Maybe our mental model of politics is wrong.
Nate Silver, the polling expert, wrote an essay this week. He said there aren't two poles in politics, with people somewhere on that left-right, liberal-conservative spectrum. There are three poles, he wrote. There is a triangle with a Social Justice Left on one point, a Trump/MAGA group on a second point, and a group of classic Liberals on the third point. Liberal here mean the classic liberalism of individualism, free markets, equality, diversity, and freedom of expression.
Silver posited this map:
I will get back to this in future posts, but I think Silver's view is both astute and incomplete. I agree that MAGA conservatism dominates the current "red team" of Republicans, but there is a division within it between the Trump-style populists and more traditional conservatives who support authority, institutions, and laws. Old-style Republicans are currently in hiding because Trump is resolute in attacking them, calling them RINOs--Republicans In Name Only. When Trump is gone, they will find courage and will re-emerge and claim they were moderate all along and never really supported Trump.
The best political lesson I learned during my college years was not from a professor. It was from the father of a local girl I took on a Sunday afternoon date. Mr. Conway greeted me at the door and sat me down in their parlor. He asked about my parents' work. He asked about my future financial prospects. He asked about my religion. He asked about my classes, and when I told him I was taking a class from a noted presidential scholar, he said I was completely wrong. Left-right means nothing, he said. There aren't two sides. The Irish vote for the Irish. The Italians vote for the Italians. Jews vote for Jews. Blacks vote for Blacks. Politics had a multiplicity of poles and dimensions, he said. He was as identity-politics-centric as anyone in the current Social Justice Left coalition. He opened my mind.
I am a "liberal" with a strong orientation toward individual liberty and individual responsibility. That distinguishes me from the Social Justice Left which emphasizes groups as agents of oppression or victimhood. I value the work ethic and I may be naive here, but I think people willing and able to work hard can find financial success, at least here in America. My career giving financial advice made me more favorable to markets than are most liberals; I see how they clarify competing values. With all the hesitations, reservations, and qualifications, one "really is" what one decides to do. The price of things, if not their ultimate value, is what market participants decide. That makes me more oriented toward democracy than to autocratic authority. I am also a near-absolutist on free speech, especially in universities.
I see the extraordinary power of branding and presentation, especially in the highly-visible choice of president. I see a multi-factor, multi-pole political world. The various factors overlay one another. The choice of president gets mediated and resolved in a simple branding choice based in large part on the personality and presentation skills of the candidate. That is why I write about messages, denoted and implied.
It is why Trump is so dangerous. He is a selfish, corrupt, shameless man. But he knows how to be interesting.
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4 comments:
Yes Trump is dangerous and if polling is to be believed, he will be our next president. No matter how well you explain Trump to us Peter, I just can’t get my head around Americans voting him in, but I’m thinking more and more that will be the case.
Trump is dangerous because he’s a Hitler wannabe. The far-white like to shut down comparisons of the Trump cult to Nazis by quoting Godwin’s Law, but here’s what Godwin had to say about it after the White Nationalist demonstration in Charlottesville: “By all means, compare these shitheads to the Nazis. Again and again. I’m with you.”
Now Trump is actually quoting Hitler while his shitheads cheer him on. Here is a very good and reasonably short article by Michael Godwin from 2018 that’s still very relevant:
https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/godwins-law-in-the-age-of-trump/
The real RINO is Trump himself. His “populism” is Trump-centric, more like sheer popularity than populism. Unlike even Huey Long, he doesn’t have (never had?) a coherent and consistent political philosophy, let alone policy agenda.
As has been noted here and elsewhere “Republican”, unfortunately, and for far too many, rises and falls with “what Trump said today”. His defeat on the national stage must be considered the top priority for attentive, thinking Americans.
On the left, equality and justice means either of individual opportunity and due process, or by way of gerrymandered group outcomes, the former for proper liberals, the latter for reflexively-aggrieved cultural Marxist equalitarians.
The Western left must decide whether disparate outcomes, home and abroad, are ipso facto caused by sinister, villainous injustice. Surely the reductionist excesses of Stalin, Mao, Castro and Pol Pot should inform that long-standing debate.
91 Felony Indictments, 2 Impeachments, after which a Trial in the Senate, he could have been removed from the Political Landscape, if only a double handful of Republican Senators had the slightest sliver of moral courage, and put the Good of the Nation ahead of their own selfish greed and desire for reelection. But they're moral cowards, so here we are.
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