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Logic Is Boring
Antifa mob attacks peaceful protesters at Berkeley.
Those of us on the right often criticize the political leaders of the left, sometimes stridently. We question not only their judgment but often their true motivations as well. It can get nasty. But we generally view our leftist neighbors as misguided but nice people. We value our friendships with them and avoid direct confrontation. If a leftist friend launches into an anti-conservative tirade, conservatives often just shrug their shoulders and change the subject. There is no point losing a friend over a political argument. But get a conservative talking about Hillary Clinton, and it can get unpleasant quickly.
Leftists, however, often seem to take the opposite approach. Their criticisms of their conservative neighbors can be vicious, and they often view Republican leaders as misguided fools. They create caricatures of conservative American citizens (bitter clingers) and attack them as evil, selfish creeps who oppose “progress” or “social justice” or whatever, even though many of their neighbors are offended to be stereotyped in such a way. Many progressives insulate themselves from any conservative acquaintance who is out of the conservative closet. But their characterizations of Republican leaders like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are often that of brainless puppets. The head of the Republican party at the time is generally portrayed as an evil genius, but most other Republican politicians are just heartless fools. These are obviously rough generalizations, but it seems to me that conservatives and liberals take approaches that are nearly opposite of one another in this regard.
There are other differences; Republicans consider it a success when they block or overturn a progressive policy while Democrats consider it a success when they personally destroy a Republican. Look at the difference in how Republicans blocked the nomination of Merrick Garland (procedural sleight of hand) and how the Democrats attempted to block the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh (politics of personal destruction). It’s hard to imagine Republican politicians, no matter how flawed, going after a Democrat nominee so viciously and obviously deceitfully.
Much of this may be because conservative politics are based on rational thought, and liberal politics are based on emotion. The emotional side will tend to tolerate less dissent because it feels more like a personal attack than a clinical discussion of policy. So I suppose some of these differences are to be expected.
I recently wrote a post which compared people making decisions about which medicines to take, to how people make decisions in the voting booth. I was attempting to argue that a population that makes irrational decisions based on faulty information when choosing medical treatments is likely to use a similarly irrational process when making decisions in the voting booth.
While I didn’t convince anyone with my argument, many commenters made my point for me by ignoring overwhelming peer-reviewed data and preferring instead to make decisions based on anecdotes. I often make decisions the same way. We all do.
This is not a criticism of anyone. This is simply how humans make decisions. We have emotions, and we have reason. We make decisions based on emotions, and we use reason only to rationalize whatever we just did. It’s human nature. Always has been. It’s not right or wrong. That’s just how humans operate. This is why people often criticize someone who makes difficult decisions based on cold, hard facts as someone who has lost their humanity. In a way, they have.
Leftists, and the way they appeal to the emotions of their supporters while ignoring inconvenient truths have an advantage in electoral politics. They appeal to the way most people usually make decisions – with emotions. Republicans, with their efforts to find logical solutions to real problems, have a disadvantage. Paul Ryan doesn’t stimulate passion in voters, for or against him. Trump does, and this makes him unique among Republican politicians.
I find it interesting that this natural division, that gives the Democrat party such an advantage over Republicans, now seems to be splitting the Democrat party into pieces.
Bernie Sanders had all the energy in the Democrat primary, and without typical corrupt Democrat politics, he won the primary election over the more grounded Hillary Clinton. Hillary asked a reasonable question, “How does Mr. Sanders intend to pay for all this?” Her question was reasonable but unhelpful. People were passionate about Bernie, and inconvenient truths did not lessen their emotional connection to him.
Now, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has all the energy and seems to be taking control of the House majority, much to the consternation of the management-type Nancy Pelosi. Mrs. Pelosi seems unsure how to fight this. I’m not sure that she can.
I’m also not sure how Republicans can fight this. Someone needs to consider reality from time to time. And that person may not be popular for pointing out the obvious. It’s hard to win elections with spreadsheets when your opponent has snappy bumper stickers.
So the Democrats will have a natural advantage in elections. If they can avoid allowing this emotion vs reality divide to destroy their own party.
The Democrat party has always been a party of factions. It is not based on an ideology exactly, it based on the concentration of and use of power. It has generally managed to coordinate its various factions sufficiently to maintain power in the past. But it’s always been a delicate balance, getting unionized factory-worker deer hunters to vote the same as lesbian sociology professors and environmentalist single-Mom waitresses. They struggle but generally succeed.
They’re really struggling now.
They have a huge advantage over Republicans. If, and only if, they can harness the energy of their members who aren’t cursed with rational thought, without allowing those members to get their entire party to ride their sparkly rainbow unicorns into the leftist land of lavish looniness.
Democrat voters aren’t excited about Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and some of their other less insane leaders. But they are completely dependent on them.
I have no doubt that Nancy and Chuck understand this. But I don’t think the energetic and passionate base of the party does.
There must be some really interesting meetings between various Democrat leaders these days.
Republicans, as always, are boring. And that’s a disadvantage.
Donald Trump is not boring. And that’s an advantage. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar are not boring. And that’s an advantage. I think.
I’m not sure that Mrs. Pelosi would agree, though. At least, not right now.
What do you think?
Published in General
I have a different sense of what makes us conservative and radical (liberal, progressive, leftist, take your pick). I think it’s emotional in both cases: I’m not convinced that there’s a strong advantage, in terms of intelligence, rationality, logical skill, etc., between one group and the other.
I think there’s a huge survival advantage to being conservative, and so most people are. And I think radical ideas are usually bad ones, likely to make the world worse rather than better. But I think the underlying drivers that distinguish the two sides are emotional, our relationship to risk and uncertainty, our affinity for tradition, things like that.
That’s long been my pet theory. I could be mistaken.
I think you’re right that the Democratic party faces a difficult challenge, seen most clearly in the recent obsession with “intersectionality” and the whining factions it places in opposition to each other. To the extent that conservatism is an embrace of the relatively small world of what is, or of what until recently was, and radicalism is the vastness of everything else, the radicals obviously have a lot more political diversity they’re going to need to cram into their tent.
And given that so many of them are humorless self-righteous angry prima donnas each competing to be the most aggrieved, it’s likely to get ugly.
12 ‘likes’ and no comments? wow, is that a first? I think the OP is spot on with this analysis. Would that I could write half as well!
You make a good point.
We will long for the days when politics was boring.
I don’t expect things to settle down after Trump’s presidency. Democrat leaders deliberately encouraged wildness. Even calculating Hillary Clinton was a radical, torn between Ayers and Machiavelli.
Republicans, on the other hand, encouraged it by mistake; by such jaw-dropping inefficacy that the Tea Party had to threaten them to wake them up. Now yelling at our own is a national passtime.
Ultimately, we will need calm and considered leaders. But to everything there is a season. Perhaps fire and thunder is what we need right now.
Or not. In terms of your post, I guess it doesn’t matter: whether the things conservatives argue make more sense because conservatives are inherently more logical, or the things they argue make more sense because they are simply more sensible things, either way we end up with conservatives taking a more logical position. And everything else you describe follows from that.
Good post.
Pelosi and Schumer have a tiger by the tail. In recent years they thought the path to electoral success was to placate the New Kids on the Block with an incremental approach but it’s now out of control. It bears some resemblance to what happened with the feckless GOP leadership who overpromised publicly but underdelivered which is what gave us Trump.
One significant difference however is that while the general media and culture (the sea in which we all swim) was unanimous in its condemnation of the Tea Party and earlier similar manifestations, it is adulatory in its coverage of the New Kids on the Block which poses a tougher problem for Pelosi and Schumer.
It also points out the limits to the frequent discussions on Ricochet about how the Democratic Party’s history shows how evil it is. For the New Kids on the Block that is simply irrelevant. Omar criticizes Obama, AOC denounces FDR. For them it is Year Zero. So maybe they are less like New Kids on the Block and more like America’s Khmer Rouge. The only difference is that instead of forcing evacuation of city populations into the countryside our Khmer Rouge want to force evacuation of rural areas into urban where everyone can be more easily managed.
The Democrats will have an advantage if they don’t get so radical that they alienate a lot of independent voters. It seems they’re headed that way. If they do, they’re doomed.
A lot of people thought the same thing in 1858. And 1915. And 1932. And 1968. And 2016.
The danger, of course, is that they will go far enough left to be an unmitigated disaster — but not quite so far that they lose the election. It’s hard to know what we should hope for, the sane Democratic candidate, or the crazy outlier. I want neither; either could win.
The problem is that today’s moderate Republicanism is already “far enough left to be an unmitigated disaster.” The future’s so bright…
Republicans need to learn how to Tweet like Trump.
Or maybe both need to learn to push back against a biased press effectively, without the weakness of the GOP or the pettiness of Trump.
A very interesting and thoughtful post/discussion this morning. Thank you all.
They do need to be outrageous and uncivil, though, to break through the media barriers. If that means being petty, so be it. More important than being petty, though, is keeping the media off balance. Best not to be too fastidious about it.
I disagree, but I’ll resist derailing the thread to argue the point. (We’ve probably already argued it somewhere else. ;) )
A politician never actually needs to be liked. He just needs voters to dislike the other guy more. Democrats can keep moving Left because they demonize and misrepresent Republicans with ever more fervor.
Right? So here’s your comment recast as the old joke:
Hillary Clinton is standing, while Donald Trump sits on the ground lacing up his sneakers. In the background, a mob of angry voters brandishing pitchforks is fast approaching. And Trump is saying “I don’t have to outrun the mob….”
Machiavelli, who I think is widely misunderstood and gets too little credit for his genius, discussed your point at some length. I think he would agree with you.
Henry:
“I have a different sense of what makes us conservative and radical (liberal, progressive, leftist, take your pick). I think it’s emotional in both cases:”
I believe there are several causes for the differences in political approaches between the Left and Right:
The Issue of Consequences versus Feelings
On the most shallow of levels, most on the Left react to almost every issue as to how the Leftist solution makes them feel, without looking at the consequences in any depth.
“Conservatives” more often than Leftists come from a different place. Their vocation or their work more often demands that they deal with reality and consequences, so naturally one of a “conservative’s” first questions on any issue is “what are the consequences of this action”? To many “conservatives” it is difficult to understand how some pretty obvious negative consequences do not concern leftists which leads to one the severe disconnects between the Left and Right.
This concern for consequences, however, is often foreign to a Leftist. Their personal and vocational world, since they are often working in government, NGO’s and other entities not tied directly to the markets and other factors affected directly by consequences, they are less likely to see cause and effect relationships and they thus often tend to believe that it is possible to believe in a consequence feel world where all the important consequences can be worked out with little trouble if the solution “feels” right to them. In fact, the media has cultivated the idea that these really not that important consequences could all be worked out if only those “conservative” right wingers would only get with the program and stop oppressing people.
Your Political Viewpoint as your Personal Fashion Statement
Most Leftist ideas are marketed superficially as the most obvious choice a right thinking “good” person would choose, and to oppose those ideas means in the superficial world of the ill informed masses that you are an evil meanie, and not one anyone would want to associate with. In essence, not to believe in the Leftist Claptrap means you are unfashionable social deviant of some sort. So to be fashionable and to be in the “In Crowd” one must believe in the ideas of the Left.
Enforcing adhering to the Leftist Mindset to stay in the “In Crowd”
If you run in reasonably fashionable leftist circles and you try to do something considered in the slightest politically incorrect or support something seemingly right wing notion, it is not unusual that you will be harshly called out and vilified by one of your friend group’s self appointed ideology enforcers and effectively ostracized from that group. Many Leftists greatly fear being called out in this manner and being ostracized.
Pure Power and Financial Reward
Among the connected power brokers on the Left, simply put their financial well being depends heavily on the Left staying in power . These power brokers know no bounds to the misdeeds they will use to accomplish that feat.
“
Logic is boring.
So is much of the productive day-to-day life.
Most of what people admire in and about life in America is achieved by people who day in and day out get up; they go to work where they serve customers, build things, create things, solve problems; they feed and wash their children (and read “Goodnight Moon” twice a night for 300 nights in a row :-) ); they help their friends and neighbors with problems great and small; etc. Even creating fantastic new inventions often involves the tedium of trying many things that end up not working. Big things are usually achieved through many small (and often boring) steps.
At the macro level, what has taken place in America over 400 years is very exciting. At the micro level, what yields that excitement is very boring.
In this morning’s sermon, Pastor Joseph talked of how getting close to God often involves the discipline of spiritual practices. He used a sports analogy, citing a baseball third base player who was apparently known for some fantastic plays, but he could do those plays only because he spent hours and hours practicing the mundane, such as picking up ground balls.
We want the cheers of the baseball fans at the championship game. We don’t like to recognize that for that to happen we need to spend hours fielding ground balls on an empty field.
I totally agree, especially the part about how Republicans hate Democratic elites, but Democrats hate Republican voters. It’s asymmetric.
We had a Ricochet discussion several months ago (Maybe September 2018?) about this asymmetry, prompted by the appearance in New York City of trash cans denigrating “middle Americans.”
Think of Jordan Peterson vs. Trump. Peterson stands his ground and and backs up his case with facts and theories that fit those facts. He doesn’t get as nasty as the other side does but he doesn’t let himself be bullied either.
In Europe, the successful rightwing parties are tied to some kind of populism. The ideas of liberty, responsibility and rationality are simply unappealing to most humans. Particularly to humans who don’t have religion.
I do think conservatives in America need to harness that energy even though it’s very risky.
Even in places like Sweden, supposedly socialist paradises (according to many on the Left), they realized that their society was better off if they cut their absurdly high tax rates and privatized many government functions.
This hasn’t happened in the United States because we haven’t hit the wall yet. Even when Obama gets elected, the Democrats don’t go for single payer health care, card check and cap and trade. Instead the do “Obama-care,” which is more of a tweak to America’s “mixed” health care system.
The Democrats have benefited from the fact that, in recent times, previous Democrat presidential administrations have not been tied to economic decline since Jimmy Carter. But Republican administration have.
So, tell your average Joe Democrat, “If you elect the Democrat candidate to the White House, the economy will stink!” The response will be, “Well, it can’t be as bad as it was when the Republicans were in charge, during the financial crisis because of all that deregulation.”
It’s going to take a recession under Democrat governance before this gets turned around.
Most Democrats in my family make high incomes, send their children to private schools and live in million dollar homes. They don’t want Venezuela. It’s going to get interesting during the 2020 primaries.
I agree with everything you say but would like to add that progressives are cowards. That’s why the believe in the collective. When mankind were still sending warriors out to slay the dragon, the progressive stayed back and kept the campfire burning. The also plotted how to screw the warriors out of their dragon.
Two dynamics here are the ongoing transition of factions within the party but combined with the number of factions today that can be described as pretty hard-core leftist. The coalition FDR put together in 1932 lasted all the way to the 1968-72 period, when the alliance of Southern and Northern Democrats could no longer hold over the race question, and having won the battle, the progressive northern Dems of the day couldn’t help but overplay their hands on forced school busing, not just in southern states, but in northern locales like Boston. The fact that a lot of the progressives pushing things like that on the working class voters were sending their own kids to Sidwell Friends or other private schools was one of the issues that ended up creating a lot of Reagan Democrats by the end of the 70s.
You saw some of the same dynamic in 2016, when the Democrats decided their coalition of special interest groups plus bi-coastal urban elites meant they didn’t have to care about working class people in flyover country anymore to get 270 electoral votes. They were wrong, but they don’t think they were wrong, because Hillary got more votes than Trump.
But while they plan to double down for 2020, the hard leftism within their coalitions means you’ve got a lot of people who are vying to be the Alpha special interest group of the pack, who get to tell all the others what to do, and that’s led to the infighting — blacks against militant gay rights advocates; militant feminists against transgenders; and that doesn’t even include the current Anti-Semitic kerfuffle with Ilhan Omar. Throw in the politics of personal destruction normally used against Republican/conservative targets, and the inter-party combat could get really ugly.
I always love how we let leftists define us, for things they didnt define us as.
Obama did not call conservatives bitter clingers. He called Hillary Clintons base during the 2008 primaries ‘bitter clingers’.
He was referring to his fellow Democrats.
Something C. S. Lewis said might be relevant here. If I remember correctly, he was discussing the difference between the male and female temperaments and what each regarded as “doing good”. In his view, doing good for a man was staying out of the way and leaving people alone to live their lives. Doing good for a woman was getting actively involved and helping. I would say it more bluntly: Minding one’s own business vs. being an obnoxious busy-body. Or conservative vs. liberal/progressive.
I think it was Jonah Goldberg who noted the family unit is Socialism, in that we don’t make 4-year-olds work to pay for their milk and toys. But ideally we do ween them off of that as they age and onto the idea they need to work for a living. It’s when you take the family unit and extrapolate it out to the world at large that you get the idea of creating this huge support system that wants to treat everyone as government dependents that you run into problems, when too many people don’t want to be weened off the safety net and politicians don’t want them to leave, when they can use Other People’s Money to create dependency and secure votes for themselves.