Who Is the "Other Side"?
For many years, I read George Will and a handful of other conservative columnists (e.g., Jennifer Rubin, Charles Krautammer, Peggy Noonan) so I could find out what the "other side" was saying. But here are a few choice quotes from George Will's latest column:
With eyes wide open, Mike Pence eagerly auditioned for the role as Donald Trump’s poodle. Now comfortably leashed, he deserves the degradations that he seems too sycophantic to recognize as such. . . .
Trump’s energy, unleavened by intellect and untethered to principle, serves only his sovereign instinct to pander to those who adore him as much as he does. Unshakably smitten, they are impervious to the Everest of evidence that he disdains them as a basket of gullibles. . . .
With Trump turning and turning in a widening gyre, his crusade to make America great again is increasingly dominated by people who explicitly repudiate America’s premises. . . .
With Trump turning and turning in a widening gyre, his crusade to make America great again is increasingly dominated by people who explicitly repudiate America’s premises. . . .
I find I don't disagree with most conservative columnists. Where do we go nowadays to read "the other side"?
I think what's happening is that there are now more than two sides .... Democrat liberals .... conservative Republicans ... populist libertarian white supremacists (Trump and Bannon). For Democrats ad regular Republicans now, that old saying might work ... the enemy of my enemy is my friend ;)
ReplyDeleteI think you are right, Crystal, about there being more than two sides now. I see the Republicans as having fractured into at least 3 parties: the traditional conservatives, the alt-right and alt-light, and the Freedom Caucus types. I see the Freedom Caucus-ites as being the most dangerous of the three. They are like the activist investor hedge funds which go about their business somewhat secretively, but can raise holy hell with a corporation if they get about 12 percent of the stock. The alt-right and fellow travelers are infuriating but visible from space. The traditional conservatives went to bed with dogs and picked up a bad case of fleas, and it's kind of hard for me to feel very sorry for their predicament now. Except we're all in the same predicament. I would like to think that those who aren't crazy and aren't too bought-and-paid for could make common cause and do better next time. It's encouraging that some Republicans are waking up, even if they are a day late and a dollar short.
DeleteThe whole problem with the liberal vs conservative or the left vs right framework is that it tells people what you are against more than what you are for.
DeleteThe 'conservative' Republican party hosted a wide variety of people who were conservative for a wide variety of reasons (economic, political, social and religious). Very few people held all, let alone most and many held maybe just a few of "conservative" beliefs and values very strongly.
Take even the narrow field of religion. Conservative Catholics, Evangelicals and Mormons disagree about much. They have extremely different interpretations of Christianity. Yet a very few issues, being AGAINTS abortion, AGAINST gay marriage brought these people together.
A two party system requires blending together a wide variety of people. With polarization that increasing comes down to Republican are united only in being against Democrats accusing them of being left and liberal, and Democrats are united only in being against Republicans accusing them of being conservative and undemocratic.
The Republican party is now totally in power but have found themselves unable to do much because their only unity is their opposition to Democrats.
Jack, bingo, I think you nailed it, people's only unity is in what they are against.
DeleteBefore 2016 my alma mater, in its pathetic effort to offend no one, divided the Op Ed page into "From the Left" and "From the Right" with a daily lineup of one apiece. It thereby bought into the corrosive idea that there is no "From the Middle" available. And offended everyone, but skip that.
ReplyDelete"From the Right" come Mona Charen, young Ross Douthat, Michael Gerson, Katheen Parker, David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer and George Will. There is not a true believer in Trump in the bunch, and the middle of that lineup is decidedly Not Trump, Gerson eloquently so. I suppose you could go to Breitbart, but even there you may be misled if Trump goes on one of his periodic "I"m not Bannon" tears. They never last long, but their arrival is not predictable. Truth is, there is no phlosophy there, only an ego swayed by the Doocy.
It is sad that conservatives, who used to believe some things, have bought his mess of pottage in hopes of appeasing his base, and the liberals keep expecting everyone to see that the emperor has no clothes, only cheap Chinese-made neckties. Of serious debate there is none, probably because all sides agree there is no "From the Middle" to appeal to.
I was glad to see George W's quote boy re-found William Butler Yeats for him. Robert S. McNamara used to quote "The Second Coming." So did Joan Didion. So (full disclosure) have I, and on more than one occasion, although we lean toward the part about the center not holding and the blood-dimmed tide being loosed.
The basic problem is that we live in a country and world that is still dominated by billionaires who live like kings. (And an even more basic problem that most Americans want to live like kings).
ReplyDeleteAmerica now has a king for president. All sorts of Americans helped him to be king, including all the Democrats who were unwise to ignore the large grassroots movement led by Bernie Sanders that does recognize that billionaires are part of the problem not the solution.
All the analysis about Trumps policies and personality is misplaced. The problem is not that we have an emperor with no clothes, but that we have an emperor.
You could try Bret Stephens in today's (10/14) NYTimes who approves Trump's decertification of the Iran deal although admitting that there are grave risks.
ReplyDeleteTom Blackburn is correct in saying the old left/right categories have been superceded. There are the "libertarians" of both right and left...who sometimes seem to meet on some faraway common ground. There are independent minds and sites that could be considered "centerist": LobeLog scans the foreign policy arena; Nate Silver &Co. at 538 keeps up on DC politics in the midst of sport scores; Andrew Bacevich writes at CWL and Tom Dispatch.
Also see Peggy Noonan in WSJ (10/14) reading the Republican tea leaves....
DeleteCouldn't find that Peggy Noonan article. Of course WSJ is famous for their subscriber only firewall. However I read another one by her in which she tried to channel the minds of the gun enthusiast Trump voters. I think she got them wrong. To her they were the left-behind by the elites crowd, the losers in the economic sweepstakes, fearful of the government taking away their rights. They were the ones thinking the excrement might end up hitting the fan, and they weren't going down without a fight. The ones I know aren't anywhere near that angst-ridden or economically deprived. The 2nd amendment issue is an identity marker for them. They don't feel marginalized by the elites; they figure the elites wouldn't know a monkey wrench from a screwdriver.
DeleteWE are supposed to be the other side. To do this, we need to get out of tribal thinking (Left or Right), focus only on issues, try to understand exactly what is really going on, avoid worrying about intentions, stop indulging in the pleasures of moral indignation, and refine our own ethical system as Alasdair Macintyre, Simone Weil, Charles Taylor, Robert Merton, Edith Stein, etc. speak about it.
ReplyDeleteA novel thought! Political junkies (we know who we are) will always be in pursuit of facts and factoids not always for moral indignation. Sometimes it's need to know what's going on.
DeletePursue away. Just remember that we will always be a minority.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if any of us can see things objectively and not through the lens of our convictions. Studies show people tend to believe what makes them comfortable, even in the face of facts to the contrary. It's not really facts that determine beliefs ... Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds
ReplyDeleteI think that's true, Crystal. It's confirmation bias, and is in part about identity; what "tribe" we belong to.
DeleteThe conclusions of climate science are something I was not happy to find out. I would rather continue celebrating the Big Carbon Party with the repubs. But there it is along with "Smoking statistically yields Sickness and Death". This subject of climate more than any other has led to my despising "the other side". It probably is not a good thing to be so and not very Christian, does not make me cozy in a cocoon of self-righteoousness. Fact is, the prospects for the human race scare me shitless.
DeleteAppropos of tax cut: Someone on Sen. Grassley's page (where I go for my news of the "other side") posted this from the Atlantic re how the tax breaks for the rich screwed up Kansas. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/tax-trump-kansas/542532/
ReplyDeleteSnip: "This is designed to shrink government. It is not designed to grow business,” state Representative Stephanie Clayton told me. “I’ve seen it. It shrinks government. It doesn’t grow business.”
Thanks for the George Will column. His arrogance usually makes me puke, but nobody can excoriate Trump as well as he can.
Jean, thanks for the link. I can believe that the unstated goal is to shrink government, rather than to grow business. Aren't these the "drown it in a bathtub" enthusiasts? But they're selling tax cuts to the public as an "unshackle business" necessity.
ReplyDeleteI think biz tax breaks should be given only Tom those that have a more equitable highest paid manager to lowest paid worker ratio. The rest of them should have the hell taxed out of them in order to give tax breaks to companies that deserve it.
ReplyDeleteAlways fun to see the Trump Circus drive through one's home area. My femtobrain congressman Marino was nominated by Trump to be drug czar. Turns out he took 100K from pharma to ease distribution of opioids and had to withdraw. If 60 minutes and WAPO waited until after he was approved and in office, he would have had to resign and I would be shut of that idiot as my congressman. Bad timing.
ReplyDeleteThis morning he's gone, Stanley; and you are stuck with him? Recall vote?
ReplyDeleteMargaret, after Scott Walker handily survived his recall and was subsequently re-elected, I don't have much confidence in recalls of Republicans. I guess it's mean to say this, but the zombie apocalypse has already happened and the zombies vote.
ReplyDelete