Virtue Signalling

Humans Show Off.

So do peacocks. Gorillas. Business executives. Politicians.

It is how natural selection works.

Humans are a social animal and we are conscious of status. Humans are competitive. It is a key element in sexual competition and selection. I cite as evidence the unguarded comment of Donald Trump:

     “I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women — I just start kissing them, it’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything, grab 'em by the pussy."

Feminine beauty and male power are not the only sources of status. Virtue is another. Within a group, certain behaviors are honored: obedience and valor bring glory to a soldier; intelligence brings it in academia; and adherence to ideological principle brings it in politics and religion.

Previously, GOP "Moral Majority" budget hawks were the supposed sticklers on abortion, homosexuality, sexual license, deficits, and self reliance. Donald Trump changed the Republican brand. Forget deficits, forget sexual license. It is about us versus outsiders. 

But now it is the left's turn to be the Party of stickler principle. The progressive "woke" left is on the lookout for offense, and eager to protect victims.The presidential campaign exacerbated this. No one wants to be behind the moral curve--to be like Biden--old fashioned and clueless about the new orthodoxy.

Each group of victims of prejudice has its leadership vanguard, women saying victims who must be believed, blacks saying victims who must have been assaulted, spokespeople saying homosexual or trans victims who must have been dissed. The leaders are often well ahead of the groups they purport to lead. 

Virginia Gov. Northam, maybe.

*****Black voters in Virginia are far less surprised and appalled by the blackface appearance thirty years ago of Democratic Governor Ralph Northam than are the white politicians and media hosts expressing outrage. Why aren't they more upset, their white defenders wonder? 

*****Women are abused, insulted, and exploited, yet a majority of white women voted for Trump, not Hillary. Women make accusations, yet married white women don't immediately take the woman's side. Could it be because they have sons and husbands, and they care about due process? 

*****Joe Biden was a hands-on hugger. He worked with racist colleagues. Progressive activists are appalled, and yet the polls show the general public cares less about that than the fact that he is old and shopworn. Why aren't they more outraged?

Leading edge Democrats--the point of the spear--look back at the Obama years and think they were too compromised, too accommodating to the status quo. The activist vanguard likes the sound of Bernie and the progressive woke, people calling out error and compromise. Medicare for All--not Medicare for those who want it. Free tuition--not merely affordable tuition. Democratic socialism--not safety-net-capitalism. And no compromise on the Green New Deal.

The left is doing virtue signaling. See how pure and wonderful we are? 

Yesterday this blog observed that the Oregon bill--HB 2020--imposing a carbon cap, trade, and rebate--put the greatest burden on rural people--people who vote Republican--and the test of real political courage and virtue would be if the bill primarily burdened urbanites and college towns. Skilled and empathetic politicians, like Jeff Golden featured yesterday, are aware of the burdens of the bill, but in Democratic districts the voters want to see progress, or at least something. Besides, lumber companies were never going to support Democrats anyway. 

Thad Guyer added a comment to this blog yesterday, and I am repeating it here. Guyer says that Democrats are expressing moral elitism with empty-gestures. It is cheap virtual signaling. Moral elitism is very costly to Democrats. Americans sense it and they don't like being scolded.

Here is Guyer: 

Thad Guyer

"I especially include the timber industry and its workers among those who are very justified in resisting Oregon Democrats' feel good but symbolic solutions to climate change. 

The timber industry has a large carbon footprint ("cap" element) and a low profit margin with middle class wages ("trade" element)in the cap and trade "solution". The late Eugene Piazza and I were part of a national lawyer team suing the timber industry in the 1990s and learned a lot about its operations which include (1) massive fuel and electric consumption in harvest, processing and shipping; (2) CO2 spikes from wide-scale clear cutting, not of old growth but of the planted forests which are managed like crops, and(3) downstream wood product and paper processing (including plywood particle board and flooring). 

Oregon could shut down that whole industry, indeed go completely dark on industrial and consumer energy consumption and have no measurable effect on climate change. Oregon could ban 100% of gun sales in the state and not save a single life. Carbon emissions and guns are ubiquitous and beyond supply side (or cap and trade) solutions unless implemented nationally (if not globally). 

Democratic progressives, however, are politically inclined to moral elitism in the body politic strategically inflicting damage on economic and trade sectors that aren't within our voting and contribution constituencies. We love Nike and Apple in Oregon, but pretend they are green because their carbon foot prints are unleashed on Chinese children who live near the factories. Thus, we opt to target industries and sectors over whom we have legal jurisdiction rather than consumers, where fuel taxes on scale with the EU, banning outright consumer single use plastics, banning paper towels and toilet paper (like much of the world) and requiring carbon offsets on airline tickets would be far more environmentally effective, but politically unpalatable to Democrats in DC, NY, Salem or Sacramento. 

The Oregon GOP should do everything it legally can, including quorum negation, to protect our carbon based industries and workers (aka "deplorables") by stymieing our morally elitist ineffectual green agenda. 

We are Democrats, and like Republicans, we want other people to bear the sacrifice, not us."