Honest question (apropos of Betty’s recent post): why do so many liberals love concern trolls and Slate-style contrarians so much? Read a typical conservative publication — Wall Street Journal editorial page, National Review, Weekly Standard — and the only contrarianism is along the lines of “sure you think this liberal policy is bad, but once you get past the conventional wisdom, you’ll see that IT’S EVEN WORSE”.
Whereas look at the New York Times, Washington Monthly, Mother Jones (at least Kevin Drum’s blog), NPR, not to mention TNR and Slate. Filled with pieces about how, yes X liberal policy may look right, but once you look closely you’ll see that Bush was right. Why?
I realize that not everyone is Manichean and possibly anti-intellectual as I am but the correct response to all of this is “I’ve got your concern right here pal”. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of places where there is room for healthy debate, but why does anyone want to read some half-wit’s torturously argued Harvard dining hall bullshit?
I guess I’ll give one theory as to “why”. Educated liberals like to think of themselves as special snowflakes, not cookie-cutter liberals, but liberals who also believe in creationism or love guns or support the liberation of the Iraqi people or whatever. You can’t pin them down or put them in a box!
Alexandra
Four words I read far too often:
“Social liberal, economic conservative”
Ted & Hellen
Or maybe some of them don’t mind having their assumptions questioned?
Just a thought.
Jebediah
I think the dumb fucks have internalized the demonization of the word “liberal,” so they have to be not-completely-“liberal”-liberals. On top of the special-snowflakeness.
piratedan
uneducated librul here, fuck those people, half the time the bastards don’t even show up to vote… splitters!
Superking
Liberals also like to think of themselves as intellectuals who consider all sides of an issue. Not all liberals, but definitely the liberals who read Slate, NYTimes, etc. But we also have to connect it to modernism in general with its built in iconoclasm. Everyone wants to smash your preconceptions and continually rebel against the establishment. In order to do that, you have to smash even your own idols. It’s not always wrong–the unexamined life and all that–but it can be counterproductive in politics.
ruemara
I wouldn’t say special snowflakes, but I would say UNIQUE with extra glittersauce and a nirvana sound track. they don’t just want to be liberal, they want to be rock stars. It gets tiresome.
Jebediah
@Alexandra:
I hate that shit, too… a “social liberal” would give a shit that conservative economic policies hurt people. “Oh, I am very liberal – as long as my taxes don’t go up at all.”
Shakezula
Shitbirds of a feather flock together.
Nat
Great question, and I think you nailed it. But as I said last week, the purity ring firebaggers should jump off the same cliff as the teabagger horde. They are both reactive, small-minded and intractable.
schrodinger's cat
Its not a matter of life and death for them it is an arm chair sport they indulge in and it is sporting to let the other side have its say. This is how most Punditubbies operate as well. It is all a game to them.
Comrade Dread
Two things, most of the contrarians are employed by corporate media and some of them make a good living, therefore it is within their interest to embrace conservative economic policies.
Second, never underestimate the allure of being the only smart man in the room. “Sure those other liberals might think this is the best policy, but I’m smart enough to know better. I pity them.”
Scott P.
“Social liberal, economic conservative” is short for “I feel sorry for the problems of poor people, but I’m not willing to have the government actually do anything about it.”
mike with a mic
It’s because ever since Democrats moved from the racist and populist mob to the socially liberal mob we turned economically neoliberal. Part of being an educated Democrat is having a good job and being able to spend the money without the rednecks having any input on your life.
In other words “why can’t the gays get married and social security be privatized”. Until you realize that’s what the party stands for, you won’t understand why liberals now do what they do.
StringOnAStick
@Nat:
That, and they do the futile-left-thing so well it guarandamntees that we can’t have nice things.
boatboy_srq
I wonder how much of this is generated by the GOTea’s Race to the Right, and the number of former-moderates who got left behind in that lemmings’ dash for the cliff. There are a lot of folks who would have been moderate-to-conservative not too many years ago who now qualify as “liberal” (at least according to the Teahad).
gogol's wife
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yes. That is definitely the problem with the New York Times. “How will Obama’s climate-change speech affect the elections?” Not WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE UNLESS WE DO SOMETHING!
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Conservatives believe they are correct, and if they aren’t correct, then they just need to be more conservative.
Liberals don’t automatically believe they are correct, and some believe it’s their job to knock something out of it’s settled state in order to see if a better state (solution) is found.
One of these two is evidence based, which means additional evidence may provide more insight.
Aaron Baker
I think this is unfair to Kevin Drum. He doesn’t really belong in the same company as Will Saletan or Michael Kinsley.
JGabriel
DougJ @ Top:
Honest answer: I think it’s because a lot of liberals like to think of themselves as open-minded and that other people are basically good — many of them see even Republicans, Libertarians, and Contrarians as good people who need to be listened to before a liberal can enlighten their path away from such misguided beliefs.
It doesn’t fit liberal expectations that conservatives are not just misguided, but actively and knowingly pursuing evil ends for their own self-interest — and sometimes just for the pure sadistic joy of hurting people who are already hurting (c.f. House GOP policy on food stamps).
Frankly, it really is hard to wrap your mind around the fact that there are that many evil bastard assholes in the world. It takes a lot of experience reading what various conservatives say, then reading the rebuttals and refutations, before you can come to the conclusion that there’s a better than 70% chance that anything a Republican says is a self-serving lie.
Edited to Add: I mean, personally, I’ve known since I was a teenager that conservatives, libertarians, and Republicans in general were self-interested and amoral. But it took me decades to figure out that they were actively evil by choice.
joel hanes
@Jebediah:
internalized the demonization of the word “liberal,”
A thousand times this.
Ever since Reagan was Governor of CA, hippie-punching has always been in fashion, in all venues. Most kinda-liberals feel a keen need to differentiate themselves from the stereotyped (and mostly imaginary) soft-headed excesses of the mythical Birkenstock/granola/tofu/save-the-whales/identity-politics/pro-welfare/pacifist left.
And the people who apparently most keenly feel this need are elected Democrats in Washington DC.
Downpuppy
Is somebody conflating the owner’s interest with the reader’s interest? Sure, we may be more interested in getting a more complete factual base than a Dittohead, but contrarian opinion pieces are as beloved as open sores, bad breath and Uggs in July.
schrodinger's cat
A friend of mine once said, that he actually feels less informed after he watches cable news. The purpose of these vanity magazines and cable is the same, to entertain, not to inform.
Tom Q
I think your “special snowflake” theory is part of it, but there’s a little more.
To start: I know quite a few liberals (including of course myself), and they universally have contempt for the sort of pundit/reporter of which you speak. So I think to say that liberals like these sort of intellectual poses isn’t correct. The audience for them is primarily other pundits/reporters also posing as liberals.
Which leads to the root of the problem: these are all people employed in a tight circle where, ever since the election of Ronald Reagan, it’s been accepted wisdom that traditional liberalism is hopelessly passe, and anyone leaning that direction has to offset it with a bunch of conservative positions and a whole lot of “but I see the other side’s point” disclaimers. This is especially true of those in the Joe Klein generation, but it’s been passed down effectively to the younger generation via peer pressure.
In a way, these pundits are the commentariat equivalent of the DLC: they found a way to survive as nominal Democrats at a time when the conservative wave was sweeping the nation. Now, though, that the tide has turned back (according to all polling) in a more liberal direction, their insistence on clinging to what got them where they are leaves them out of step with the public but blissfully unaware of that fact (and thus disinclined to change). And they stand in the way of progressive change — to a far lesser degree, but just as adamantly as the Republicans
Villago Delenda Est
These people are not liberals.
They are fucktards.
Roger Moore
My suspicion is that this is because the people who like reading that contrarian crap aren’t very liberal. They want to think of themselves as liberal, open minded, supporting the little guy, etc. but don’t like policies that would actually accomplish those things. Contrarian bullshit lets them have it both ways; they get to believe they’re supporting liberal ends while not adopting the policies they dislike.
zombie rotten mcdonald
Many zombies have been put into boxes. Boxes, crates, caskets, whatever.
Cassidy
Don’t read into it too much. It’s nothing more than political hipsterism. You got a bunch of wannabe arthouse philosophers like Sandusky & Ramirez who believe it’s their contrarianism that makes them unique and are generally incapable of articulating any single position. All they know how to do is say something different. They’re narcissists.
Violet
Conservatives fall in line. They do not want to question things. They want to be told what to think and then they come up with a million ways to justify how what they think is the right, bestest and indeed the only way to think.
Liberals like to be seen as fair. Thus they must consider all sides and even incorporate some of the other side’s views into their own beliefs, lest they be seen as less than fair.
Napoleon
@Aaron Baker:
Agreed
EconWatcher
@boatboy_srq:
Bingo.
For a while, liberals were turning into a tiny, beleaguered, yet more ideologically pure minority. Remember the ’88 election, when liberal was a dirty word?
But ever since the GOP went completely bats#%t, there are a lot more folks on our side of the fence, and so naturally there is a lot more diversity of opinion. In fact, I would say that the full range of reasonable political discussion is now happening within the Democratic Party, between its various factions.
The benefit is that we control the presidency. The cost is that we don’t have much unity, and many on our side are always looking over their shoulder, wondering if they’ve gone too far. The big tent does not come for free.
gbear
I’d say that NPR has become more contrarian because they got the shit beaten out of them every time they tried to tell the truth rather than telling ‘both sides’. Nobody there was willing to go to the mat for anything, so they just bowed to the pressure and never take a stand.
The other thing that happened to NPR was that their news shows origiinally came out of New York. Their reporting started to get very smug after they moved base to DC. If they were smart, they’d get their corporate asses back up the coast.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jebediah:
This, also, too.
You can’t be “socially liberal” and ignore the impact of economic policy on society because you don’t like to pay taxes.
Particularly if they benefit “those people”.
kindness
NPR is FoxLite. The commentators at their web site have got to be paid trolls via some listserve somewhere. They are that dumb.
Kevin Drum? He goes both ways and I don’t mean that in the good way. Some times he’s right on the money, sometimes he might as well have miniature Karl Rove speaking into his ear. The comentators there tend to be good on the whole though. A couple of hack trolls but they are just vapid Rovians.
gbear
@Villago Delenda Est: LOL. Yes.
taylormattd
@Ted & Hellen: no, that’s not it. It does not explain why the uber-hip, contrarian point of view they find is *always* republican point of view.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Yup. take a look at this definition of the word “liberal”. 1.b. fits here:
Not that every idea is valid, but a liberal thinks about an idea before accepting or invalidating it.
Litlebritdifrnt
Your good news for the day (at least for those of us in NC) it would appear that the Republican Legislature has got on the last nerve of about everyone in NC and are circling the bowl when it comes to popularity
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/07/abortion-bill-hurting-nc-republicans.html
My favorite bit
Tee Hee
Josie
Some people are liberals because they are intellectual liberals. Others are liberals because they actually give a shit about people. There is a definite difference between those two types.
? Martin
Because not everyone is into political gamesmanship. Some people really like policy, particularly on the left. They like tearing apart policies like ACA or immigration and revealing what impact it really will have, even if it looks like the most progressive thing evah. Just because something looks liberal doesn’t mean it will actually benefit the people it intends to benefit, and there shouldn’t be anything wrong with pointing that out.
Mino
@Alexandra: I wanna set them on fire.
Turgidson
@schrodinger’s cat:
This is my view too. Neocons treat the world like a giant Risk game where they think they have the pieces aligned to begin the inevitable snowballing rout that ends Risk games. The fact that thousands…millions…of actual human beings will be killed, displaced, or otherwise subjected to despair, poverty and whatever else, simply does not matter to them. It’s an abstraction, standing in the way of their utopia, which seems so close.
Many liberals pundits and wonk types see public policy as an abstraction as well. They have policy ideas. Some of them might even help alleviate Problem X. But the very real and grim reality of high unemployment, what that means to people and their lives, isn’t real to them. It’s figures on a page that they want to nudge in a certain direction by having their policy blueprints enacted. But these people’s blueprints always prioritize non-human things like the deficit or some other thing, over just doing what will actually provide direct help to actual people.
That’s better than the teabagger morons, Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver and his ilk, etc., who think all that misery is the fault of government attempts to help, or those people’s own failings and mistakes, and want to do things to deliberately make things much, much worse for those people, all while mendaciously arguing that they’re doing it for their own good – which either they don’t believe but don’t care, or they do believe it, which makes them dumber than a sack of hammers with brain injuries.
As Krugman and like-minded people have argued via policy arguments, and commentators like Pierce have distilled to “fk the deficit, people got no jobs, no money”, the right thing to do with high unemployment and low interest rates is for the government to hire a whole shitload of people to build stuff that will be used for decades to come. It’s actually quite simple. So simple that the Slate-types have to figure out how to argue against it to strut their independent-thinker stuff.
And it’s all gag-inducing.
Mike E
@Violet: Agreed. I’d add that “smarter” conservatives know how to concern-troll liberals, hoping that the “well-meaning” libs take the bait and run with it…eventually finding themselves in a debate with an empty suit, or in the middle of a busy street.
schrodinger's cat
@gbear: Washington Week hosted by Gwen Ifill must be the most insipid Punditubbie gab fest ever, all her guests always seem so smug when they are explaining politics to the unwashed masses. I can usually stand that show for less than 5 minutes.
Tom Q
For no reason I can see, my comment seems to be sitting in moderation. On the possibility it’s because I used a new email box, I’m going to repost it using my old address:
I think your “special snowflake” theory is part of it, but there’s a little more.
To start: I know quite a few liberals (including of course myself), and they universally have contempt for the sort of pundit/reporter of which you speak. So I think to say that liberals like these sort of intellectual poses isn’t correct. The audience for them is primarily other pundits/reporters also posing as liberals.
Which leads to the root of the problem: these are all people employed in a tight circle where, ever since the election of Ronald Reagan, it’s been accepted wisdom that traditional liberalism is hopelessly passe, and anyone leaning that direction has to offset it with a bunch of conservative positions and a whole lot of “but I see the other side’s point” disclaimers. This is especially true of those in the Joe Klein generation, but it’s been passed down effectively to the younger generation via peer pressure.
In a way, these pundits are the commentariat equivalent of the DLC: they found a way to survive as nominal Democrats at a time when the conservative wave was sweeping the nation. Now, though, that the tide has turned back (according to all polling) in a more liberal direction, their insistence on clinging to what got them where they are leaves them out of step with the public but blissfully unaware of that fact (and thus disinclined to change). And they stand in the way of progressive change — to a far lesser degree, but just as adamantly as the Republicans
schrodinger's cat
@Mike E: You mean like Conor Fdorf
Violet
@Jebediah:
I think this is a huge issue. The word “liberal” is still a dirty word. Even its non-political meaning has connotations of being loose and overly free. “Conservative” has connotations of being moderate and sober.
It’s a challenge to get past that and our wingnuts have capitalized on it for the last 30 or so years. Meanwhile liberals have run around screaming “I’m not liberal!”. Way to stand up for yourselves and your beliefs. If you don’t own it, why would anyone else?
schrodinger's cat
DougJ@top
What do you think of the holier than thou liberal and leftists like our friend DeBoer? Whose purity tests no actual politician can actually pass. The ones that voted for Nader because Al Gore was the same as Bush?
Mike E
@schrodinger’s cat: What did the 5 fingers say to the face? /Rick James
Conor has that face that invites a…what’s that great German word?
Desargues
@Ted & Hellen:
Um, there’s rational questioning of assumptions — i.e., critical questioning: you point out there is not enough evidence for some of them; or that their argumentative force is weaker than it appears; or that the move from premises to conclusion is slippery. And then there is what most right-wingers do, which is throwing incoherent bullshit disingenuously at their opponent, hoping that some of it may stick. That’s not questioning assumptions, it’s being a halfwit (as Doug rightly puts it) or a cheap lackey bought and paid for by the purse holders of the Right.
Try again.
schrodinger's cat
@Turgidson: Republicans don’t see it as a game. They see it as a matter of life and death, and want their side to win at all costs. Using clever debate points is not going to bring them to our side. Look at the contempt with which Congressional Republicans have treated Obama. I don’t recall similar behavior towards Bush from elected Democrats.
gene108
The problem is liberals do not have a coherent economic message. It’s easy to be contrarian, when you have competing interests such as the Wall Street types, who backed Obama in 2008 and the labor unions. The modern liberal coalition doesn’t have a core economic make-up. It is all over the place from labor unions, to affluent white collar workers.
Modern liberals, though, are generally unified on social issues, like abortion and gay marriage.
Jay in Oregon
@schrodinger’s cat:
I really felt that after the Boston Marathon bombing. There was a point where I realized that I didn’t have a clue what happened, because the initial reports were contradictory and confusing, and then combine that with the dumb stunt CNN pulled with saying there was a suspect in custody.
Forget firings; any person at CNN with a hint of journalistic integrity should have quit their job for botching it so badly.
Desargues
@Violet:
Being fair and being seen as fair don’t coincide.
Doug’s point really is, why do so many liberals buy into this right wing bullshit just for the sake of being perceived as fair?
Isn’t it morally and intellectually better to just be fair simpliciter?
kwAwk
I’d like to think it is because we hold the beliefs that we hold becasue we have examined the facts and decided on what is the best position to hold, and we’re not afraid to re-examine the facts if we feel the situation dictates.
The thought leaders on the right (if you can call them that), have a tendency to stake out a piece of ground and go to the ends of the earth not to appear to have changed their mind. They can’t ever admit they were wrong.
No matter where you lay the blame, the Trayvon Martin case, should illustrate to everybody the horrible logic behind Florida’s stand your ground laws. If Zimmerman hadn’t felt empowered to disobey the requests of the police and not ventured into Martin’s personal space none of this would have happened.
The people on the right can’t admit to this, while the people on the left while being firmly in Trayvonn’s corner can envision how he might have acted in a manner that would have left him alive.
schrodinger's cat
I think it is not even a matter of ideology, the Republican Party has become the party of the fearful, they are afraid of everything and everyone, minorities, women, immigrants, scientists, anyone who does not subscribe to their narrow world view. The constant refrain is end of civilization, Its resembles a cult more than a political party. You cannot have a reasoned intellectual debate with someone ruled by the primal emotion of fear.
Mike E
@kwAwk: It’s a Zero Sum Game for movement conservatives, and tweaking the law book, or tax code, or legislature rules, these actions take leeway or “benefit of the doubt” or “margin of error” out of day to day events. Like it or not, we are living in their world view now.
Debbie(aussie)
That creationist link was weird. ‘ I am a creationist because the story is better and science is hard’ woah!
Ted & Hellen
@Desargues:
So why don’t you just not read them?
I don’t read any of the people DougJ is so desperately concerned not to be concern trolled by but reads anyway.
raven
@schrodinger’s cat: They did the same shit with Carter and Clinton just without the racial angle.
raven
@Debbie(aussie): Hey, I was talking to a friend who was telling me how hard it was for her sister to get in and stay there before she married her Aussie fiance. What is the official stance toward a gay couple who were married legally in New York?
Mike E
@raven: I’m game for a raiding party to RMN’s grave…I’ll bring the shovel, holy water and wooden stake.
raven
@Mike E: The swines
cleek
@Violet:
odd, coming as a comment on a piece basically telling liberals to fall in line and quit over-analyzing.
schrodinger's cat
@raven: Too young for politics during Carter admin, but I think they are treating Obama far worse than they treated Clinton and they treated Clinton pretty badly.
raven
@schrodinger’s cat: Can’t argue but it’s still nothing new.
Mike E
@schrodinger’s cat: You see degrees, but I see an evolution, or, a steady descent into madness.
liberal
It’s pretty simple, actually:
(1) Being a faux liberal comforts the powerful
(2) Being a faux liberal is “interesting” and might be perceived as selling more copy (even if that’s not actually true)
liberal
@schrodinger’s cat:
Best description of this came from Krugman, in the intro or preface to one of his more recent books (maybe from 2003?). He quotes something from Henry Kissinger (of all people) on how the Nazi Party was a “revolutionary power,” meaning a political force that refused to abide by the rules of the game. He then claimed (correctly, IMHO) that the Rethugs are a revolutionary power.
Of course, that’s bad, but the sickening thing is the lame response of the Dems. Nothing worse than when you’re getting kicked in the nuts and just sit there doing nothing.
liberal
@raven:
That’s what I think.
Carter is different, IMHO. Everyone really was discontent. Liberals like my parents were pissed at him. They’re pissed at Obama, too, but a thoughtful analysis shows that the issues with Carter were much bigger.
Debbie(aussie)
@raven:
I am not sure on recognition issue.
My D-I-L is from the US. It took about three years for her to get a residents visa. Even after marriage. Not sure if that was just red tape or not. (she arrived here in July 2006, applied for residency in September, married November, finally able to make first trip back to US December 2010)
Matt McIrvin
I think the reason liberals do this is that they want to be open-minded, thinking people rather than mindless cheerleaders, but they’re still subconsciously respecting the Overton Window or whatever you want to call it, the spectrum of permissible debate. So the main alternative view they consider is the Other Side’s, that is, the right-wing view.
I have fallen prey to this myself in the past, I think because I got my political notions from newspapers and such that were all situated in that world.
I have a rule these days: if I regard my own leftish political opinions as generally correct (and I must, because if I didn’t, they wouldn’t be mine,) then I should be willing to consider that I’ve erred in some direction other than being too liberal. To the extent that a left-right spectrum even makes sense (and I think it actually does), if I’m going to occasionally give conservatives a hearing, I should be equally willing to consider that my liberalism is in some instances too conservative, and that leftist radicals currently entirely outside the mainstream of discourse are saying something important.
(These thoughts were mostly inspired by a complaint from Daniel “dsquared” Davies, in which he argued that if American liberals were truly open-minded rationalists they’d be doing this, and if they’re not it suggests that decades after the end of the Cold War they’re still afraid of being called dirty Commies.)
gnomedad
Because we see the horror of the hermetically-sealed echo chamber bullshit machine on the right and sometimes try too hard to be “open-minded” ourselves.
Chris
It’s what happens when you’re the big tent party. Republicans have an authoritarian, all-or-nothing model, in which you’re expected to embrace the entire spectrum of GOP ideology regardless of anything, or you’re a RINO, a liberal, or God knows what else. Democrats are not only more tolerant of different views, but also tend to be more willing to question authority, including their leaders, their party, their sources of information, etc. (In fact, I think we tend to get suspicious of anyone or anything that looks too good to us, in a “what’s the catch? What’s the dark side here? Nothing’s THAT good” kind of way.
I’ve commented on this multiple times before, but the contrast between this blog, which turns into an Obot vs Firebagger war every few days and vocal dissenters on just about every topic, and the goose-stepping “bravo! More! More!” reactions I read at PJMedia, where the only dissenters are the occasional liberal trolls, is glaring and a pretty good illustration of the different ethic the sides of the aisle.
liberal
@gene108:
That’s definitely a big problem.
The Right, OTOH, varies a little bit on social issues (though you’ll see lots of so-called libertarians who are anti-choice), but they all seem to think the appropriate tax rate on the filthy rich is zero.
Turgidson
@schrodinger’s cat:
Oh yeah, that’s true, but sort of in a different sphere from what I was blathering about. Yes, the real teahadists and their media apparatus do view liberalism (which is anything even a wisp to the left of them, usually) as an evil so gruesome that the only solution is to kill it, and that the survival of civilization depends on them winning. Liberals didn’t start to really feel that way about the right wing until the Bush administration turned everything it touched to weaponized shit, and even now aren’t half as singleminded and ruthless about defeating the right wing as vice versa.
Bob In Portland
@Comrade Dread: WaPo, for ex, is not a liberal entity. People who identify with the Saletans of the world exist, and I don’t have to put on my wide belt and workshirt to critique them. They are not as liberal as they are labeled. And, of course, the Saletans are there to narrow the spectrum of debate in the public forum.
NobodySpecial
Too many Reagan Democrats hopped back in the tent, that’s why contrarianism is promoted. They never liked lefties to begin with, so their need to marginalize them is great.
As the GOP turns batshit crazier and more and more of these self proclaimed but hardly actual lefties and the Rockefeller Republicans who floated away head to the ‘sane’ Dem banner, you see a greater appetite for Conservadems.
Chris
@JGabriel:
This too. It took years and years of exposure to conservatives before I really “got” it.
There’s an appeal to the belief that Republicans are basically good, hard-working, well-meaning, salt-of-the-earth [insert favorite cliche here] people who’ve been monstrously deceived by a bunch of Bond villains, and if only we could show them the deception they’d be horrified and come around to our side.
catclub
@Chris: “in which you’re expected to embrace the entire spectrum of GOP ideology regardless of anything”
Well, it seems to me that many parts of the plutocrat friendly GOP consensus are assumed but not discussed. Which side were the big banks that were bailed out on? Which side are employers who want cheap undocumented labor on? Who benefits from unregulated stock and other trading?
I suspect many of those teabaggers lost as much from their 401(k) or underwater home as others.
also:http://www.thereformedbroker.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/181.jpg
catclub
@liberal: I do not remember if Ted Kennedy primaried Carter or just threatened to, but that was Democrats doing it. Nothing close to THAT has happened with Obama. Having a well defined enemy GOP helps cut down the fragging.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: There may be some people who vote Republican that fit that description but I wouldn’t be so charitable to the activists or the elected politicians.
Chris
@joel hanes:
And even before him.
Interesting story about that – you know who the punchable hippies were before there were hippies? From what I’ve read, the answer seems to be “abolitionists.” Doesn’t seem to be until the sixties that abolitionists finally started to be described as anything but a bunch of dangerous radicals who were all violent terrorists hell bent on destroying the social fabric.
Downpuppy
The second thought I have is that the map is wrong. The real division is between 27%ers & the Rest of the World. All the rest of the stuff everyone is saying about faith vs knowledge applies. But still – everybody hates Kristol, Kinsley, Saletan & Cohen, so there is some common ground.
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
Any Republican who’s actually put any effort at all into his/her politics (as opposed to the apathetic, disengaged, “voting for the party because Mommy and Daddy always did it” or for some equally inane reason) is a douchebag. My humble opinion.
If you’re that second type of voter, I’ll concede that you might not actually be a bad person, just an incredibly lazy one.
boatboy_srq
@EconWatcher: The biggest problem with the “looking over their shoulder” piece of this is not the watchfulness, but that the object of that – the Reichwing – is disappearing out of sight going their own way so quickly that the perception gets skewed and the distance covered Leftward seems far greater than it is. The Left could stand in place, and the Right would still be rapidly dwindling in the distance; calling that “leftward movement” is incorrect even though observationally defensible with heretofore normal assumptions.
Heliopause
Do you have a specific example in mind? Because the most straightforward example I can think of for this dynamic is Balloon Juicers on the subject of privacy-security-civil liberties.
The Tragically Flip
One of my theories is that many people have swallowed some version of the centrist fallacy, that there must be validity to “both sides” so they’re constantly looking for issues where the right is right. There aren’t any, just varying degrees of wrong and horrifically wrong.
Liberalism is essentially the scientific method, applied to government with the broad intention of minimizing suffering for all. Conservativism is about creating an aristocracy and winning zero or even negative sum power games. Burn the realm as long as we get to be king of the ashes.
nineone
THEY AREN’T FUCKIN’ LIBERALS!
There, that wasn’t too hard, was it?
The Tragically Flip
@Heliopause: Yglesias would be the archetype in my mind.
“Oh you like unions? Here let me show you why unions make everyone poorer…”
“Oh you like the minimum wage? Here’s why it’s better to make people scrape for subsistence wages…”
slim's tuna provider
because everyone wants to be harry potter and and not hermione granger. in other words, everyone wants to be the practical hero with a heart of gold, not the do-gooder know it all. and there is some appeal to being a little rebellious — as in, “come on, i already vote for the dems, do i also need to listen to these nerdy do-gooders lecture me? why don’t we show them up once in a while?”. that’s how i felt for a long time, until i realized that it made no sense to help undermine the people i agreed with 99% of the time, even if they were annoying know it alls.
ranchandsyrup
They’re embarrassed of their libtard beliefs. Hippie punching works. Also, they play themselves into the civility trap.
Kay
I don’t know, but I like Kevin Drum and I don’t think he should be lumped in with the rest.
He writes about real things, not thought experiments, and he works hard.
He also writes about public education without the dismissive libertarian anti-labor, pro-privatization tilt the hipper liberals have adopted. He writes about public schools. Since 94% of kids attend traditional public schools, not “aspirational schools of the future” I’m grateful for that.
The Tragically Flip
There’s also the imagined credibility they think they get by being able to point to issues where they broke from the liberal consensus.
I say imagined because no one on the right gives credit for stuff like that. These people write off senators from Utah as fucking RINOs, they’re really not going to accept Matt Yglesias or any of the Slate weasels just because they play contrarian on 3 or 4 issues dear to the right.
Chris
@slim’s tuna provider:
Part of the reason I love MacGyver may be that he qualifies fully as either one of these archetypes.
Ripley
@Kay: Agreed. Plus, he knows how to run a spell check.
Berial
Questioning of premises is good, when done with evidence or when pointing out the LACK of evidence a premise has. Doing it over and over again with zombie ideas that have been slain a dozen times
is lazy bullshitjournalism.Berial
Questioning of premises is good, when done with evidence or when pointing out the LACK of evidence a long held premise has.
Doing it over and over again with zombie ideas that have been slain a dozen times
is lazy bullshitjournalism and it apparently pays well.Anna in PDX
@Comrade Dread: I agree with Comrade Dread. I also think that “liberal” political elites (what I guess are known here as “totebaggers”) have been taught not to “see class” the way that Colbert “doesn’t see race” and also are blinded by the privilege of having a cushy upper middle class lifestyle and thinking this is because they are hardworking and deserve it.
All of these things together = “well I like to be socially liberal because of all my cool gay friends etc. but no one can tell me that poverty exists or that the homeless need my help or anything like that because I don’t want to upset my beautiful mind”
EthylEster
@gbear wrote:
I don’t think this is correct. ATC was originally broadcast from DC and that continued for years. I can find no mention of a NYC operation.
Moreover, wiki says that the NPR West facility that opened in 2002 exists to “create a backup production facility capable of keeping NPR on the air in the event of a catastrophe in Washington”.
And the phone numbers I’ve heard them give on air always have a 202 area code.
So why do you think they ever broadcast from NYC?
EthylEster
@schrodinger’s cat: PBS != NPR
but maybe we’re trashing all public media today.
Meg
They wanto to look “serious” and be the “adults” in the room.
Some of them are never really liberal.
They are libertarians being mistaken as liberals, and see the benefit of stringing people on.
JR in WV
@raven:
I understand that they are golden now.
JR in WV
@Chris:
I disagree – union organizers and actual socialists…
The abolitionists weren’t scary after the KKK took over in the late 1890s.
Mike D.
Kevin Drum? Filled with that? Really?
Desargues
I don’t read them. I was talking of self-professed liberals who do. I have better things to do with my life than waste time reading Brooks or Saletan.
But, I do read Matt Taibbi fisking them. It’s a lot of fun.
Raven on the Hill
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity.”—Yeats