Who Associates With Whom?

In politics, people of the left have long lectured from their moral high horses about the need for conservatives to listen to, to understand, and to make deals with people of the left. To do so requires associations and relationships between people who might be different.

But allegations have flown in recent years (mostly anecdotal, but with a few backed by statistics) that the concept does not seem to flow in reverse. Leftists/liberals are more likely to refuse to associate with conservatives and to terminate friendships or other relationships than conservatives are likely to do so in the reverse direction. I keep running into more anecdotes, suggesting this is not right-wing imagination. And I find the phenomenon interesting (even if I can’t understand it), so I collect these anecdotes.

Today’s anecdotes come from The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and from, of all things, a real estate article about the sale of Vice President Vance’s home.

Lin Manuel Miranda, creator of the hit musical Hamilton, joins several other performing artists in canceling their planned performances at the Kennedy Center in some type of protest against changes in management at the Kennedy Center instigated by President Trump. According to the news article, Jeffrey Seller, producer of the show, said they were canceling the show out of fear that the new Center management might cancel or renegotiate the contract. Do they fear that because they know that is what a left-wing group taking over an institution would do (projection)? It does not appear that the new Center management has made any moves in that direction. It seems Mr. Miranda, his crew, and others would rather self-cancel performances on one of the most recognized stages in the world than deal with management with which they might disagree.

An article from Realtor.com (a large real estate information business that generally seems to avoid getting very political beyond direct real estate matters) reports on the rapid sale by Vice President Vance and his wife of their house in Alexandria, Virginia, that they had bought less than two years ago. The reporter of the article interviewed some neighbors of the house who all noted (I recognize there could be some selection bias by the reporter) that the neighborhood was very liberal, and, therefore, the neighbors didn’t understand why the Vances would have chosen to live there in the first place. Maybe I’m reading too much into a few quotes, but the tone of their comments was, “How could they live among people they disagree with?” Now, there are reasons I would avoid living in certain “liberal” areas, but those are mostly driven by how government policy would impact my life and my property, which is only indirectly a function of my immediate neighbors. While I might avoid a town because of the leftist policies the town pursues, I would not usually avoid a specific neighborhood because the neighbors might disagree with me, unless those neighbors are likely to impose their disagreement on me through government or other means. More projection that they (the liberals) wouldn’t be able to tolerate living in a neighborhood of conservatives, so they assume conservatives also wouldn't tolerate living in a neighborhood of liberals?

Why do “liberals” seem so much less willing than “conservatives” to associate with people of different political outlooks? Why are “liberals” so unwilling to maintain the associations and relationships that go into understanding “the other”?

As others here at Ricochet, especially @drbastiat, have been known to say, I do not understand how liberals think.