Tag Archives: politics

It’s Not Your Fault…

Heather Cox Richardson recently explored the success of Trump’s “sales pitch,” which she attributed to his ability to leverage a belief in the victimization of White folks that Republicans have increasingly embraced since the 1980s. As she put it, the message boiled down to “the reason certain white Americans were being left behind in the modern world was not that Republican policies had transferred more than $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%, but that lazy and undeserving Black and Brown Americans and women were taking handouts from the government rather than working.”

I think this is exactly right.

After all, as a man and a candidate, Trump is repulsive. His “policies” are laughable when they aren’t appalling, raising the question why anyone would support him. Political scholarship has answered that question by linking his ability to generate votes to “racial resentment,” and that link becomes more obvious every time he talks about “shithole” countries, calls Black immigrants “garbage,” or attacks “woke-ism” or DEI. But it isn’t just race–Trump and MAGA have built their appeal on resentment of every American who isn’t a White Christian male: the “uppity” women who’ve forgotten their proper role, the LGBTQ+ folks who had the nerve to open the closet door, Jews and Muslims. Etc.

The base of the appeal, as the Richardson quote suggests, is the festering anger of victimhood. There are thousands of White “Christian” nationalists whose lives haven’t gone the way they wanted or intended. Perhaps it’s that they haven’t accumulated the wealth they once thought they’d enjoy, or generated the admiration or applause or familial love to which they felt entitled. Perhaps they’re among the self-described Incels. 

We have all encountered people nursing these grievances. Sometimes, their complaints are very understandable; other times,  disconnected from their public-facing financial or social positions. Whatever these White “Christian” men feel is missing, whatever the nature of the deeply-felt disappointment, their lives aren’t providing something to which they feel entitled. Not only do they resent the fact that their lives have failed to meet their expectations, they need to believe that–whatever it is–it simply cannot be their own fault. 

They need to see themselves as victims. 

Scholars who have explored the concept of “white victimhood” describe it as a belief that, in today’s America, white people–especially White Christian men– are being systematically disadvantaged, a belief that is then used to justify racial animus and extremist ideologies. It’s sometimes described as “competitive victimhood.” It isn’t related to actual discrimination or oppression; rather, it’s in reaction to a perceived threat: that women and minorities are eroding the historically dominant status accorded to White Christian men in American society. 
 
Weaponizing victimhood may be Trump’s one true talent. As an article from Medium put it,

In the history of American political speech, few phenomena have been as widespread (or as damaging) as Donald Trump’s systematic creation of victimhood stories. From his accusations of “witch hunts” to his depiction of America as a nation “raped” by foreign powers, Trump has turned the language of suffering into a powerful tool for political rallying and authoritarian control. Recent academic research shows that this is not just another example of political exaggeration, but a sophisticated tactic now known as “strategic victimhood”: a deliberate performance intended to justify retaliation, weaken democratic institutions, and strengthen his hold on power.

The bottom line: Trump’s victimhood rhetoric is more than just political theater. It is what researchers refer to as an “anti-democratic, coercive, and illiberal” strategy that both predicts and fosters authoritarian rule, with significant implications for American democracy and social cohesion.

An article in Salon traced the connection between “winning and whining.” 

The article began by questioning how a “once-proud party of masculine self-reliance and personal responsibility” had become “such a bunch of whiny snowflakes?” and reviewed the findings of an academic paper by Miles Armaly and Adam Enders, titled “‘Why Me?’ The Role of Perceived Victimhood in American Politics.”  The authors concluded that feelings of victimhood did explain various (otherwise unfounded) “views of government, society and the world. They found it was especially explanatory with regard to perceived corruption and conspiratorial thinking, and that it was linked to personality traits such as narcissism and a sense of entitlement.

As the article from Medium put it, Trump and MAGA weaponize the grievances by giving these “victims” people to blame– those “others” who are stealing the social status of White “Christian” men.

It explains a lot.

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Teams Versus Tribes

I generally hate sports metaphors, but sometimes they are too apt to ignore, so bear with me…

I recently had a conversation with a friend who–like me–remembered the “old” days of politics, when Republicans and Democrats differed on some issues and agreed on others, and when those conversations and debates were about policy.

When I served in Indianapolis’ City Hall (I know, a zillion years ago), city leaders often met with the state legislators elected from Indianapolis. Some were Republican, some Democrat, and while they reflected the priorities of their opposing caucuses on most issues, they frequently came together to support the priorities of the city. They worked with the Mayor on initiatives that would be good for Indianapolis.

Back in that day, Republicans and Democrats were two teams. The thing about teams is that they are playing the same game and obeying the same rules. That political “game” was governing, and the goal was to score policies that benefited your constituency. (Yes, both teams had players who were all about themselves, or in the pocket of some moneyed interest, or embarrassingly dumb, but those were the exceptions. The majority really did care about legislating policies they believed were sound, even if they disagreed about what those policies were.)

Those days are over.

Over the intervening years, the “Red team”–the Republican team I played on back then–has morphed into a tribal cult. Its more liberal, moderate and thoughtful members have been ejected, leaving virtually everyone unwilling to accept the new tribal identity without a team. Some of us became Democrats, others, disenfranchised Independents.

The problem with that change from teams to tribes should be obvious. While teams are competing to win the same game, tribes aren’t interested in either competition or the game–instead, they are intent upon clearing the playing field of those despised “others.” Rather than engaging in policy debates–the “game”–or concerning themselves with issues of governance, they are focused on defeating those not in their. tribe. They are intent upon establishing dominance.

In other words, today’s tribal folks aren’t interested in governing or in the relative merits of policy A or B–their goal is much simpler: to own the “libruls” and put those uppity Blacks, women and gays back in their proper, submissive place.

Historically, tribal bonds were crucial for survival. Membership in a tribe offered deep psychological and social connections, and contributed to  human well-being and achievement. However, as we are seeing, the persistence of strong group loyalties based upon identity can foster extreme attitudes, undermine democratic principles, and inculcate an “us versus them” worldview that is deeply corrosive. When tribes are based upon racial and religious homogeneity, rather than common values and aspirations, there is no middle ground.

So here we are.

The White “Christian” Nationalist tribe that has “evolved” from the once-respectable GOP is uninterested in anything but regaining social and political dominance. They are unconcerned with the Trump administration’s destruction of our federal government and its flouting of the constitutional rules of the game and unperturbed by Trump’s embarrassing and damaging international antics– because governing in the national interest isn’t the “game” they’re playing. The tribe believes that making America “great” means putting them in charge.

It’s no wonder the Democrats are at odds over how to proceed in this new environment. Most Democratic politicians still think of themselves as members of a team that is concerned first and foremost with matters of public policy, and they’re ill-equipped to face opponents whose “policy” preferences are limited to eradicating opponents and establishing White “Christian” Nationalist dominance.

I have no idea how we extricate the country from this mismatch. If this sports analogy is right, pious exhortations to find “common ground” are unrealistic, to put it mildly. Americans will simply have to choose between the team and the tribe.

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Why It Matters

A recent newsletter from Charlie Sykes really resonated with me. Sykes began by exploring why he focused on political reporting–why he didn’t turn his face from the disastrous dismantling of the American Idea to more pleasant concerns. Why is he reporting on Trump and his merry band of morons and psychopaths, rather than listening to music, or learning a new language, or spending more time with his grandchildren?

As he wrote,

I’m at the age now when every twinge or ache makes me think: is this the thing that’s going to kill me? So why am I devoting so much of my time to writing about the stupid, the inane, and the futile? How many years do I have to squander on Donald F’ing Trump?

I really related to that question. Like Sykes, I’m at a “certain age.” And I am one of the very fortunate–I still really, really like my spouse of 45 years; my children (who have evidently overlooked my deficits as a parent while they were growing up) are attentive and caring; my grandchildren are perfect (okay, maybe I’m a bit over-fond…); our blended family is loving and compatible, and–at least until Trump destroys the robust economy he inherited from the Biden administration–we have enough money in our retirement funds to live comfortably. I should be happy all the time.

Instead–as regular readers undoubtedly recognize–I’m routinely livid. Like Sykes, I sometimes wonder why I allow the country’s fraught political situation to displace the good fortune for which I should be grateful, so I was interested in his conclusion, which rested on an essay by former political pundit Charles Krauthammer.

A man of Renaissance sensibilities, Krauthammer could have written about literally anything, but he chose to write about politics, because he knew that was the one thing we had to get right.

“In the end,” he wrote, “all the beautiful, elegant things in life, the things that I care about, the things that matter, depend on getting the politics right. Because in those societies where they get it wrong, everything else is destroyed, everything else is leveled.” Krauthammer was echoing John Adams who wrote: “I must study politics and war, so that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.”

But Krauthammer had the added benefit of our own grim history.

“You can have the most advanced and efflorescent cultures,” he wrote. “Get your politics wrong, however, and everything stands to be swept away. This is not ancient history. This is Germany 1933.”

Sykes quotes Krauthammer for his observations about the extreme importance of governance and politics, pointing to examples like North Korea, “whose deranged Stalinist politics has created a land of stunning desolation and ugliness, both spiritual and material,” and to China’s Cultural Revolution, which he labeled a “sustained act of national self-immolation” that aimed “to destroy five millennia of Chinese culture.”

“The entire 20th Century with its mass political enthusiasms is a lesson in the supreme power of politics to produce ever-expanding circles of ruin. World War One not only killed more people than any previous war. The psychological shock of Europe’s senseless self inflicted devastation forever changed western sensibilities, practically overthrowing the classical arts, virtues, and modes of thought. The Russian Revolution and its imitators (Chinese, Cuban, Vietnamese, Cambodian) tried to atomize society so thoroughly — to war against the mediating structures that stand between the individual and the state — that the most basic bonds of family, faith, fellowship and conscience came to near dissolution.

“Of course, the greatest demonstration of the finality of politics is the Holocaust, which in less than a decade destroyed a millennium-old civilization, sweeping away not only 6 million souls but the institutions, the culture, the very tongue of the now vanished world of European Jewry.”

I think it was Santayana who said “Those who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it.”

Those of us who did learn history–or at least a great deal of it–can choose to do one of two things. Those of us who have the option can burrow back into our comfortable lives and ignore the current fascist takeover, or we can join together with others who are determined to fight the malignant forces that threaten all of us, but especially those whose lives are more precarious.

When you think about it, unless you are a very self-engrossed person, it isn’t much of a choice.

I’ve been working with Central Indiana Indivisible. I hope those of you in the area will join me. If you can’t attend protests and participate in other resistance activities–and even if you can– you can support them financially here.

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Everything Is Political

One of the enduring frustrations of political life is the frequency with which those of us who regularly vote encounter Americans who dismiss the importance–indeed, the relevance–of politics. “Oh, I’m not political,” these folks tell us, as if an interest in who governs us and how is akin to a fondness for a certain television show, or engagement with a hobby.

Judging from the number of people who are eligible to vote but don’t bother to cast ballots, there are millions of people who  utterly fail to connect their lives and prospects to the policies and competence of the governing regimes under which they live–who fail to understand that, at base, pretty much everything is political.

A recent essay by Rick Perlstein in the American Prospect  made the case for that connection.

Perlstein began by noting that Scientific American had endorsed Kamala Harris. This is only the second time in that publication’s 179-year history that it has made a presidential endorsement, and the decision to do so prompted criticisms. Critics argued that engaging in the campaign was a bad idea–that it just risked giving aid and comfort to conservatives who “want nothing more than to be able to credibly claim the scientific community as just one more in a malign den of elite liberal villainy.”

They say the endorsement degrades what is most valuable in science’s operative ideal: that its results are ideologically neutral, because scientists follow evidence objectively without reference to who benefits, and that once science becomes “politicized,” it will not truly be science anymore.

I understand and respect those arguments. But I disagree. If anything, I think the Scientific American endorsement doesn’t go nearly far enough.

In Perlstein’s view, negative reactions to the endorsement should be part of a much larger discussion about how institutions, organizations (and indeed, all of us)– should think about electoral politics. In this case, he focused that discussion on the question “when is it appropriate to break norms of behavior?” (It has been a norm, for example, that science is non-political, at least in the partisan sense.) His discussion is well worth reading in its entirety, but it triggered a somewhat different stream of thought for me.

Is it really possible for a human who lives in a society–a non-hermit–to be nonpolitical? With that question, I suppose I’m returning to a conviction I have often voiced: language is important. Using language to communicate requires that those participating in the conversation agree on the meanings of the words being used. When people declare that they are not “political,” I’m fairly certain that they mean they don’t engage in partisanship–that they are uninterested in contests between political parties and their spokespeople. (We can quibble with that declaration too, but that’s a subject for a different time.)

What they fail to understand is that politics encompasses far more than the battles between political parties. All activities associated with decision-making in groups, and virtually all other power relationships between and among individuals, are political. Politics governs the distribution of goods and services–or, for that matter, the distribution of status–in a given society.

When you think about the various ways that public decision-making affects us all, hundreds of examples come to mind.

Workers who have no redress for wage theft, battered wives in societies that accord husbands “dominion” over their spouses,  homeowners unprotected by zoning laws that prevent the guy next door from operating a tavern from his living room…The hundreds of laws and customs that allow communities to function and individuals to flourish– are all the result of politics, the result of decisions about the way people relate to each other, decisions about what constitutes fair play and justice, decisions about our obligations to our fellow humans.

Which brings me back to Perlstein’s central observation: saying that we shouldn’t “politicise” science–or any area of human conduct–is meaningless, because every area of our common lives is inescapably shaped by political decision-making. The decision by scientists to rely on evidence–and their definitions of what constitutes reliable evidence– is political. Educators’ choices of what subjects to teach (and how) is political. A journalist’s decision to report Item A and ignore item B is political.

Recognizing the power of government and choosing to be governed by people who respect the Constitution and the Rule of Law is unquestionably political–it affects every other aspect of the social and political reality we inhabit.

Americans who don’t understand that, who won’t bother to vote or educate themselves about the choices before us, are ultimately as dangerous as the MAGA folks who vote their fears and bigotries.

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The Politics Of Lying

When I was teaching, Free Speech discussions would frequently evoke a question from students appalled by the massive amounts of disinformation enabled by the Internet and social media: “Can’t we at least outlaw lying?” I would have to explain that courts would have great difficulty determining the difference between what is a lie and what is a mistake, etc. The practical problems of such an effort would be insurmountable.

More to the point, the First Amendment rests on reliance upon the “marketplace of ideas.” Bad ideas and lies are to be countered by better ideas and facts. It is a theory that depends upon the participation of We the People.

It isn’t working very well right now, and I see no simple solutions. Neither does Bill Adair, who founded Politifact. In a recent essay for the Atlantic, he explored the failure of that fact-checking site to combat the firehose of propaganda and lies that  distort our political lives.

For American politicians, this is a golden age of lying. Social media allows them to spread mendacity with speed and efficiency, while supporters amplify any falsehood that serves their cause. When I launched PolitiFact in 2007, I thought we were going to raise the cost of lying. I didn’t expect to change people’s votes just by calling out candidates, but I was hopeful that our journalism would at least nudge them to be more truthful.

I was wrong. More than 15 years of fact-checking has done little or nothing to stem the flow of lies. I underestimated the strength of the partisan media on both sides, particularly conservative outlets, which relentlessly smeared our work. (A typical insult: “The fact-checkers are basically just a P.R. arm of the Democrats at this point.”) PolitiFact and other media organizations published thousands of checks, but as time went on, Republican representatives and voters alike ignored our journalism more and more, or dismissed it. Democrats sometimes did too, of course, but they were more often mindful of our work and occasionally issued corrections when they were caught in a falsehood.

After exploring some theories about why politicians lie–the calculus that they apparently apply to determine the ratio of risk to reward– Adair notes that today’s extreme political polarization encourages them to do little else.

Now that many politicians speak primarily to their supporters, lying has become both less dangerous and more rewarding. “They gain political favor or, ultimately, they gain election,” said Mike McCurry, who served as White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton. As former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey told me, “It’s human nature to want to get a standing ovation.” Lies also provide easy ammunition for attacking opponents—no opposition research required. They “take points off the board for other candidates,” said Damon Circosta, a Democrat who recently served as the chair of North Carolina’s Board of Elections.

Adair notes that partisan media, especially on the right, fosters lying by degrading our shared sense of what’s real. These outlets expect politicians to repeat favored falsehoods as the price of admission. If you’re not willing to participate in the twisting of facts, you simply won’t get to speak to the echo chamber.

Tim Miller, a former Republican operative who left the party in 2020, pointed out that gerrymandering, particularly in red states, has made it so “most of the voters in your district are getting their information from Fox, conservative talk radio … and so you just have this whole bubble of protection around your lies in a way that wouldn’t have been true before, 15 years ago.”

Adair uses Mike Pence as an example of the way today’s political incentives change people. They had been neighbors when Pence was in Congress, and Adair saw him then as “a typical politician who would occasionally shade the truth.” When he was Indiana governor, Adair watched his lies grow. “By the time he became Donald Trump’s vice president, he was almost unrecognizable to me.”

The question, of course, is “what can we do?” Here are Adair’s closing paragraphs:

If politicians lie because they believe they’ll score more points than they’ll lose, we have to change the calculus. Tech and media companies need to create incentives for truth-telling and deterrents for lying. Platforms of all kinds could charge higher ad rates to candidates who have the worst records among fact-checkers. Television networks could take away candidates’ talking time during debates if they’re caught lying.

But these reforms will demand more than just benign corporate intervention. They’ll need broad, sustained public support. Voters may not be willing to place truthfulness over partisan preference in every case. But more will have to start caring about lies, even when their candidate is the culprit.

Amen.

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