At Balloon Juice, long-time Republican John Cole writes:
In short, it really sucks looking around at the wreckage that is my party and realizing that the only decent thing to do is to pull the plug on them (or help). I am not really having any fun attacking my old friends- but I don’t know how else to respond when people call decent men like Jim Webb a pervert for no other reason than to win an election. I don’t know how to deal with people who think savaging a man with Parkinson’s for electoral gain is appropriate election-year discourse. I don’t know how to react to people who think that calling anyone who disagrees with them on Iraq a “terrorist-enabler” than to swing back. I don’t know how to react to people who think that media reports of party hacks in the administration overruling scientists on issues like global warming, endangered species, intelligent design, prescription drugs, etc., are signs of… liberal media bias.
And it makes me mad. I still think of myself as a Republican- but I think the whole party has been hijacked by frauds and religionists and crooks and liars and corporate shills, and it frustrates me to no end to see my former friends enabling them, and I wonder ‘Why can’t they see what I see?”
There’s more – it’s worth reading the whole thing. John Cole is a Republican I have a lot of respect for. It’s hard to name many others.
I’ve been trying for years now to approach political disagreement with respect for my opponents; to remember that I might be wrong, and to treat even those I disagree with as inherently deserving of decent treatment from me. Lately I’ve been losing that conviction. The Republicans are the party that tries to win elections by bashing gays, and by trying to lower black voter turnout; they are the party that believes that the President should have the right to throw people in prison indefinitely and have them tortured without representation, trial or oversight; they are the party that supports censoring inconvenient scientific findings.
I can’t respect any of that. And I have a lot of trouble respecting anyone – even people I genuinely like and consider friends – who votes for the current Republican party.
So where does that leave me? Can I really justify my participation in Creative Destruction, which is (as I understood it) predicated on the idea of right-wingers and left-wingers disagreeing in a forum where mutual respect is practiced? On the other hand, I still see no benefit to the kind of discourse that is common in the blogosphere; treating other people like crap, calling people who disagree “wingnuts” or whatnot, etc.. I agree with most of the left-wingers I read on the substantive issues, but I don’t like the arrogance, the spitefullness, and the contempt. (Most right-wing bloggers exhibit these same traits, too.)
I think that kindness and respect is better than being hurtful. I think a style of discourse based in hatred and power-over is supportive of everything I hate, and that trying to treat everyone decently is profoundly more radical than othering and cruelty. I don’t think that acting like arrogant jerks with no regard for anyone but our own group actually creates change for the better in any way: it doesn’t reduce racism, it doesn’t reduce inequality, it doesn’t fight sexism, it doesn’t do anything but support bullying and power-over relationships.
So I think it’s better to treat people we disagree with, with kindness and respect, when we can. But I’m not feeling much respect, lately. I’m faking it.
And I think it’s worth faking it; I think it would be a better world if everyone faked respect for other people, even when they’re not feeling it. But I have a lot more doubts about that than I did a year or two ago.
I’m honestly distressed by the rule changes in Congress over the past six years; rule changes that are about reducing oversight on the executive, and about cutting Democrats out of meaningful discourse entirely. This is not how American government was designed to work. It is not how any previous congress in living memory, Republican or Democrat, has acted. And it shows, I think, a profound lack of commitment to the ideals of representative government, of checks and balances, and of intellectual humility.
There’s an image of a donut of discourse. Inside the donut hole are the principles that everyone in the society who is at all respected, agrees on: A constitutional democracy is better than a dictatorship, racism is bad, cheating on elections is wrong, etc.. The donut itself is contested areas; issues that people can disagree with and still be seen as reasonable, rational, and deserving of respect. In this area we find the controversies – abortion, affirmative action, socialized medicine, war on Iraq, etc.. Finally, there’s the areas outside of the donut: 9/11 was a plot orchestrated by Jews and the Bush administration, Nazism is good, and so on.
I’m beginning to think that my picture of the donut looks radically different than the conservative picture of the donut. And if that’s so, is there really much basis for discussion?
Crossposted, with a degree of irony, at Creative Destruction. If your comments aren’t being approved here, try there.
There’s a difference between right-wing and Republican. I have right-wing friends, and have left-wing friends who call me right-wing. My right-wing friends largely agree with John Cole’s statement that you quote.
I don’t think there’s anything stopping people with profound political disagreements from respectfully discussing things. I do think that Republicans, as the party currently stands, can’t discuss anything respectfully with anyone. It’s the difference between having conservative principles and being willing to do anything to get reelected.
I hope this response isn’t entirely inappropriate and I know that you are undergoing a lot of soul-searching on very real and substantial issues. But at the same time, I can’t help feeling that you sound sad and discouraged and that I’d like to send you an e-hug. And the hope that you can solve these problems to your own satisfaction.
You have to agree on the basic principles of discourse at the center of the donut hole, too. If you don’t have that, you can no more have a conversation than you can with someone who thinks representative democracy isn’t preferable to an authoritarian regime.
Amp:
I live in a Republican stronghold. (Dupage county Illinois, dubbed “America’s most Republican County” by the Chicago Tribune.) I predict the GOP is going to lose control of the House. Many card carrying Republicans with either not vote at all, fail to vote some individual races or vote for Democrats this time around.
Barry,
Respecting people is different than respecting actions. You can respect a person’s humanity by trying to understand and empathize with actions you find unsupportable and unconscionable. Don’t allow yourself to dehumanize them. They aren’t bad people even if they do bad things.
I highly recommend Rush W. Dozier, Jr.’s excellent book “Why We Hate: Understanding, Curbing, and Eliminating Hate in Ourselves and Our World”. I posted an excerpt years ago.
Sara’s Essay “Cracks in the Wall” at David Neiwert’s Orcinus blog has a lot of insight into Authoritarian personalities that can help understand and empathize with some of the items on your list.
As for gay bashing, I usually chalk that up to closeted or sexually insecurity.
Can anyone think of why people suppress African American votes other than believing that their cause is so important that it justifies any action? I have trouble empathizing and understanding with racism.
I forgot to mention, Sara’s Essay Cracks in the Wall” is available here.
I know quite a few lifetime Republicans who’ve abandoned the party in the last decade or so. What John Cole is expressing has been happening to the GOP for a while now, though quietly until this war in Iraq. I think dissatisfaction with the Republican party began for many members way back when Pat Buchanan appealed to the very Christian right at the convention of… ’92? ’88?
First, Agnostic hit it right on the head; conservative does not equal Republican. Nor does Republican equal conservative, as Illinois residents such as Lucia and I can both bear witness to. I certainly do not consider myself a Republican; I’ll be splitting my ballot this election, as I usually do. Of course, I don’t consider myself to be a conservative, either, at least not in the mold that you’ll see on, say, Free Republic.
Which leads me to my second point; people who choose positions and take actions in a fashion that seek to manipulate public opinion on the short term in order to win elections at the cost of truth and rationality are the ones who get all the press, but they represent neither most liberals nor most conservatives nor most people in the middle who hold opinions in both spheres. There’s wingnuts of all persuasions. People tend to minimize or dismiss the wingnuts who represent the extreme of the viewpoint they hold while thinking that the wingnuts of the opposing side represent a majority of that side. They don’t.
They do, however, represent a threat to the United States by doing an excellent job of destroying the basis of our republican democracy that the founders of this country sought to depend on; that the people, both as an electorate and as that body serving in the government, would base their decisions on a rational examination of the issues of the day. Too many people on both sides are using technology as a weapon to suppress rationality and promote emotional reactions as a basis for decision making. This is not to say that emotions such as compassion and patriotism don’t have a role; they do, and an important one. Rationality and emotion must temper each other. But what we see these days is a concerted effort by partisans on given sides of various issues to erase any attempt to use rational discourse to decide an issue; it’s more important to win than to accept that the majority of the republic may decide you’re wrong.
The fault with that lies, at the end of the process, with the consumers of information; the ultimate decision-makers; the electorate. Thirty-second sound bites saying that a candidate favors keeping principals from keeping kids from bringing guns into school (have you seen that one, Lucia?) simply have to be dismissed out of hand by the electorate. They have to say to themselves, “That can’t be right; what’s the candidate’s real position on gun control?” and then actually go and find out for themselves by reading the paper (the whole story, not just the headline) or by looking on the Internet for what’s real. But if people are going to treat elections like “reality” TV shows, we’ll continue to get the junk candidates we get now. This, of course, requires that people get off their ass and do something/read something/watch something that’s NOT ENTERTAINING and does not allow you to SIT THERE PASSIVELY. Rationality requires study and thought. Emotion grabs your attention and entertains, if skillfully used.
Finally the use of the terms “liberal” and “conservative” tend to reinforce the depiction of the American political scene as a binary solution set, and it is not. Hell, think about how many times you’ve seen discussions on this blog and others about what defines “feminist”. Some common elements, but a lot of differences. So, while I’m certainly more conservative than most people here, I don’t run around telling people who oppose the Iraq war because they oppose war in general that they’re terrorist supporters. There’s both heat and light in the world; don’t mistake one for the other.
Don’t think that because leaders of a given political party (regardless of which one it is) flog their opponents with emotionally-loaded sound bites that they represent the majority of the people who identify with either their party, or most of their philosophy (such as it is), or both.
Lucia, if you don’t mind telling me, who is your Congressman, your State Senator, and your State Rep? I’ve got Lipinski, Viverito and Madigan. I’m in Cook County, but I’m about 1/4 mile from the DuPage border. There are two people on my ballot who are the kids of their predecessors in office (Lipinski and Stroger, Cook County President), and I’m voting against them both not because they are both Democrats, but because of the deceit used by their families to get them into office.
I like this post, a lot. It articulates a lot of the thinking I’ve been doing lately. I’m a fan of John’s, because he’s one of the few honest voices from that side of the isle. (Me, I’m mostly libertarian; a lot more so than many whom I otherwise agree with in the feminist/leftist circles. I have a larger-than-normal-libertarian infusion of feminism and class equality instincts, and I know that sounds strange. )
I grew up on disagreement, from early highschool on – debate, model UN, mock court, Usenet, anarcho-captialist mailing lists (for instance), now local government and contract negotiation. And the interesting thing is that nearly everyone now seeks to shut down debate, rather than talk about things. It isn’t even about civility (be rude to me: I don’t care, I live in Brooklyn) – the tactic is to dominate and shut down the conversation.
I think modern politics in the US is approaching a tipping point – either we learn how to stop treating things as some sort of sporting match to be won or lost by whatever means possible and adapt to the implications of modern communications, or we’re going to fall into a totalitarianism of one flavor or another. The US has, in fact, survived tipping points like this in the past (including one notable example that led to civil war), so I haven’t lost hope.
But it is becoming a little frightening.
I have a larger-than-normal-libertarian infusion of feminism and class equality instincts,
Wouldn’t a “pure” libertarian be in favor of equal opportunity regardless of gender or class of origin? Of course, many libertarians might disagree profoundly with other liberals about the best way to bring this about, but I don’t think you have to apologize in any way for wanting equal opportunities for all. It’s not in conflict with your philosophy, as far as I can tell.
“Lucia, if you don’t mind telling me, who is your Congressman, your State Senator, and your State Rep? ”
Judy Biggert 13th, US Representative Republican
Kirk W. Dillard 24th, State Senator Republican (Unopposed.)
James H. “Jim” Meyer 48th, State Representative Republican (Unopposed.)
Biggert is the only one who’s running opposed. So you can see how exciting my decisions will be? But my brothers – in -law get to vote in the Duckworth (D) vs.
Roskam (R) battle for Henry Hydes former seat. That may come down to very few votes. Based on what I hear there are plenty of undecided votes in that race! :)
As to your comments about “Stroger, Cook County President”… Yes. It would be difficult to vote for Stroger. ( My guess is if the Republican is elected, he’ll serve 1 term. The next time around the Dems will have time to think about their candidate before putting one on the ballot.)
I know many, many Democrats agonizing over Blagojavich (D), who some think deserves join George Ryan (R) in the “Former Illinois Governor’s” house — you know, the one operated by the Feds? As we all know “none of the above” is leads both Blagojavich and Topinka in that battle to stay one step above the basement floor!
Fishband: “But it is becoming a little frightening.” Except have you noticed how many former big “R” Republicans are now shouting “I’m a small ‘l’ libertarian”?
I think the big “R” Republican party forgot how many small ‘l’ libertarians were ‘in their base’ only because the GOP used to be for limited government, and didn’t actively knock down peoples doors to interfere with their lives.
Diane asks: Wouldn’t a “pure” libertarian be in favor of equal opportunity regardless of gender or class of origin?”
Go to the small ‘l’ liberatarian blogs and you will discover the libertarians will answe “yes” quite resoundingly.That said, they tend to disfavor affirmitive action, large entitlement programs etc.
The key difference of opinion between most small ‘l’ libertarians and the policies of the large ‘D’ democratic party has been how to best achieve the goal of equal opportunity for all.
The Republican party used to be the party that respected “that government governs best that governs least”; now it’s a Big Government party that simply wants to use Big Government for it’s own aims instead of leaving the determination and attainment of those aims to “the States or the people, respectively.”
I keep watching those Roskam/Duckworth election ads. Apparently, Duckworth is going to stand at the U.S. Mexico border and give all my money to illegal aliens, and Roskam will be standing next to her eating their babies.
Talk about respectful discourse; first Kerry makes a gratuitous slur against the military (yes, I know that this is a Republican talking point, but it’s also how I interpreted it when I heard it), and then the Republicans spin up a huge effort to cram it down his throat when (news flash!) Kerry isn’t even running. Both parties spinning against each other, when real issues go undiscussed.
RonF, I just read this!!
Results in key House races: Reuters poll
ILLINOIS 6 – Democrat Tammy Duckworth, a veteran who lost both her legs in Iraq, moved well ahead of Republican Peter Roskam. She leads by 54 percent to 40 percent in a suburban Chicago battle to replace retiring Republican Rep. Henry Hyde.
I know people outside Illinois won’t quite understand the significance of a Democrat taking that seat in the heart of Dupage County– that district holds the county seat. The county where Alan Keyes dared make his speeches when stumping for Senator.
This could still turn around — but the idea a Democrat could lead this race even for a millisecond would have been unthinkable in 2004! Duckworth (D) winning would be major!
I wanted to also encourage Barry to buck up. Peggy Noonan wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal with content similar to John Cole’s opinion piece.
So it’s not just one Republican saying this sort of thing. I think these just the first big bubbles to come to the surface. (To extend the metaphor, living in Dupage County, like a fish under the surface, I first started seeing smaller bubbles forming rising as I sat at a block party last Sept.)
Oh… and totally off topic…. did you hear about Ann Coulter’s troubles?
Thanks to Dianne and Lucia and everyone else who has posted with kind thoughts for me. I was feeling bummed when I wrote this post, it’s true.
My favorite thing in this thread so far is this, from Fishbane:
This paragraph seems exactly right to me. Thank you for putting into words something I was grasping for….
Lucia’s right. Duckworth winning in Henry Hyde’s old district would have been almost unimaginable even a couple of months ago. Selecting a disabled war veteran to move into his district (I believe I’m right on that,but I’ll stand correction) was very clever of the Illinois Democrats, but then the Illinois Reflublicans stand the old joke on it’s head (“I’m not a member of an organized political party, I’m a Democrat!”).
She’s a political novice, too – she’s never even been on a Park District or School Board, so she has absolutely no record to defend. And Roskam has been running, from what ads I’ve seen, a very attack-oriented campaign, which doesn’t play well against a female who lost her legs in military service. I don’t agree with Ms. Duckworth’s politics, but she (or, more likely, the Democratic party) has run a much better campaign.
RonF:
Duckworth does come from slightly outside the district. She lives in Hoffman Estates in a house that has been remodeled to accomodate her needs. Part of Hoffman Estates is in the sixth district, part is not. She lives just a tiny bit outside the district. Roskam emphasizes the fact she lives outside the district in his campaign. I suspect that strategy cuts both ways. Yes, people learn she lives just a tiny bit outside the district. Voters are also reminded that she lives in that particular house because she is a double amputee Iraq war veteran who was shot down!
Also, I saw Duckworth during a channel 11 television interview with Roskam. Duckworth is very well spoken, which is hardly suprising when you learn she a commissioned officer and combat helicopter pilot. She was in the military reserves working toward her Ph. D. at NIU when she was deployed to Iraq.
She is one sharp cookie. It’s still amazing she can get any traction in that district, but she sure is!
I haven’t been watching the ads or reading the campaign spam, and I’m keeping it that way. That, and periodic visits to blogs like Madman in the Marketplace or Opera Glasses and Popcorn, are the only things keeping me sane right now. >: I have little interest in figuring out how to be more civilized in debate with people I can’t ever hope to agree with on anything substantive. I’m more interested in getting better at walking away from debates that can’t ever go anywhere good. I hate to say it, but if a debate is ruinous to your emotions and a timesucker from more promising prospects, you have every right to “shut it down” in your own space or walk away from spaces where you feel like the target in a turkey shoot. In fact, I think Amp made a similar point defending Violet Socks’ behavior in her own space just a couple of weeks ago.
Wouldn’t a “pure” libertarian be in favor of equal opportunity regardless of gender or class of origin? Of course, many libertarians might disagree profoundly with other liberals about the best way to bring this about, but I don’t think you have to apologize in any way for wanting equal opportunities for all. It’s not in conflict with your philosophy, as far as I can tell.
That’s what I believe. But, well, if you can get two libertarians to agree on something, one of them is just being polite.
In general, Lucia is correct – most libertarians will reject affirmative action and other corrective measures aimed at social inequity. On a macro view, I agree with that – my primary guiding political instinct is to question why government should be involved at all on any given question, and accept the times when it turns out that it should be as a suboptimal but needed corrective.
In the case of race, class and feminist issues, I tend to lean more U.S.-liberal. That’s probably the result of growing up very poor and then going to an absurdly expensive potted-ivy liberal arts school that I never would have attended without government intervention, in order to have my mind warped by a host of what David Horowitz surely assumes are direct imports from the various circles of hell. (OK, I’ll say it. Wesleyan.) My pals over at Reason will hate me for this, but the personal is most certainly political, which is how I became a libertarian in the first place.
Just to keep the edge on, I do think that any such measures should be considered as corrective remedy – that is, they should sunset when no longer needed. The hard part is determining when, and by what measure, that situation occurs. Which leads to my other favorite political debate topic, which is policy dynamics. But that starts getting very far-afield, so I’ll shut up now.
Amp: thanks for the kind words. This dynamic has been bugging me for a while, and I don’t know how to go about trying to fix it. I’ve tried engaging people who do it, but (and sorry for the metaphor – I’m involved in software development that frequently involves security analysis, and that warps a person) the problem is that it is a protocol attack – rather than looking for winning through normal or even underhanded means within the rules of engagement, it attacks the channel of communication itself. That’s why it is so insidious. Identifying it for what it is seems to be a first step, though.
Sorry to self-reply, but here’s an example of a libertarian examining policy about care and help for the those who need it most: The San Francisco Chronicle Goes Pulitzer-Fishing. We may be snarky bastards most of the time, but some of us do think about these things a lot. One can argue about proposed policy (and I do, a lot), but unlike a lot of sketches of libertarians, there isn’t a lack of concern there.
She was in the military reserves working toward her Ph. D. at NIU when she was deployed to Iraq.
See! If you don’t study hard in college you’ll get sent to Iraq!
Sorry. Couldn’t resist. If the damn fool hadn’t married money he’d have never come within sniffing distance of the Senate. Anyway: PhD in what?
All the ads I’ve seen have been of still pictures of Duckworth with someone else describing her positions (from both parties). I haven’t actually seen or heard her speak to her own positions herself. But, then, I’m not in the district and thus haven’t sought out stuff like the Channel 11 interview; I only see what’s spilled over into broadcast network TV.
Lucia, as far as the Stroger election goes, he’ll win because he’s a black Democrat and there’s no way that the residents of the City of Chicago (for you non-Illinoisians, that’s at least half of the Cook County electorate) will not vote for him for at least one of those two reasons. It’ll be a lot closer than normal due to the inheritance factor, but he’ll win.
I got a letter in the mail signed by Sens. Durbin and Obama. Durbin I can understand; he’s a fellow undistinguished political hack. But for Obama to hold his nose and put his considerable reputation behind a machine candidate who is running what I consider a disreputable campaign surprises me. Obama will find out that when you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Again, for you non-Illinoisians, news reports have come out lately about Obama’s links to a well-known indicted Illinois political fixer. The knives are starting to come out, and the first thing they are going after is Obama’s “Mr. Clean” image.
Ah, that should have been “I got a letter in the mail from Sens. Durbin and Obama supporting Todd Stroger for Cook County President.”
PhD in what? Political Science.
Yes. Stroger will win; I agree.
As to political cleanliness: Is it possible for an Illinois politician to be clean? I suspect Peter Fitzgerald (R) was clean. But we know where that lead! ;-)
Yes, it led to 60+ politicians and fixers in jail, with more on the way as he peels the Democratic onion.
RonF: Absolutely! Of course, since many of those 60+ were Republicans, Peter Fitzgerald also became persona non-grata with his own party.
Here’s more to cheer Barry up. Now, it’s not just Noonan and Cole saying negative things about Bush and/or his administration, the list has expanded to include Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, and David Frum. See Vanity Fair.
What U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald did certainly didn’t help Sen. Fitzgerald within the Republican party, but it’s important to remember that they hated him in the first place just by his defeat of their hand-picked candidate in the 1996 primary.
RonF: Agreed. I should have said “remained” persona non-grata!