheboygan Walt agrees with him on everything except the price of milk, and that disagreement divides these two Republicans.
Where they live
The five states where Muncie Merle makes up the largest share of the electorate in the seventies:
- Indiana
- Kansas
- Ohio
- Missouri
- Nebraska