(I actually created this cartoon months ago, but apparently forgot to post it outside of my Patreon!)
Transcript of cartoon:
Two people – a woman and a man – are arguing on a sidewalk. The woman has long curly black hair, and is wearing sweatpants and a tank top; the man has short blonde hair (shaved on the sides) and is wearing a button-down shirt.
Panel 1
WOMAN: Conservatives have no compassion!
MAN: Why do liberals hate freedom?
Panel 2
Both characters are yelling.
WOMAN: Wingnut! Teabagger! Republithug! Fundie!
MAN: Sheeple! SJW! Moonbat! Totalitarian!
Panel 3
The woman stomps away as the man turns his back on her.
WOMAN: Here’s an idea: Kill yourself!
MAN: Die under a bus!
Panel 4 is a “split-screen” panel, showing two separate scenes divided by a diagonal line. In one scene, the woman is talking angrily into her cell phone; in the other, the man is talking angrily at someone who is off-panel. The two characters share one word balloon, as they are saying the exact same thing.
BOTH CHARACTERS: I tried talking, but those people refuse to be reasonable!
Nice false equivalency. You have one party that is basically the KKK, working consistantly to strip women of their reproductive rights, LBTQ people of basic civil rights, make sure only white Xtian men get rights, keep black people in a state a few steps beyond slavery, and enable rich white men to openly buy politicians……and another party devoted to fighting those things.
False equivalency for the win.
ginmar:
Ortvin:
Quod Erat Demonstrandum
@Ben David: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation
I don’t read it as a false equivalency. I read it as: “If you’re a jerk to people you disagree with, you’ll never learn anything.”
I don’t see the false equivalency (as described by ginmar) in this. There’s nothing about political or ethical positions in the conversation. Rather, it seems to me, that it’s a cartoon about communication (or lack thereof) between the two sides.
But I’m not very good at reading comics, so I could be missing something obvious.
Ortvin: I am sure both characters in the cartoon believe that their position (alone) is the considered, moderate one.
As a Rabbi I know says:
EVERY Jew – from the most radical leftie to the most reactionary rightie – thinks the same thing:
– I’m OK
– The one to my right is “too Jewish”
– The one to my left is “too assimilated”
All . Along . The . Spectrum .
Honestly, I think it can be read either way.
So, are you REALLY saying the present day GOP isn’t profoundly racist, sexist, Islamophobic, homophobic……fuck it, they hate everybody but white guys? Really?
I notice Amp left out the blatant racism, sexism, and so forth people who aren’t white men don’t have to deal with day, so he could make the two sides equal. But that’s dishonest. Just ask Leslie Jones. Just ask me. I noticed “crazy bitch” was missing from the conservative side’s vocab.
The GOP has pushed over 1,100 bills through Congress attacking womens’ rights. They have attacked the Voting Rights Act, VAWA, and yesterday, Trump’s fans—-the actual KKK—-surrounded an NAACP with armed thugs. To say nothing of the Daleidon attack on Planned Parenthood.
Where you do see equality there?
I’m not sure who you’re addressing, Ginmar. Amp?
I’m sure you can ask any conservative for a list of bad things done by the Democrats that would be longer than your arm. The equivalency is, of course, that militants on both sides are affected with moral myopia, and can see with extreme clarity even the most minute sins commited by the other side, while being utterly oblivious to even the gravest transgressions on their own side.
Sure, Machine Interface. That’s why I just wrote a cartoon with Barry on things we agree with MRAs about, because we are so myopic that we can’t tell we have any commonalities. It’s also why Barry wrote his cartoon on neckbeards, because he’s totally unaware of unpleasant things done by liberals.
On the other hand, yeah, people do tend to see others’ faults more clearly, and I admit I fall into that behavior when I’m not watching, and I’m not always watching. But I think you’re over-simplifying.
Machine Interface, you’re defending false equivalency with more false equivalency. “Both sides are just as bad” is pretty much the dictionary defintion. I notice those defending are not supplying examples of attacks that would equal GOP attacks on women, black people, LGBTQ people, Muslims, Mexicans, etc., etc.,
Basically, this cartoon is comparing the NAACP to the KKK, except in order to make that comparison, they left out the *really* ugly stuff. The GOP’s policies have encouraged a renaissance of the white supremacist movement. There have been attacks on POC blamed on Trump’s exhortations.
I must have missed where Gloria Steinam urged her fans to actually, violently, attack her rivals—-say, MRAs.
Ginmar – it seems to me that you are equating a cartoon equating two groups on one attribute (a refusal to communicate) with a statement about the moral equivalency of the two groups.
A couple of weeks ago, Petar was criticising amp because one of his cartoons depicted a father in a negative light, and the critique was that the depiction was invalid because it was reductive in that it didn’t show all the positive aspects of the father. You are also criticising amp for being reductive, this time by the fact that the cartoon doesn’t exhibit all the problems with the Republican Party.
It seems to me that both critiques are unfair because amp is specifically making narrow points – in the previous carton, that women are under appreciated, and in this case, that two people hurling insults at each other is not communication. I think that there is a valid point to be argued about whether this narrow point is particularly worthy of a cartoon (in my opinion, not really), but I don’t think it’s valid to criticise a political cartoon – an inherently narrow medium – for not providing the greater context.
Jeez, Amp, when will you finally do a cartoon about the racism white people perpetrate on black people, or the sexism men perpetrate on women? Obviously your cartoons are biased in favor of white males, and I have proven that with an algorithm.*
*Note: Algorithm includes only this cartoon.
Ginmar: you seem to care a lot about there being a clear good side and bad side, and about you being in the good one, without any room for moral nuance or ambiguity.
Can you conceive that there are people on the other side that also think exactly this way?
If not, then consider that this inability is the root of your incacipity to see the equivalence discussed here.
Hmm. I read this like Jake Squid did–as a cartoon about two people talking past each other instead of to each other rather than as a cartoon about the relative morality of the characters.
While the overall focus is narrow, I find that it is true–it is very hard to have a conversation with zealots of either side, even for zealots who hold similar positions to me politically. It doesn’t hurt to remind people of this.
I don’t agree. One sees this kind of “both sideism” all the time. It’s dishonest. The anger of the oppressed for the people attacking them is nothing like the anger of the oppressor for the people he hates and despises because they’re different than him. It may look the same….but looks are shallow.
No liberal has EVER tried to take away the intimate rights that the GOP is systematically stripping from anybody in this country who’s not a white Xtian guy.
It’s false equivalency. It’s the sort of smug reduction I’d expect from a conservative, not a supposed liberal.
You do not seem to understand the argument being made, as you are too concerned with “proving” that your side has the moral high ground, which isn’t what the argument is about and which is not something I care about. I don’t believe there’s a moral high ground because I don’t believe any moral system can be objectively grounded — there are no good and bad guys, there are only different groups of people with different goals (and even within that perspective, it would be extremely naive to assume that the liberals’ unique core value is only “oppose the conservatives on everything”).
But this is entirely tangential to the issue at end, which you are not actually adressing, because you are offended by an equivalence that the original cartoon isn’t actually making. I recommend more empathy and less fanaticism.
“I recommend more empathy and less fanaticism.”
This line feels like a personal attack on Ginmar; please try to avoid that in future. Thanks.
Ginmar – I can see how the cartoon can be read that way if interpreted out of context, but I think when you consider Amp’s history of writing here and his other cartoons, it would be difficult to justify this as an intended reading. You seem to have made the leap from “you wrote a cartoon which has an unfortunate implication” to “you designed your cartoon to make an unfortunate implication” and it’s not clear to me why.
I’m not sure the conflation of “liberal” and “oppressed” – i.e., reading this cartoon as being about oppressed vs oppressors, rather than as liberals vs conservatives – is justified. Think of all the racist, misogynistic email a right-winger like Michelle Malkin receives from (I think it’s safe to assume) liberals – or, more recently, the misogynistic, anti-immigrant comments directed at Melania Trump.
***
Thanks to everyone for the interesting discussion.
About the larger issue, I’m was worried about “false equivalency” when I wrote this cartoon, I admit. I don’t think anyone familiar with my work could think that I see liberals and the right as equally bad – but probably some folks who see this cartoon won’t be familiar with my work as a whole.
On the other hand, I think the default towards rage and dehumanization is something that is happening, and is harmful, across the political spectrum, and it seems a bit weird to conclude that I shouldn’t point that out or criticize it for fear of seeming to be making a false equivalence.
So I’m still trying to work out what I think about this, and if I should have made this cartoon.
Amp – I can’t answer the question of whether you should have made the cartoon, but perhaps another way to tackle the issue of abuse of conservatives by self identified liberals that doesn’t create a false equivalence is to present a one sided cartoon where ostensibly liberal people use their political affiliation as an excuse for misogynstic or hateful – a male character saying “Of course I called her a b****, she’s anti-abortion”; or a white character using the n-word to describe a black person who supports Trump, etc. That might illustrate the innate hypocrisy of those people without implying that their calmed positions are equivalent to the people they criticise.
I think the cartoon requires the reader to see each character as an individual first, and a representative of their respective “side” second, if at all. I get the “false equivalence” critique to an extent, but at the end of the day this is still a drawing of two individual characters. Amp, your work does tend to often portray characters as representing a larger movement or group in some way, so I can see why one would stop at seeing “Liberal v. Conservative” here, but I also take your point about oppression–it’s not clear that the two characters have an oppressor/oppressed relationship.
Perhaps it would have less unfortunate implications to some if the conservative were a woman and the liberal a man? We know that men lean right while women lean left, but mixing this up could help the reader see the characters more as individuals than as simply representatives of certain “sides,” and avoid the oppressed/oppressor dynamic. Having both characters the same gender could also help avoid this.
Without desire to express an opinion on the issue at hand, I find it amusing to read this discussion and this other discussion at the same time.
Ampersand > I apologize for the outburst.
Machine Interface: Thanks! No worries. I hope you’re not deterred from posting comments here.
Not at all; just wanted to aknowlege that I agree my comment was out of line.
“if I should have made this cartoon.”
I’m going to say you shouldn’t.
Even if we assume that liberals need to be nicer and calmer in their criticisms of conservatives – which is a gigantic if, an if the size of the Empire State building, but let’s go ahead and assume it – this ‘both sides need to calm down’ point is made so often, in so many different formats, that this cartoon adds nothing to any sort of dialogue, because it just repeats a point that is already repeated so often that it’s become part of the background noise.
This cartoon can only be seen as showing false equivalence if you see the characters as the whole movement instead of as individuals. But one of the points being made is that when we refuse to see individuals we end up over-characterizing them and that is something that humans do, not something that ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives’ do.
This is what I was trying to say, but you said it much better, Sebastian.
The cartoon pointedly doesn’t tell us anything specific about what the two characters believe, so it’s far from clear that the conservative guy is a KKK supporter or the equivalent.
Maybe they were arguing over tax rates, or censorship, or some other topic where someone might take the “conservative” side without necessarily being the reincarnation of Hitler.
For me, cartoons work best precisely when they make a point that has become part of the background noise and encourage me to stop, consider whether I have been skipping over it altogether and think about whether or not that is really justified.
Chiming in to say I’m glad you wrote the cartoon.
Thanks Chris, it is nice to get it right sometimes. Lol.
I don’t think it’s useful to wonder whether you should have made it. It offers two readings: one good, one mildly annoying. People getting point one makes the cartoon worthwhile, especially because it’s not like the mild annoyance of reading two isn’t everywhere anyway.
I think people are right that the characters need to be perceived as individuals rather than movements, but that’s hard, I think, because of the way political cartoons are framed and read. Adding two panels at the top might be able to make it so you can make them individuals, without compromising the very nice simplicity of the two-panels-per-row composition. I’m not sure what lines would work there, though. Seems to me like you could use a liberal and a conservative talking to each other without freaking out as contrast. It would be mildly tricky, especially since you already expressed that you’re not persuaded by the first set of ideas I had, and I’m not sure this round is any stronger.
I think you may just be stuck with a cartoon that can be read more than one way. Happens. I have at least one story that can be read that way.
For the record, I have been dehumanized for my disability from the left as well as the right. (And other things, too, but that’s pertinent at the moment.)
I also think Academic Lurker has a good point.
I mean, I flummoxed quite vocally on twitter recently because someone decided to equate “harass Mandolin with death threats” with “got an asterisk.” (We talked it out.) But those things are really unequal.
Do people shout these things at each other in person or is it an online thing? The rapid trade of content-free, shouted insults feels a lot more like Twitter than things that happen in person, where there would (I think) be more likely to be whole sentences.
Sorry. I’m not having any good ideas.
I am glad you did this Amp.
I do not think it is a false equivalency as many seem to suggest.
I find liberal/progressives to be as close-minded as conservatives at times.
The problem is: I know a lot of liberal/progressives. I know they are good people.
I know they want to do good.
I know they care about issues.
I know they want to help people.
I know they want to alleviate suffering.
I know they want to fix problems they see in society.
I know they care about justice.
So, I won’t speak ill of them.
I would challenge the liberal/progressives here who have “demonized” (my word) conservatives to come up with an equally charitable description of conservatives.
If you can’t, you are likely close-minded and completely ignorant of what conservatives think.
(And, I have an unending list of awful things I could say about you.) (okay, it is not unending, but it is sort of long, but that lacks the gravitas I meant to convey.)
Anyway, I must say that I felt a bit enlightened by a column by Ezra Klein (I believe), who is certainly no conservative. He said that the reason why liberals (progressives) and conservatives think Ill of each other is because ones side believes the other acts out of similar motivations, when they don’t. (I think there is a cognitive bias to describe this, but the name escapes me right now.)
For example, if a liberal/progressive wants illegal immigrants to be able to stay here and naturalize because they want them to have a better life, then a conservative who opposes that plan must be mean and hateful and wants those people to suffer (probably because they are brown).
In reality, it is nothing of the kind. But, if you believe that, you are ignorant. And, if you can’t see you are ignorant, you are close-minded too. (And likely a bigot.)
But, I digress. Good cartoon, Amp! (But you probably broke Petar’s machine again.)
-Jut
I don’t agree. One sees this kind of “both sideism” all the time. It’s dishonest. The anger of the oppressed for the people attacking them is nothing like the anger of the oppressor for the people he hates and despises because they’re different than him. It may look the same….but looks are shallow.
Not everyone shares your definition of oppressed and oppressor.
No liberal has EVER tried to take away the intimate rights that the GOP is systematically stripping from anybody in this country who’s not a white Xtian guy.
Some people believe that forcing people to bake a cake or take pictures at a wedding that they believe is morally wrong is taking away their fundamental right of conscience.
Some people would argue that forcing women to accept people with penises changing in their locker rooms is taking away a fundamental right to privacy – or forcing girls to allow biological males to room with them on filed trips, while the parents are not informed by the school.
That you may not feel that these are impositions on important rights does not somehow mean that the way these people feel can be ignored.
The GOP’s policies have encouraged a renaissance of the white supremacist movement. There have been attacks on POC blamed on Trump’s exhortations.
The GOP’s policies have encouraged a renaissance of the white supremacist movement. There have been attacks on POC blamed on Trump’s exhortations.
Right, because never has a right-wing politician been assassinated because of liberals pouring hate at him.
And never have leftists attacked Trump supporters physically.
Or is the right’s “hate” to be blamed for any violence committed against them as well (not entirely rhetorical, I have talked with people who say “yes”)?
The idea that only one side engages in violence, or in hatred at its enemies, is not supported by the facts.
Yeah, no. Unless you’re wiling to apply all the same logic to race discrimination, you have no case. And if you are, you lose a lot of popular support.
“I would challenge the liberal/progressives here who have “demonized” (my word) conservatives to come up with an equally charitable description of conservatives.”
I’m sure all of the qualities you’ve listed applies to most conservatives. But, who cares? If somebody’s policy preferences result in somebody else suffering as profoundly as so many conservative policies do, the fact that the first person’s preferences arise from sincere desire to make the world better doesn’t help.
If somebody’s beating on you it doesn’t make it hurt less to know that they think beating you is good for the world.
You’re assuming that they share the same definitions of “hurt” as you do. “Claims inchoate affront, hurt feelings or other non-tangible or quantifiable problem as an argument in favor of or against a particular public or policy,” isn’t enough for everyone. Same goes for “failure to stop bad behavior between non-government private parties” or “failed to provide financial support/citizenship/a job to person(s) I deemed worthy of it.”
I know that’s a little flippant, but you can’t throw around words like “hurt” as if everybody agrees on your definition.
“You’re assuming that they share the same definitions of “hurt” as you do.”
I’m not assuming that they would agree that they were hurting people. I just feel that when a powerless group claims they are being hurt by a powerful group, the fact that the powerful group has a different perspective is neither surprising, nor relevant.
Your ideology says that we should privilege the demands of a group that claims they’re being hurt. You’re assuming that everyone shares 1) The definition of the group boundaries at issue, 2) The definition of “hurt” as noted in my first comment, 3) the notion that claiming hurt grants special privileged in terms of being listened to over and above any other citizen, 4) there is a universally shared perspective among the hurt group about what the problems and solutions are, 5) the people making the claim of hurt are representative of that group, 6) there is no good reason for the hurt-causing that could be articulated by the more powerful group that could justify the hurt that reasonable people could agree with; and 7) we can always identify which group has more privilege.
All those assumptions do a lot of heavy lifting in making those two sentences make sense. Not everyone shares them. In fact, I’d venture a guess that most people don’t agree with at least half of them.
@LTL FTC: I’m not assuming everybody shares my ideology. I’m just assuming my ideology is correct.
One problem with this is that there are two different strains of “conservative”. I can say lots of analogous things about people like Mitt Romney and Condelleza Rice.
They care about safety, stability and law and order – realizing that chaos and revolution can be dangerous.
They believe in the value of hard work and education.
They realize that one cannot simply throw money at problems and expect them to be solved.
They believe in Christian forgiveness and charity.
In fact, I may have come up with fewer than you, but I think my descriptions have more substance than yours.
The thing is, none of these things are true of their current standard-bearer, Donald Trump, or the vast majority of his followers. The Republican party today is no longer a conservative party. It is a radical party, with a conservative/centrist fringe and a would-be authoritarian thug at its head. I have nothing good to say about them. I think they’re dangerous.
I don’t see any such powerful, dangerous faction on the left today. Do you?
LTL FTC – facts exist. Implicit bias against African Americans, women and members of the LGBT community has been established in controlled experiments. That this bias makes it harder for us/them to find jobs, which are the foundation we need to build everything else in our lives, is clear.
I like this comic because I think it rightly criticises both sides of politics for close minded approach to conversations.
I really like this comic because of the way it helps reveal the presumptive baggage people bring to such conversations in the way they interpret the false equivalence or lack thereof.
@Kate: I would really question that Mitt Romney believes in the value of hard work and education, given his actual policies towards the working poor and the American education system.
@Kate Facts only inform beliefs about policy, they don’t make them. If we assume implicit bias, what do we do about it?
Some might say that the solution is to hold things equal but obscure any factor we find to be a source of bias. Screens in front of the orchestra applicant, names scrubbed from resumes, etc.
Others may say that even if you do this, the veil will eventually be removed and people will be treated badly. The solution is massive re-education, a more scientific and high-tech version of the New Soviet Man, one who has overcome eons of tribalism in order to give everyone a fair shake. Weave it into curricula, supplement that with huge public education campaigns, stigmatize opposition.
But that New Soviet Man project didn’t actually create people who thought only of the good of the working class. That system failed. So others may take the same information about implicit bias and work through the law rather than the heart. Mandate hiring quotas for private and public sectors, crack down on microagressions through whichever bodies not beholden to 1st Amendment limitations are available.
Others still say that the specter of state intervention, with the implicit invocation of the carcereal state behind it, creates more problems than it solves. And using privately-owned communications chokepoints as a 1st Amendment workaround while simultaneously decrying the notion that corporations are people with 1st Amendment rights in the first place is itself unworkable. So instead, we’re just going to figure out the extent of the harm caused by implicit bias and just write a check in that amount to all harmed. Easy peasy Ta-Nehisi.
Others still recognize the harm, but don’t think that reparations, for ongoing or historical wrongs, are workable. They are an open invitation for special pleading for new groups and new wrongs. Politics devolves into Oppression Olympics, assuming that the majority would ever put up with such a regime.
Others still think that any solution must be politically sustainable, which means that the best solutions are facially neutral laws that disproportionately benefit victims of implicit bias. A large chunk of Great Society programs fit this description, as do the New Deal programs that didn’t have specific racist carve-outs. It’s undeniable that these programs are both politically durable and did succeed in raising living standards for a lot of people who are hurt by implicit bias.
Others still look at the data, look at the proposals to fix it, and throw their hands up. Every intervention tried thus far seems to have had negative unintended consequences, from abuse (Community Reinvestment Act) to uneven implementation (campus tribunals) to generating backlash out of proportion to the benefit (most workplace training, Move to Opportunity style housing programs, possibly affirmative action). Slavery, Jim Crow and redlining were all government policies, so perhaps using the “masters tools” is no solution at all. Just because something like implicit bias is a fact doesn’t mean that it can be fixed, at least through political methods.
Then they all call each other names.
That’s seven different political positions based on accepting the exact same facts. The whole Neil DeGrasse Tyson-popularized idea that if we all just figured out facts about the world and accepted them, the policy solution would reveal itself fully formed and ready to implement, is simply not true.
Tamme @48, I think Romney’s policies indicate that he thinks hard work and education are more effective in our current system than they are in reality. That’s why he blames individual poor people for poverty which liberals (including me) see as stemming largely from structural inequalities. I do think that in Romney’s case it is the result of living a sheltered life, not malice. He did set up a healthcare system in Massachusettes which gave thousands of people access to insurance in that state. He’s also speaking out against Trump’s racism and Islamophobia. Don’t get me wrong, I also think he disgraced himself pandering to the right to get the nomination last time around, which is part of what opened the way for Trump to rise. I’ve never voted for Romney. I disagree with him on most issues and think that he would have moved the country in the wrong direction. But, I actually fear Trump. There’s a huge difference between the two.
LTF – I only meant to reply to your assertion @43 that we can’t agree on who, by and large, is being hurt and who, by and large, is priviledged in society. I agree that finding policies to address that is not straightforward.
@kate – Do you mean that the way we can determine who is hurt is through the implicit association test?
No, I mean that implicit association tests are one example of a way in which we can scientifically determine which classes of people are experiencing discrimination in employment. These tests leave little doubt but that, despite any affirmative action plans which may be in place, implicit bias is still causing white men to be chosen over equally qualified, and sometimes more qualified, women and minorities in many fields. It might even suggest that in some fields colorblind assessment of job applications and resumes might increase diversity in first-round call-backs more than affirmative action does.
The only area I know of where gender and colorblind policies have been successfully applied is in symphony orchestras. Gender parity was reached on average in the U.S. about five years ago, after the policies had been in place starting in, I believe, the late 70’s and becoming pretty standard by the early 90’s (working from memory here). Racial diversity also increased radically. This real life experiment suggests that the non-sexist reasons suggested for why women, in particular, might be underrepresented in many fields (in short, “choices” eg., not working as many hours, babies)* should be seriously questioned.
* I realize that these could also be understood as systemic sexism, but let’s leave that aside for the moment. The women in symphony orchestras achieved parity in spite of such pressures.
Ortvin Sarapuu @40:
“I’m sure all of the qualities you’ve listed applies to most conservatives. But, who cares? If somebody’s policy preferences result in somebody else suffering as profoundly as so many conservative policies do, the fact that the first person’s preferences arise from sincere desire to make the world better doesn’t help.”
Wow! The qualities I described surely apply to most conservatives. Sounds like you don’t know many conservatives. At least, you didn’t say you have lots of conservative friends.
Anyway, you care about the effects of policies?
Like the minimum wage? Born out of racism, minimum wage laws were designed to suppress cheap “black” labor. Most liberals these days support a 15 dollar minimum wage, not to hurt black people, but to help white people. But, the policy still hurts young blacks, much the way they were designed to.
School choice? Yes, liberals really care about the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. It is just too bed that that traps black youth in failing schools. Better to placate the Teachers Unions instead of supporting school choice. Yes, your principled stance has the effect of trapping blacks in failing schools.
Finally, liberals supported the War on Poverty. A well-intentioned policy that has been absolutely devastating to the black community. As Walter Williams has observed (and I paraphrase): the War on Poverty has accomplished in one generation what centuries of slavery (a Democratic institution) and decades of Jim Crow laws (Democrats/KKK again) could not: the destruction of the black family.
You want to look at consequences of policies? Democrats support major policies that hurt Black Lives, all the while claiming that Black Lives Matter.
Of course, unlike you, I care about what you think, because I hope I am capable of shaking you free of the biases you have that are devastating to the black community. The Liberal/Progressive movement is steeped in biases that would likely offend you, if only you chose to see.
-Jut
@JutGory: “Wow! The qualities I described surely apply to most conservatives. ”
Yes, I agree with that.
As for all the specific policies, I’m not going to argue with you, although you seem to be assuming that I’m A) an American and B) a supporter of the Democratic party, neither of which is true.
[deleted, I’m not sure I’m actually interested in having any of these arguments.]
I disagree entirely with JutGory’s analysis of the effect of social welfare policies, but I think his larger point is clear: conservatives and liberals simply do not agree on the effects of most policies, so simply arguing “Their policies do real harm to people” doesn’t serve as an effective rebuttal to this cartoon. Conservatives think liberal policies hurt people, too. Of course they do. If they didn’t think that, they would support liberal policies.
(Unless, of course, you think they’re monsters who know their policies cause harm and don’t care. In which case, you’re the reason this cartoon is necessary.)
Most people vote for what they think will be best for them, their families and friends. They then backwards-engineer why it will be best for everyone else as well. That doesn’t make them monsters, just selfish. But, if I am right about this, although the majority of people on both sides have the same basic moral failing (ie. selfishness), the results are not morally equivalent. The people who vote for conservative policies, by and large, are straight white Christian men and their wives. Every other demographic – LGBT, racial minorities, religious minorities, and single women – is in the coalition in favor of liberal policies.
” simply arguing “Their policies do real harm to people” doesn’t serve as an effective rebuttal to this cartoon.”
It does to an audience that agrees that conservative policies are harmful. Which is the audience I’m seeking to reach.
@kate: I think that’s quite an oversimplification. There are significant numbers of non-religious conservatives and single female conservatives. They’re voting against their interests, especially the single female conservatives, but they exist.
Ortvin Sarapuu @60 – that doesn’t contradict what I wrote. I said that most people vote their interests, not all. There are significant minorities who vote against their interests in favor of their principles, or who have rather unusual interests that don’t track to their demographic (eg. economically and socially conservative scientists who often vote for Democrats because their main interest is funding scientific research, both for selfish reasons and because they honestly think it is best for society). Although, when I said “Christian” I didn’t mean religious Christian, I meant more broadly culturally/ethnically Christian. I’d guess that a significant percentage of single female conservatives are religious Christians voting their principles, or voting their economic interests short term (they have the sort of income that means they’ll benefit from conservative tax policy) and/or long term (plan to be married to a successful white man in the not-too-distant future).
To clarify, my main point is that right now the core conservative constituency in the U.S. is straight white men who are culturally Christian and people who, on balance, benefit when that demographic prospers, including the women who are married to them, or aspire to marry them and well-off people whose number one issue is cutting taxes. The core liberal constituency is – everyone else. There are lots of smaller groups who align differently for a variety of reasons.
But, by and large, this divide is very stark right now. It hasn’t always been, and I hope it won’t always be. Since Obama took office, I think a lot of religious and racial minorities are voting Democratic in spite of the fact that they are more economically and/or socially conservative, because they are alarmed by the power of white nationalists over the direction of the Republican Party. The fact that more white conservatives aren’t similarly turned off makes me think that they are right to be alarmed. I really do hope this changes, because I think it’s bad for the country. However, as long as this is the dynamic, “both sides do it” is not a narrative I am comfortable supporting.
Ortvin Sarapuu @60:
That, too, is an oversimplification, as you don’t define what interests they are voting against. Presumably, it is an economic interest, but that might not be the interest they are concerned about. They may be voting conservative because they are more concerned about their liberty interest, which also affects their economic interest.
Furthermore, to say they are voting against their interest does not necessarily make sense from a game theory perspective. For instance, Donald Trump is courting the black vote now the way conservatives have been (unsuccessfully) pushing candidates to court the vote: threaten to vote Republican. The Democrats will say that they are voting against their interests if they vote Republican, but voting Democrat has not helped blacks.
But, if the Democrats are even concerned that there will be a mass exodus of blacks to the Republican party, they would no longer be able to ignore them. They would actually have to do something for them. So, it is in their interest to make their vote worth something. As long as Democrats can count on it, they can take it for granted, making it worthless.
So, voting Republican would serve their long-term interest.
-Jut
Jut Gory – the first and largest problem with both your posts @ 54 and 63 is that you fail to explain why upwards of 90% of African Americans fail to understand what is actually in their own best interest.
The minimum wage as it was originally designed was racist because left many (in some areas, most) African Americans out by failing to include agricultural and domestic service jobs. Why would the labor of a young black fast-food worker (most of the jobs we’re talking about) be worth less than the labor of a young white fast food worker today? Finally, study after study has shown that the levels of increase in the minimum wage we’re talking about do not have negative impact on levels of employment. In fact, sometimes they actually create jobs in poor communities by giving the people more spending power.
But, even if increasing minimum wage might hurt employment rates in some African American communities, a minimum wage which does not pay enough for people to feed and shelter themselves is not a better alternative. People without the skills to earn a living wage aren’t going to learn them if they don’t have enough to eat! They need better education, not starvation wages.
“School choice” provides some lifeboats for a few lucky students in poor communities, at the expense of draining funds from the schools most children in those communities still have to go to into huge subsidies to middle class people, who would otherwise pay their children’s private school tuition out of their own pockets. Most liberals are for public school choice.
The war on poverty took place during the same time period as a lot of other social changes. Deindustrialization, globalization and mass incarceration had huge negative impacts on African American communities. Feminism more generally also increased options other than marriage for women. The negative effects of forcing women into choosing between a marriage that they don’t want (and which may be abusive) and starvation for themselves and their children out weigh any small contribution these programs may have had to reducing marriage rates among poor women, generally. The best way to increase voluntary marriage rates is to help young men get educations and find jobs.
Finally, Republican appointed judges overturned a key section of the voting rights act. In the wake of that decision, Republican legislatures all over the country have started instituting laws designed to make it harder for African Americans to vote, and to reduce the influence of the African American vote through gerrymandering. Democrats are fighting against that. Most African Americans I read see voting rights as a cornerstone essential for all other freedoms.
As a rule, nobody ever acts against what they believe to be in their own best interests. It’s just that people have huge variance in values and priorities; abilities and education; and access to information. So if you look at it from an outside perspective (I won’t say “objective” because there ain’t no such thing) it can SEEM like they’re acting against their interests. They’re not… at least from their perspective.
Values: If Amy values liberty, and Bertha values religion, and Cindy values consensus, they will have radically different views on abortion. Amy wants unfettered access; Bertha wants a ban; Cindy wants some ‘reasonable limitations as a compromise.’ And unless each one understands all values then each one will perceive the others to be acting “against their self interest.” Which they’re not.
Abilities: If you’re smarter than I am, and/or more educated, or have other better abilities, then you may take the same information as I have (a proposed $20/hour minimum wage) and come to a radically different conclusion on whether it is a good or bad thing. Remember, roughly 1/2 the population has an IQ less than 100 and in many cases, that low IQ is combined with a fairly minimal education.
That is a tough combination for understanding complex problems. And the world is FULL of complex problems, especially in politics, like “what will this minimum wage do in five years”.) Most of the posters here probably have an IQ over 120 and at least a college degree. What seems clear to you and me may not be clear to most other people.
Information: Some people mostly read Instapundit. Some people mostly read Daily Kos. Some people mostly talk to their neighbors and family and don’t read at all. Since we all have limited information landscapes, that will also control what we believe to be in our best interest. What your PhD blog says; what the NYT writes; what Alas reports; and what gets discussed at the average dinner table; are very different things. Especially if you lack the education/intelligence to synthesize, evaluate, and compare them.
SO:
Probably the same reason that mostly-poor relatively-uneducated whites will also often vote in ways which are perceived to violate their self interest.
1) Most charitably, they may prioritize risk/benefit differently than we do. For various perfectly-rational reasons, people might prefer “a small chance of a big improvement, versus unemployment” over “a big chance of a small improvement, versus unemployment.” That’s their call. Similarly, they may simply have different underlying values.
2) Somewhat less charitably, they may not understand it. Being poor and/or unemployed does not magically give you the ability to analyze complex poverty and unemployment issues like “how the minimum wage works.” Or, more charitably, they may understand it and differ in conclusion (plenty of economists do.) But you can’t confuse “lack of understanding” with “fully informed disagreement.”
3) They may get information from only one set of sources. Many poor people are highly segregated and primarily interact mostly with other poor people, often of their race.
I think this is just a restatement of delurking’s comment, but voters often don’t vote in direct self-interest. There’s one economist, Bryan Caplan, who’s written stuff about this; here’s an outline-type summary; see also some ruminations at this blog by a different author. (Note that at least some of that should be taken with a grain of salt: Caplan says men are more pro-choice than women, but I don’t know where he’s getting that, as it appears to contradict the polls and surveys I’ve seen.) But in any case, it seems most voters (of any party) don’t prioritize narrow, fairly materialistic self-interest when they’re considering which party to vote for.
I am pretty sure that Caplan is taking that from Gallup surveys (although more recent ones show a gender gap has emerged again, there was at least one year where men were more likely to identify as pro-choice than women).
Link to Gallup Survey
Kate @64:
To answer your question, I think you hit on the answer in the last part of your cite @58 (sorry, iPad is not letting me cut and paste), though delurking and Harlequin have provided useful comments, too.
Democrats offer very concrete proposals for people. That is their strength, but it is also a weakness. In contrast, conservatives offer broad views for people. It is a weakness, but it should be a strength.
An illustration: the Democrats tell black they are a party of civil rights, so blacked need to vote for them or they are voting against their self interest, even though Republicans were invaluable in passing the civil rights act of 1964. Then, they sell blacks on the idea that they need to vote for Democrats because they favor affirmative action, even though white women generally benefit from affirmative action in employment more than blacks do.
But, to women, they market reproductive rights, despite its eugenicist legacy and despite the disproportionate number of black babies that get aborted.
They also propound the wage gap to women, even though it has been largely debunked and, to the extent it has not been debunked, affects black more.
To placate blue collar types, they tout their stance on the minimum wage, even though it harms blacks.
They placate the teachers unions by opposing school choice, even though blacks seem to be the most ill-served by the system.
They support “gay marriage” even though a large percentage of blacks and Hispanics oppose it. Now that they have accomplished what they want with gay marriage, the only way for them to keep the gay vote is through fear, or through pushing transgender rights in order to keep them interested.
Of course, the Democrats can ignore Hispanics, so long as they give Hispanics the immigration issue, even if that threatens the wages of black people (that is not the issue for black people).
For Asians, they don’t have much to offer, so they just say Republicans are racist.
(Yes, this is a cynical, slanted, exaggerated description. But it illustrates your point, as well as that of some others. Democrats are good at forming a coalition out of hope and fear.)
What do Republicans offer? Free trade, small government, lower taxes, self reliance, personal liberty, federalism (state’s right for the fearmongers), and the rule of law.
(Eh, come again?)
Bottom line: Democrats are good at tailoring their message to each interest group that they can draw into their coalition. Republicans have a uniform message to everybody, which makes it difficult for them to appeal to specific intent groups.
Democrats are very good at politics, while Republicans are better at ideology.
Which is exactly why they do not understand each other.
-Jut
No, Republicans have a uniform message tailored to only one interest group – straight, culturally Christian white males and their wives. They ignore the legitimate concerns of everyone else. You are still assuming that the vast majority of women, racial and religious minorities are too stupid to know what is in their (our) own best interest.
Kate @69
Your bias is showing. Just because the Democrats tailor their position to every special interest group they can identify does not mean Republicans act the same way. You are looking at the Republicans through the eyes of a Democrat. But, for the sake of argument, let’s say you are right. What is that uniform message you think they have tailored to that group?
Again, your bias is showing; I make no such assumption-and never said that. Once Democrats realized they could not suppress the black vote, they started buying it-The Great Society being the biggest example of that. That is the SOP of the Democratic party: if you fit into this box, here is what we will offer you for your vote.
-Jut
Jut,
Are you honestly claiming that Republicans don’t tailor their messages, that Republicans just speak from the heart and tell it like they see it? That they don’t say one thing to their billionaire financiers and another thing to working class evangelical Christians? That the Gingrich revolution was not driven by a carefully crafted and workshopped set of talking points? That Republicans haven’t trained an entire generation of politicians on the importance of sticking to market tested buzz words like “Death Tax?”
Also, telling someone that their bias is showing and then writing this:
is just ridiculous. Nothing you’ve written in this thread has been anything but one long diatribe of your own bizarre biases. You started out claiming that you, unlike us stupid progressives, could understand progressives and see them as good but misguided, but now you’re letting your self-congratulatory mask slip and have shifted back to claiming that Democrats are purely venial and craven.
Of course, you also are shifting randomly between talking about progressives and conservatives and talking about the two political parties, as though these were the same things.
I’m not even going to get into it with you on your strange racial politics.
Also, Jut, I’ve tried talking to you about climate change 3 different times, in 2011, 2012, and 2014. I and a bunch of other people carefully laid out the errors in your understanding of climate science and the relationship between researchers and advocates, and each argument was exactly the same and involved you presenting exactly the same misunderstandings. None of them ended in me or anyone else calling you a moonbat or suggesting you go kill yourself, but in each case “I tried talking, but those people refuse to be reasonable!”
So I don’t have any expectation of this conversation going anywhere productive either…
Perhaps Democrats–unlike yourself, and many Republicans–believe that blacks are informed enough to know that the Southern Realignment was a thing that happened, and that for several decades it has been Dems supporting civil rights laws and Reps opposing them?
Isn’t that how elective government is supposed to work? Politicians say, “Vote for me, and I will do these things,” and if you think those would be good things, then you vote for that person.