The Other Side
posted at 9:48 am on May 5, 2009 by Doctor Zero
Those of us who strongly oppose President Obama’s policies often find ourselves wondering how anyone could possibly be in favor of them. It’s an important question to resolve, as we work to recover from the political losses of the past few years. In a country where 51% of the popular vote is considered a landslide, and some of the worst congressmen come from districts that only cast a hundred thousand votes in each election, understanding the other side can be as important as understanding ourselves. Conservatives who hope to bring the Republican Party together on a unified message should give some thought to the audience awaiting that message.
The bulk of Democrat voters are not indentured members of the dependency class… at least, not yet. Some of them are liberals simply because they hate conservatives. They are surrounded by an academic and media culture that works hard to cast any objection to fashionable liberalism as so far beyond the pale that its enemies can only be evil, selfish, or primitive. Many liberals have a particular aversion to anything that smacks of religion, which they regard in exactly the same way that college students view the military draft. Some people fall into the liberal camp because of a single issue, because they find the conservative position on that issue to be intolerable: abortion, gay marriage, capital punishment, or similar hot-button topics. Often the liberal is misinformed about the conservative position on such an issue, which is not entirely due to media bias, since Republicans haven’t done a very compelling or consistent job of explaining those positions over the last twenty years.
Republican politicians often forget that conservatism is an argument, while liberalism is a promise. The conservative champions both the moral and practical superiority of liberty and individualism. The liberal promises tangible rewards in exchange for votes. The conservative argument will never be over, because any free-market system will always include a certain population who fare poorly. No matter how small that population is, or how much the overall wealth of society eases the burden of their poverty, they will always be extremely receptive to the seduction of collective politics: You’re not responsible for your lot in life. You were cheated. The wealth of others is unfair. Give us the “freedom” that wasn’t doing you any good anyway, and we will sharpen it into a weapon against those who took advantage of you. Give us your undying support, and you’ll never have to worry about feeling confused, guilty, or inadequate again. Voting for the Democrat ticket will fully discharge your moral and intellectual duty as a citizen - we’ll take it from there. In fact, we’ve got ACORN representatives standing by to fill that ballot out for you. You have a “right” to housing, a job, health care, a college education, easy credit, and a host of other benefits, and the liberal promises to provide all of these things, while making nameless rich people pick up the tab.
Liberal socialism is the ongoing critique of capitalism’s imperfections. To the casual center-left voter, the world seems overwhelming, confusing, and unfair. This was never more obvious than in the financial crisis that erupted last fall, when a large number of citizens became very angry and frightened about a crisis they couldn’t begin to understand. They just knew something terrible was happening, and they demanded action. The Democrats stepped in with a ready-made narrative, which the Republicans suicidally left unchallenged, and offered the exact same solutions they have offered to every problem since the days of FDR: massive government spending and control. Conservatives found this dismaying and horrifying – who in their right minds would solve the problem Barney Frank created by giving Barney Frank more money and power? But Democrat voters were willing to accept this diagnosis and solution, as they always seem ready to accept liberal solutions, despite a century-long track record of absolute failure… because they need to believe that someone out there knows what they’re doing, and has the answers to the overwhelming problems produced by a complex economy, and packaged by a sensationalist media in love with Big Solutions to Big Problems.
Voters who grew up in the past five decades know there are people smart enough to put men on the moon, create fantastic electronic devices, cure terrible diseases, and riddle out the secrets of the cosmos. They wonder why such intelligence can’t be put to use in reducing unemployment, stimulating the stock market, and making sure everyone has a decent house to live in. When the media tells them the latest Democrat superstar has a brilliant plan to solve everything, and it won’t cost “hard-working American families” a nickel, they’re ready to believe the hype. Barack Obama really was the one they thought they’ve been waiting for… and before him it was Bill Clinton, and his wife, the smartest woman in the world.
We might ask the rank-and-file liberal why he’s so willing to believe slippery, corrupt characters like politicians would be better suited to distribute the wealth of the nation, than the people who earned that wealth. The answer is the talismanic power of democratic elections. The American voter has been raised since childhood to believe voting is a sacred process that confers tremendous moral legitimacy on the winners of elections. Dollar bills are ugly instruments of crass materialism and greed in the hands of private citizens, but they acquire a luminous aura of virtue when handled by an elected official. The liberal voter believes his political leaders are entitled to control whatever portion of their constituents’ wealth they require, because the voters gave them this power, voluntarily. They see ballots as an unlimited power of attorney to act on their behalf. Conservatives view their votes as a way to restrain politicians, while liberals view them as decrees of informed consent.
The liberal is comfortable with members of his Party descending from the heavens in private jets, to lecture citizens on the need to drive tiny fuel-efficient cars, and is untroubled by the spectacle of politicians who amassed vast fortunes through political corruption attacking private citizens for their greed… because those politicians were sanctified through the ritual of the popular vote. You might get a friendly liberal to admit that most politicians are crooks… but he’ll hasten to add that businessmen are all crooks too, and at least the politicians gained their power and comforts through the informed consent of the voters, instead of stealing it from them with elaborate business schemes.
The gulf that divides liberal voters from conservative ideas is a crisis of faith. The liberal voter does not believe the system is fair, or that businessmen operating in a free market will provide the necessities of life that every American is entitled to. The upper class liberal doesn’t have faith in the ability of the poor and downtrodden to seize the opportunities provided by capitalism, and build a better life for themselves. The dependent voter relies upon the benevolence of Big Government because he doesn’t have faith in himself - he sees the competition of the free market as a rigged game he is destined to lose, rather than an exhilarating opportunity. The moralistic liberal has no faith in the judgment or compassion of ordinary people, who are products of a society forever mired in racism, sexism, phobias, and greed. The cynical young liberal thinks he knows what the ultimate goals of a wise and just society should be, and doubts that uneducated, Bible-thumping rednecks will ever arrive at those goals of their own free will. The working-class liberal is fearful that collapsing corporations will leave hordes of unemployed people who won’t be able to find another decent job. High schools and colleges are filled with kids who have been taught to have no faith in the ability of free people to take proper care of their environment.
Above all, every type of liberal has been taught to have absolutely no faith in the intelligence, wisdom, or even basic humanity of Republicans. The long conservative battle against communism, in which liberals were either agnostic or actively rooting for the other side, was a psychosis. The defense of America against a vicious attack was cynically exploited to gain political influence over frightened voters, if not actually perpetrated by agents of the evil Republican hierarchy. The war in Afghanistan was a hopeless battle against the invincible Pashtun warrior, which any fool could see was a futile waste of young American lives. The war in Iraq was a brutal occupation designed to steal their oil. Tax cuts are a scheme to steal money from the Treasury, and stuff it into the pockets of rich Republicans. Social conservatives are shock troops for religious fascists. If some of the liberal conventional wisdom during the last eight years has seemed ridiculously over the top to you, remember that liberals have faith in no one except their political and cultural leadership… which they invest with the authority to renounce the blackness of Clarence Thomas, the womanhood of Sarah Palin, or the humanity of George W. Bush.
This is the challenge for conservative leadership, as it prepares for 2010 and 2012, and meanwhile rallies public opposition to the worst excesses of the Obama Administration: to address the lack of faith in enterprise, tradition, and opportunity that makes Democrat voters willing to settle for the slow, numb, bitter dissolution of the mighty nation their forefathers built through daring and industry. Republicans should remember they’re offering leadership to people who wearily voted for a man they were told they needed a damn good reason to vote against, and who promised them Hope and Change, but delivered absolutely none of either. It’s a mistake to think that people will easily accept painful truths about someone they were told to accept as the only worthy object for what little faith they have left.
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