A field guide to identifying partisans at a glance.
We are in a religious war. It can be useful to know who is on which side.
American politics isn't the economy, stupid. Fighting over money and taxes and tariffs and war and peace is passé.
The old language of politics muddles the reality. Issues that were important in earlier decades don't matter anymore, even though we hear some of the old words. Republicans call Democrats "socialists" as if it means something, but partisans and officeholders in both parties essentially agree on big government to address problems. It is an imaginary issue. We would realize it if bipartisanship weren't defined as disloyalty. No one wants "socialism," the government owning steel mills, airlines, banks or any other significant cog in the "means of production."
People may imagine they oppose government involvement in health care, but Republicans eagerly promoted "warp speed" development of COVID vaccines with government money. Even people carrying signs protesting "socialism" or "government health care" support Medicare and Social Security, and Medicaid, too, once they realize it provides nursing care benefits to their parents.
Members of either party could argue for or against tariffs, for or against farm subsidies, for or against using corn to make ethanal, for more or less military spending, for one position or another on relations with Russia or China, for more or less internationalism or isolation, and for more or less regulation of technology. We have parties but we don't divide on those issues. Immigration only appears to be a dividing issue. In fact both teams welcome newcomers if they are the right ones. The red team welcomes Cubans wanting a better life, but not Mexicans one. It is about team, not principle.
Trump led a team, not a platform. He reversed the supposed ideology of the GOP on nearly every bedrock issue and Republican voters went along. It turns out that Republican voters didn't like Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan trickle-down economics, stingy public benefits, and the U.S. being quick to do preventive wars abroad. Trump led. Voters followed. GOP officeholders woke up and went along.
Politics is about beliefs and a sense of being part of a community of like-minded people, i.e. religion. People can agree to disagree about public policy, but religion is about identity. Disagreement is experienced as an insult. The religious wars in Europe pitted Catholics against Lutherans against Calvinists--sometimes within a single polity, but more often between them. Our American religious war is not over church liturgy or the role of the Pope; it is about ideas of right and wrong, true and false.
We do not need to look into a person's soul to see their religious team. People live it.
A field guide: Red Team, Blue Team
Work outdoors versus work indoors
Pickup truck versus hybrid sedan
Male versus female
White versus Black or Brown
Non-college versus college graduate,
Fox News versus mainstream news
Washington Examiner versus Washington Post
Anti-abortion versus abortion rights
Church on Sundays versus no church
Evangelical church versus mainstream Protestant
No mask in stores versus masked-up
Non-vaccinated versus vaccinated
Likes Enes Cantor Freedom versus likes LeBron James
Dislikes Colin Kaepernick versus admires Colin Kaepernick
Hated Russia but now likes it versus disliked Russia and still does
Dislikes "socialists!" versus dislikes "fascists!"
The list above is not complete nor foolproof. It is likely that on one or two of the 16 items, a person from one faith will have a trait on the other side. A Republican might drive a plug-in hybrid. Not every Democrat finished college. But if one encounters a White man from a rural address who works outdoors, who didn't go to college, and who isn't wearing a mask in a grocery store, it is an excellent bet that the person is in team red, probably isn't vaccinated and probably disagrees with Colin Kaepernick. Especially if his sweatshirt reads "LET'S GO BRANDON."
But it is best to be careful about profiling people and jumping to a conclusion. Maybe he just works for Brandon Davis construction, and he is wearing the sweatshirt because he got it for free from the company.
15 comments:
All I'd say to add this is that you have an excellent description of Regressive vs Progressive.
I'll just pick one on the list to examine. "Fox News versus mainstream news"
FOX "news" isn't actually news. It's widely accepted as propaganda. When there is an event that reflects actual reality, like, oh, an insurrection, FOX either ignores it, or spins it, sometimes beyond recognition, to slavishly promote a patriarchal white supremacist worldview.
For example, Chris Cuomo, one of the most popular anchors on CNN, was recently fired for a breech of journalistic ethics, and it's arguable that he was even a journalist. Can you imagine that happening to Hannity, who was advising Trump daily?
One needs to be mindful about false equivalency with regard to Regressive values.
It’s much better when politics aren’t tribal. But they are very tribal at the moment. Part of the reason for this is that the left has been pushing racial tribalism for quite a while. Non-discrimination wasn’t enough for them, they insisted on pushing reverse discrimination, disguised as things like “diversity” and “affirmative action.”
I have been saying for decades that encouraging racial tribalism in one direction was going to inevitably encourage it in the other direction. You can’t say to white people that everyone else gets to be racially tribal but you don’t. When you turn this nation into the war of the tribes, many white people will respond by fighting on the side of their tribe.
I always thought it would be better to not have the war of the tribes, but the left continues to insist on it. They will regret it.
Peter, you make it sound as if both sides consider their party a religious affiliation. Not long ago it could be argued there was little difference between them. Not anymore. The Democratic Party still stand for something, such as affordable education and health care. The Republican Party has degenerated into a cult. Their greatest fear is being ‘woke’ from the stupor that enabled Trump to take it over. Their platform is ‘whatever Trump wants.’
Trumplicans may consider themselves religious, but I'll happily remain one a them there suckular humanist liberals.
Hannity is an opinion commentator, with no commitment to objectivity. Chris Cuomo was supposed to be a journalist, with a commitment to objective truth. Cuomo got fired for having his thumb on the scale for his brother, Andrew.
The comparison is not valid.
Underlying Donald Trump‘s pathological behavior is a commitment to the working class on a cultural/emotional level. The working class doesn’t want big government handouts. The working class wants jobs with a living wage. The working class does not want to become welfare clients of the government. They do not want a “guaranteed income“ that pays them to be idle and out of the way. They want to be independent masters of their own fates. They are enraged by attempts to impose elite cultural values on them; calling them “racists” on top of that is an act of rhetorical war.
The working class bitterly resents how this country’s elites have exported their jobs to places like China. They were lied to by institutional sources of information about how globalization would affect them. There will be even better jobs, they were told. They saw how that worked out. So now they totally mistrust institutional sources of information, which is too bad when they refuse to believe advice about getting vaccinated. But it’s easy to see why that is going on when you look in the right direction, which most liberals seem to be incapable of doing, or perhaps unwilling to do.
I could pen a list of Versuses like Mr. Sage’s but from the conservative’s perspective instead of the liberal’s. There is a subtle but important distinction, though, in that today for the Left it’s not Red versus Blue, but the Self-Anointed versus everyone else.
What subsumes just about all of the versuses, however, is best summarized by the great and thankfully not yet late Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magazine. I just read an entry on him at 90 YOA and on our current divide in the Power Line blog.
“He [Podhoretz] believes more than ever that the fundamental divide in American politics, and indeed the clash that amounts to a spiritual war, is between those who believe America is a force for good in the world, and those who believe America is bad”.
Thus the Left side of Mr. Sage’s Versus on Russia, above, is for me better put as, “Hated the U.S.S.R. but not Russia versus carried water for the U.S.S.R. and now does so for communist China”. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Individualism versus collectivism? Unlike Podhoretz, Noam Chomsky could carry water for Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot but unconditionally denounce America, because broken eggs even in far greater numbers are acceptable if needed to make the People’s Omelet.
It’s morally comforting and not irrational that equality of outcome is the only valid gauge of equality of opportunity. Old Proudhon even posited that Property is Theft. Modern history, however, says more people die trying to enforce collectivist social “justice” in this way.
M. Trigoboff: Trump turned Oregon growers into welfare queens. In fact, almost 44% of net farm income in the United States in 2020 can be attributed to federal payments. So much for your delusions about the working class.
Low Dudgeon: You sound stuck in the McCarthy era, still try to turn 'liberal' into a pejorative by equating it with 'dirty commie,' but it isn't working very well. For example, every reputable institution of higher learning has a liberal arts department, but there's no such thing as conservative arts. I know a few liberals, but neither I nor anyone I know is now or ever has been a communist.
Re: whether a particular cable channel is news or opinion, that's too broad a paintbrush.
Each of the networks has an agenda, appealing to their perceived viewing audience. Each evening, there are both news broadcasts as well as opinion programs.
A prolific commenter here seems to judge a network 9nly on the content of it's opinion shows. He may not be aware that there are also good news programs, too.
Some of the cable shows only report news items that they know their viewing audience will appreciate. As for the opinion shows, I appreciate shows that present pount-conterpoint discussions that many times give a fair view of the issues.
Others are rather one-sided.
In recent months, many of those cable networks lost a significant number of viewers. Maybe there is a chance that positive changes are in the works.
One example, Chris Wallace is leaving FOX News. CNN has hired him. Another, Hugh Hewitt has left his gig with NBC, and is now a part of the Special Report panel on FOX News.
I expect more changes in the next few months.
Mike,
What exactly did Trump do with respect to agricultural policy? I don’t recall anything in particular. “So much” for the basis of your claim about my “delusions” regarding the working class.
If you just didn’t get my point about the working class, I could try to explain it better. But if you are purposely refusing to get the point, there is no possibility of honest discussion.
Let me know…
Sorry, Michael. I assumed Trump's trade wars and subsequent payoffs to farmers were common knowledge.
I got your point about the working class - it's just wrong. Everybody who works is working class. We all pay taxes and we all get benefits. Besides my example of farm subsidies, Peter also points out how much we appreciate our Medicare and Social Security.
Mike,
I knew about the agricultural trade war stuff. I just didn’t realize that’s what you were referring to.
Everyone who works is not working class culturally. Case in point: most mainstream media reporters. My point is about the cultural aspect.
Michael,
If not everyone who works is working class, what are your qualifications to be speaking for them?
Since you specify "mainstream" media reporters are not working class, does that mean Fox Noise reporters are?
If not everyone who works is working class, what are your qualifications to be speaking for them?
My empathy for them and their views and concerns. I grew up in a working class neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Since you specify "mainstream" media reporters are not working class, does that mean Fox Noise reporters are?
It depends. Some of them are probably from the cultural elite segment of the population. Others may be culturally working class.
Hannity isn’t really a reporter, but he definitely seems like he’s from the working class culture.
During the course of my career, before I went back to school, I worked quite a variety of jobs: canneries, a factory, a couple warehouses, construction etc. I was in several different unions, including the carpenters, ILWU, and Teamsters. I enjoyed the people I worked with and based on my experience there's one thing I can assure you: There is no such thing as a working-class culture, other than counting on each other to do our job.
People who do physical work for a living are as unique and different as people who anything else. The so-called 'elites' are those who know nothing about them but come up with lame stereotypes like "working-class culture."
Mike, apparently Mr. Trigoboff doesn't pay attention to the Soy Bean Caucus, or believe that what The Former Guy was exploiting "tribalism", but he does seem convinced that tut he current divided status of the National Politic rests entirely on the Democratic Party.
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