Ideological Constipation

Saw the below picture on my Facebook feed.  Where to begin? Start with the observation that those who are impressed with this nonsense are conflating socialism with authoritarianism. It is a basic truism of our civic culture that a large majority of Americans have a painfully inchoate, almost infantile, understanding of socialism.

It should not be necessary to remind people that poverty and suffering can be found throughout the world. The difference is that the reactionary personality never attributes any of it to capitalism, not in, say, India, El Salvador, or Mexico, or for that matter, America's Deep South, which has characteristics much like less-developed countries, but invariably leaps to that conclusion when the country is identified, perhaps inaccurately, as socialist.  

The muddled thinking is most apparent when you realize the most advanced, healthiest, cleanest, safest, best-educated, and most-contented countries in the world are disproportionately socialist. It might help those in the shit-for-brains crowd to stop, read the previous sentence, and then actually try to get their head around it. No doubt they are ignorant of how effective America's socialist mayors and other municipal leaders were in their heyday; it is part of our history that is well-documented, but largely ignored today. It helped create the American middle class after WWII that was the envy of the world and one that I grew up in only to see greatly eroded with the rise of neoliberalism and the corporate welfare state. Try reading The "S" word: A Short History of an American Tradition...Socialism, by John Nichols. 

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At least one lawyer says Marc Rubio's campaign is one huge violation. According to Miles Mogulescu:

All of the money for Rubio's campaign ads to date has been illegally laundered through a non-profit organization that doesn't have to disclose its donors and is legally required to spend its funds for social welfare, not for the exclusive benefit of an individual such as a presidential candidate like Rubio.

Having helped establish and run non-profits, I think I understand Mogulescu's point. And Trump is the kind of guy who would have have called Rubio out on that, such as in the most recent debate. Not sure he did that, but none of these clowns actually wants undue scrutiny. We shall see.

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Mitt Romney recently went on record praising the Affordable Care Act, the same one he felt compelled to denounce when he ran for President in 2012. Romney wants to take credit for Obamacare, because it is modeled on Romneycare. He has a point, but he is pretty feckless on the issue; he could have run on his relatively moderate record as Massachusetts Governor, shown some leadership, and explain to that snarling and ill-informed Republican base why Mittbamacare was a big improvement and should be supported. Instead he ran from his own ideas only to re-embrace them later when there was no political fallout. That's what happens when you are no longer running for office and you don't give a shit what teabaggers think.

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It can be difficult deciding who merits the most laughably inane comment on any given day. So much competition, you know. But a few days ago, Bristol Palin made a strong case for herself when she said that Richard Dawkins, of all people, supports the 9/11 bombers. Professor Dawkins had said that he believed the hijackers had been sincere in their convictions, and that this demonstrated the power of religion to motivate good people to do evil things. Palin interpreted this as support for jihadists.

What a miserably ignorant woman. It seems to run in the family.

Selective Rage

I saw this on my FaceBook feed a few days ago. I saw it as ill-informed, but not particularly aggressive. But I got to thinking about it and realize how it exemplifies the selectiveness of right-wing contempt and where it is directed. I think what did it for me was a comment from someone who declared: "This is one of those issues that puts a burr under my saddle." A common expression, but in this case quite revealing.

In the first place, it is curious that the poster's creator says Social Security is running out of money, as if that is a factual observation. It isn't, it is a Republican conceit, but I suppose the joke doesn't work unless you have been conditioned to ignore evidence.

I wonder if he, Mr. bur-in-my-saddle, is equally bothered by unending corporate subsidies? Or the bank bailouts, where there was clear evidence of criminality. Or the phenomenal waste at the Defense Department which, wouldn't you know it, gets little press.

Sadly, there are quite a few who get worked up if a single mother on food stamps buys anything other than gruel. but excuse or even cheer on the likes of Cliven Bundy, who is both a thief and a scofflaw. Actually, it is not sad; it is disgusting. That law and order stuff is for the poor and vulnerable. As Scythian philosopher Anacharsis famously observed: "Laws are like cobwebs; strong enough to ensnare the weak, but not the strong."

When pressed, some on the Right will admit Bundy is wrong, or they will insist they don't like to see waste anywhere. But that is usually not their visceral, instinctive reaction. And they usually have to be called out on their inconsistency. It is not something that comes to mind easily. If you don't think your rage is selective, name one US Army General you demanded to be held accountable for the $8.5 trillion dollars the Defense Department cannot account for.

When we do look at welfare so many fail to see the broader picture; welfare payments go disproportionately to working class neighborhoods. The money helps to buy essentials --and little else-- for children and the elderly. It is almost never a matter of cash out of your pocket and into the pocket of a some deadbeat, though you have been encouraged to believe this. The Republican Party has, in recent decades, made an art form out of putting carefully selected burrs under your saddle. Much involves stoking white working class resentment. This has both divided voters that once were Democratic constituencies, and has deflected criticism away from the overclass.

And that, of course, was always the intent. Republican politicians and operatives know their voter base. They realize those on the Right are tribal, fearful, and insular. They also know conservatives are bothered by someone else getting benefits, not just anyone, but those perceived as undeserving, as they define it. Those who express anger, irritation, or contempt for welfare recipients and for the poor in general are revealing their own authoritarian personality.

It is that authoritarian personality, coupled with an often breath-taking level of misinformation, that compels so many on the right, tea baggers and plutocrats alike (I'm looking at you, Donald Trump), to so frequently mischaracterize that which they despise, but refuse to understand. The result is an intellectual whipsaw of contempt for food stamp recipients but not massive Pentagon waste; for social security, but not Wall Street's pension plunder. They rally behind Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's effort to undermine teachers, but shrug when defense contractors routinely gouge the government and then pay themselves obscene salaries.

That's a lot of burrs that somehow go unnoticed.

Come Together?

Ralph Nader has a new book out, called Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State. In it, Nader argues that some elements of the Right and Left are beginning to come together as they slowly realize they have a common enemy, Wall Street in particular, corporatism in general.

Progressives, including Nader, had much of this figured out long ago; whether it be the corrupting influence of wealth and privilege, the contradictions of neoliberal economics, the laughable asininity of supply-side economics, the  illogical and self-serving gospel of free trade and more: It was the Left, the true Left, not the Clintons and their Democratic Leadership Council, nor the New Democrats, nor other Republican Lites, including President Obama, that long ago saw the corporate train wreck heading our way.

Only now, with so much evidence that even Fox cannot spin it all away, we see at least some working and middle class conservatives, including those who identify with the Tea Party, are finally realizing they have been played by the Republican establishment, those at the very top of the conservative wealth and power structure. 

The Left, broadly defined, has long wondered how the reactionary Right, especially working class rank and file Republicans, could so blindly and aggressively support Republican politicians who so clearly violate what teabaggers claim they stand for, or what they consider to be morally sound.

Nader is not alone on this. I myself have argued there is a substantial ideological and policy opening that could allow the two otherwise disparate forces to work together. Issues such as an abusive financial sector, corruption, inequality before the law, the bill of goods called free trade, secret offshore bank accounts -- an issue that hurt Romney with working class Republicans --are issues that animate both the Left and more than a few Tea Party adherents.

Mike Konczal argues that the Tea Party and Wall Street actually get along just fine. He makes some good points, but it is important to note that Konczal's focus is on elected politicians, those whose elections are financed by Wall Street, and not rank and file teabaggers. It is this latter group's interests which diverge most strongly with the plutocracy, even if they often seem doggedly unaware of it.

And ultimately, this is why Nader's belief that liberals and teabaggers will work against a common enemy may be wishful thinking, at least until even more pain is felt. Few conservatives, and especially tea partiers, even now, will listen to arguments made by progressives. Or to put it differently, many teabaggers will be open to an idea or policy until they realize it is a progressive one, or on those occasions when President Obama supports it. As an aside, I might add they also don't realize how often President Obama sides with the center-right, such as through his enforcement of domestic spying programs initiated by Bush, his unwillingness to prosecute Wall Street banks, or the continued care and feeding of a bloated military.

Their common sense is overwhelmed by a condition that Fox News has worked hard to develop. Fox News Channel President Roger Ailes once said he was less interested in giving viewers the news than in how they felt about it. Blame it on cable TV and the Internet, but fewer of us are willing to listen to, and think through, viewpoints we don't like and may not want to hear. Authoritarians, which populate the Tea Party, are especially impervious to uncomfortable facts and are especially rigid, often contradictory, in their views, but we are all susceptible. Add to this a visceral hatred for liberals that runs deep in America, even though conservatives support liberal policies far more than they realize, that ensures that many on the right will reject policies and programs they would otherwise support if psychology played less of a role and evidence-based economics played more. It does not help that progressive views are relatively complex and do not lend themselves to easy bromides, slogans, or bumper stickers.

It would undoubtedly gall many teabaggers, were they suddenly to acquire a more rounded education, that Marx was right; class defines everything. Those at the very top have always used the state for their own ends. The enduring challenge for the rest of us, one we are currently failing, is to keep in check the predatory nature of the neoliberal overclass.   

Change and Reaction

Much has been written about how the Republican Party has moved ever further to the Right. Even Bob Dole just said his party, the same party that nominated him to be their presidential candidate, "needs to be closed for repairs."  It is clear that the party's pols and operatives have become stridently right-wing; to call them mere conservative no longer seems sufficient. Moderates, which once dominated the party, no longer feel welcome. Republican primaries have become a testing ground to see who can appear more strident and uncompromising, a chance to swagger and sneer at people not like themselves. On this see Mike Lofgren's The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted (2012).

On a deeper level, not much has changed. Conservative politics has always had, and appealed to, far-right elements. Circumstances in recent years, and that certainly includes the election of President Obama, have merely aggravated an attitude that has always there, never hidden for long. On the varying but ever-present influence of America's deeply anti-democratic and intolerant right wing, see  Geoffrey Kabaservice, Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party (2012); Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: the Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (2008); and The New Hate: A History of Fear and Loathing on the Populist Right, by Arthur Goldwag (2012).

For generations, indeed from the earliest days of the republic, the American Right generally had its way on the issues that gnaw at the authoritarian personality; and they weren't the national debt, tax rates, or regulations. There is resistance on those issues, to be sure, though primarily from Wall Street and the investor class. What really galls middle America's true reactionaries are the range of social changes that have allowed various people not accustomed to fair treatment --women, blacks, Hispanics, gays and more more-- to a more equitable share not only of the American Dream in some abstract sense, but of the right to visible public space, public office, and public prominence, whether it be as a priest, a CEO, a teacher, or the American President.

The American Right has always promoted an inequitable, unfair, and discriminatory creed, with select white males on top. And that meant if you could not be a corporate big shot, at least you were in charge of something; a small business, your church's policies, or the pecking order at your favorite bar. And failing that, you were master of your home and everyone in it had better know their place.

Reactionism at its core is an ideology of hierarchy, privilege, obeisance towards authority and established order, and, it must be noted, condemnation and violence to those who challenge it. It is, as I have noted earlier, the social economics of the Old South, a plantation mentality that has defined Dixie from colonial times. The Right is currently reacting, as it always has, to changes in society that offend its moral code, e.g., too many people, other people, are getting and becoming something they don't deserve. And they, meaning liberals and Democrats, are doing it with the wrong-headed and corrupting influence of government, mostly at the federal level.  
 
The current response of the Republican Party was predictable. The moral issues that animate the deeply conservative, whether it be the politicians or their voter base, have not changed much. The difference is that they see their world slipping away from them. As they confront the reality of say, a black president or gay marriage, they react once again with fear and loathing. Their forbears of just a few decades ago enjoyed the wholesale discrimination of women and minorities. Gays were brutalized and Jim Crow ruled throughout much of rural and small-town America. Republicans didn't need to scream and threaten. Even when they were in the congressional minority, their world seemed intact.  

That world is ending and Republicans are not handling it well.

Reactionaries Still Win

There has been a recent spate of triumphalism from Democrats that is more than a little disconcerting. It sounds too much like 2009: Republicans are hurting, they have offended far too many women, gays, and immigrants. Demographics are inexorably turning against the mostly white, anti-science, anti-everything, etc.

While I think that is mostly true, it's worth remembering that similar analyses were widespread after Obama won in 2008. And then the 2010 mid-terms got in the way and we got hit with a gaggle of the most ideologically-strident reactionaries to occupy the House in generations.

Liberals have a point, to be sure. Just a few years ago, Republicans seemed to be on the cusp of a permanent majority in Congress. Then came a voter backlash against Republicans in 2006, 2008, and in 2012, which seemed to send a message to Republicans that the politics of hate, fear, and exclusion had run its course.

And yet Republicans seem to be doing pretty well at exercising power, certainly when you consider their low approval ratings in most polls. They may be out of sync with voter preferences on many policies,  but there is more to winning elections than actually appealing to the voters, as common-sensical as that may seem to most Democrats. I have always argued that Republicans do unusually well in elections, winning seats and influence all out of proportion to what data on voter registration and party identification would suggest.

That trend seems as strong as ever. It may surprise some to see how many ostensibly blue states are dominated by Republican governors and state legislatures. As for governors, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico come to mind. People who gloat, or despair, over the Republican Party's poor showing in recent national elections, to Obama primarily, forget how well the party has done in the House of Representatives as well as in state elections.

One can argue that many Republican victories have more to do with money, gerrymandering, and voter apathy than it does with true popularity and fair elections, (except in the US Senate, which is constitutionally guaranteed to give a huge advantage to small, rural states have over large states, no gerrymandering required). But to focus on these realities will always be interpreted by the false equivalency crowd  as sour grapes.

Academicians and Democratic policy wonks may understand what is at stake, and do their best to draw attention to our deeply undemocratic system of government,  But in the end, and for whatever reason, Republicans continue to win numerous elections. The fact that they increasingly resort to various ploys, such as voter suppression or clever gerrymandering, is of little concern to them.  Republicans never give up and incessantly plan for the next election and how they can win. And if it looks as if they are constantly scheming for a legislative or legal advantage, it is because they are. Republican politicians learned long ago that winning elections is something quite different from good governance or effective policy. Authoritarian personalities in particular place little emphasis on fairness. All that crap about voter fairness and the will of the people is for principled losers and civics teachers.

As for unequal representation in the Senate, the pictures below provide a glimpse of the disparity.  The Republican Party is surely in trouble, but various built-in advantages, along with a fickle and confused electorate, make it likely that America's right wing will find a way to retain power.

This group of senators, 62 of them, represents about a fourth of America

 

 So does this group of 6

source: NY Times.

You Don't Need No Stinkin' Education

On December 24th I wrote about tea party policies on education in Texas and how concerned many conservatives are about teaching kids to think critically. I wish I could say that was just an aberration, a temporary victim of the current partisan climate. Unfortunately,  it reveals a fundamental conservative willingness to educate but not empower. Such, of course, is not education but vocational training.  

Sara Robinson captures the contradiction embedded in the wholly false belief that conservatives and progressives alike support education because it is non-partisan:

The education of our children is a core cultural and political choice that reflects the deepest differences between liberals and conservatives.

The Conservative War On Education continues apace, with charters blooming everywhere, high-stakes testing cementing its grip on classrooms, and legislators and pundits wondering what we need those stupid liberal arts colleges for anyway. (Isn't college about job prep? Who needs to know anything about art history, anthropology or ancient Greek?)

Amid the din, there's a worrisome trend: liberals keep affirming right-wing talking points, usually without realizing that they're even right wing. Or saying things like, "The education of our children is a non-partisan issue that should exist outside of any ideological debate."

The hell it is. People who say stuff like this have no idea what they're talking about. The education of our children is a core cultural and political choice that reflects the deepest differences between liberals and conservatives -- because every educational conversation must start with the fundamental philosophical question: What is an education for?

Our answers to that question could not be more diametrically opposed.

Robinson proceeds to explain that difference: conservatives, especially the more authoritarian variety, have been pushing education, from grade school through college, as a training ground where one can acquire skill sets corporations want and are willing to pay for. This might seem reasonable to some; after all, why study in a field that offers poor employment prospects? However, it is a market-oriented interpretation that says the value of a college degree depends on the salary it commands. As such, your value to a corporation should be your prime educational motivation. Don't waste your time on anything that doesn't impress a potential employer.

It should be obvious, though apparently it isn't, that education-as-vocational-training is deeply contrary to one of the proudest achievements of the Western intellectual tradition; an authentic education that empowers individuals to think critically, evaluate complex issues, and to appreciate learning and scholarship not only because it gives meaning to the lives of individuals but because it is what makes us a civilization and not just employees.

Recently North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, you can guess his party affiliation, publicly denounced certain educational choices students are making at state universities. It was as if he was reading from the "The Authoritarian's Guide to Education."

In a national radio interview Tuesday with Bill Bennett , U.S. Education Secretary during the Reagan administration, McCrory said there's a major disconnect between what skills are taught at the state's public universities and what businesses want out of college graduates.

“So I’m going to adjust my education curriculum to what business and commerce needs to get our kids jobs as opposed to moving back in with their parents after they graduate with debt," McCrory said, adding, "What are we teaching these courses for if they're not going to help get a job?"

McCrory said he doesn't believe state tax dollars should be used to help students at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill study for a bachelor's degree in gender studies or to take classes on the Swahili language.

“If you want to take gender studies that's fine. Go to a private school, and take it," McCrory said. "But I don't want to subsidize that if that's not going to get someone a job."

Where to begin? McCrory seems to think that broadening one's mind and learning real-life skills are mutually exclusive. For most students, they merely take a course or two; they don't major in subjects he disdains. It's called exploring new fields, expanding your mind, A.K.A an education. His argument, increasing voiced by conservatives, is that middle-class students--primarily those who attend state universities--should abandon scholarship as academic pretenses and just make themselves attractive to employers. He is telling the middle class to get a certification, not a diploma.

McCrory suggests that anyone wishing to study more academic subjects--he facetiously suggests Swahili, should attend a private college. Apparently only the wealthy should dabble in rarefied subjects; public schools are for training one to be a useful cog in the corporate wheel.

Swahili? Governor, your racism is showing. How many people at North Carolina public universities, which includes the excellent UNC-Chapel Hill, does he think actually study Swahili? Or gender studies, where he shows his sexism. And given the relatively poor showing of Americans with foreign languages and world affairs, you would think public officials would want to encourage our students to learn more about the outside world. 

He also reveals a distrust in the market mechanisms Republicans so often adore. Cannot students decide which courses are of value? Are not they best suited to decide what's best for themselves? The market will speak without meddling politicians interfering with individual choice. Isn't that the sermon conservatives preach?

Governor McCrory may want us to think he is just being practical, but he is promoting a social hierarchy that Southern whites have always favored, what I have called Dixification. If you really want to study for the personal enrichment, he says, do so at a private college, and have lots of money. Public colleges apparently should be relegated to vocational training. He has such a restrictive interpretation of what education is and what it should do that he thinks that offering serious academic choices to middle-class students is elitism.

He has it backwards.

Critical Thinking

Earlier in the year there was a spate of articles on the Texas Republican Party, and its concern over the teaching of "critical thinking," and whether it should be in the Texas public school curriculum. In response, the same people who consider it essential that students learn logical analysis, fact from fiction, evidence from assertion, and a general willingness to challenge received wisdom, are also mostly the same people who drop their jaws in disbelief that certain politicians and educators in Texas would be opposed to what most of us consider to not only be an essential 21st century skill, but one that is already in short supply.

But it really isn't that surprising, not if one accounts for the world view of those who are skeptical if not outright defiant about critical thinking, and what they prefer be taught in its place. 

Conservatives have often argued that much of what comes under the rubric of critical thinking undermines authority, especially parental authority, and gives license to students not to merely question authority, but to subvert it. Empowering the student to think systematically, analyze, and challenge the views of others--and not merely accept--is now seen by the Texas GOP as subversive. This is merely the current version of an age-old pattern: The aristocracy is to be educated, peasants are to work; the masses are to be controlled and remain illiterate; the clergy will interpret and obfuscate doctrine as needed. No Latin for you.

Cognitive scientist George Lakoff has laid out the key distinctions rather well. Many conservatives, but especially authoritarians (and not, by way of comparison, libertarians, even conservative ones), see humans as essentially evil and sinful in nature. They-we-must undergo a strict and disciplined upbringing, where we learn  obedience and submission to authority. The central authority figure is the father, he who dispenses judgement and punishment.

In contrast, more liberal households are more likely to encourage their children to explore, create, and examine the how and why of life. Less rote memorization, more hands up in the classroom, and more critical thinking, just that which irritates the Right. This talk of creativity and exploration is all fine up to a point, they say, but not if it undermines the family, other authority figures, and moral certitude. For such authoritarians, a strict father is preferable to a nurturing mother.

The Texas Republican Party Platform of 2012 is unambiguous: "We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority (emphasis mine)."

Silly me, I thought a central point of education was to challenge a student's "fixed beliefs."

In an insightful, if distressing, article called How the Conservative Worldview Quashes Critical Thinking -- and What That Means For Our Kids' Future, Sara Robinson writes:

In the conservative model, critical thinking is horrifically dangerous, because it teaches kids to reject the assessment of external authorities in favor of their own judgment -- a habit of mind that invites opposition and rebellion. This is why, for much of Western history, critical thinking skills have only been taught to the elite students -- the ones headed for the professions, who will be entrusted with managing society on behalf of the aristocracy. (The aristocrats, of course, are sending their kids to private schools, where they will receive a classical education that teaches them everything they'll need to know to remain in charge.) Our public schools, unfortunately, have replicated a class stratification on this front that's been in place since the Renaissance.

Robinson makes the point that education is inherently a partisan issue, something conservatives seem to realize more than progressives. We had been making great strides in this country primarily because of two interrelated trends: an expanding middle class and an ever-widening public school system that was tasked with educating millions who, in times previous, would have been relegated to cheap, ignorant labor.

We are witnessing trends, policies, and attitudes that are threatening to reverse these gains. As taxes are cut, and state and local budgets come under pressure, a curriculum that educated us, and made society less coarse, has come under attack as humanities, philosophy, music, art, and now critical thinking, are being curtailed. While many school districts attempt to upgrade math and science, a laudable objective, many schools are forced to gut enriching subjects simply because budgets compel them.

But this is not strictly an issue of budget constraints. Again, Sara Robinson:

It's obvious that stripping these mind-expanding fripperies out of the curriculum -- as conservatives are proposing, often with no push-back at all from liberals -- serves the narrow, functional conservative view of education and citizenship very well. But we let them win this point at our peril. It's not exactly accurate -- but nonetheless true -- to say that the reason we call it "liberal education" is that the more of it you have, the more liberal you're likely to be. If we buy into the idea that critical thinking is somehow non-essential, we're not only betraying the entire future of the liberal tradition in America; we're also depriving future generations of the basic skills and knowledge they'll need to defend their democracy from the plutocrats who are always standing in the shadows, determined to wrest it from them.

More tax cuts will be implemented long before any real reduction in the federal debt takes place. So don't expect positive changes in public education any time soon, unless you think charter schools and vouchers are an improvement.

At least the Pentagon gets all the money it needs.

A $50 lesson?

I recently got a whiff of the story below on Facebook. I couldn't help but notice, to the point of nausea, how many others thought it was persuasive, reminiscent as it is of other calls to mindlessness, such as "god said it, I believe it, that settles it."

There is, I would argue, much cognitive processing in common between those who think the $50 lesson represents reality and those inspired by the above tautological hairball. Here, in its entirety, is what passes in Republican circles as political gospel.

The $50 Lesson 

Recently, while I was working in the flower beds in the front yard, my neighbors stopped to chat as they returned home from walking their dog. During our friendly conversation, I asked their little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day. Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, "If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?" She replied... "I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people." Her parents beamed with pride! "Wow...what a worthy goal!" I said. "But you don't have to wait until you're President to do that!" I told her. "What do you mean?" she replied. So I told her, "You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and trim my hedge, and I'll pay you $50. Then you can go over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out and give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house." She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?" I said, "Welcome to the Republican Party." Her parents aren't speaking to me anymore.

What is it with conservatives and their simplistic bromides? The underlying assumption at the end is that the liberal parents are at a loss of words, silenced by Republican wisdom. More likely it is because they realize their neighbors are freakin' idiots. There are entire books devoted to the harms of conservative economic dogma, such as outsourcing, deregulation, free trade, wage suppression, and, as always, another round of tax cuts for the wealthiest. Responding to the $50 lesson, from the standpoint of policy and that stuff they call data, is like picking low-hanging fruit. It is why progressives often consider conservatives to have low self-awareness, as personality inventories often show. Or to use technical jargon; "Are the actually persuaded by this tripe?"

That would be a fact-based approach, one that wonkish progressives are inclined to follow. But arguing the economic evidence, the way, say, Paul Krugman would, misses the point. Much of what pushes a conservative's button is piss poor economics; the mistake is in believing that a quest for good policy that benefits as many as possible is what motivates those on the right as it does for the left.

It doesn't. We are talking about how conservatives tend to interpret the world. They traffic in these asinine tales because they are starkly simple, comforting, and supportive of their identity, the same way they pound devotional material into their heads, or attach great importance to symbolic acts, such as flag-waving. The $50 lesson and other "just so" stories are a staple of the American right wing because they strike a moral note; usually with symbolism as blunt as a Disney movie. They are feel-good formulaic stories that moralize and reinforce biases through use of inane and unambiguous tales. They are usually not very accurate, sometimes insanely misleading, but accuracy--and fairness-- are not the objectives; moral reinforcement is.

The similarity to the religious right's jaw-dropping theological claims is not a coincidence. Televangelists never tire of saying evolution is a fraud, insisting, for example, there are no transitional fossils, even as evolutionists find them time and again. The evidence is ignored, explained away, or even, bizarrely, blamed on Satan.

Literate, scientifically minded, and modern Americans often have a difficult time confronting a reactionary right, one that is disproportionately powerful in government, business, and religion. Many of us fail to realize that for the religious right, just as it is for so many conservative Republicans, it is about perpetuating a belief system and the moral basis of an authoritarian culture; learning and accepting scientific realities is not the primary motivation, in church or in government.

Jesus and Mo are especially good at making my points.

The Romney Standard

On March 23 I posted a story on the abject willingness of many, including Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, to misrepresent the actions and policies of President Obama. One takeaway from this is that a willingness to lie, with the belief that one will not be held accountable, has escalated in recent years. And yes, it has coincided strongly with the Republican party's jaw-dropping turn to the right. Lying, in other words, has become a calculated risk, part and parcel of campaign strategies, embedded in speech, spin, and soundbites.

Lying and the overall bullshit factor are on the increase in part because the media lets it happen. More fundamentally, we see a political party that is desperately trying to discredit a remarkably scandal-free sitting president, and has resorted to demeaning and hateful rhetoric known to work with a voter base that scores low on information but generally high on authoritarian personality scales.

And of course, Republicans know they are facing unfavorable demographic trends. A rational person would think the party would want to embrace a wider swath of voters and give them compelling reasons to vote Republican. Instead, that party's politicians and operatives resort to strident and inflammatory rhetoric. They do not know what else to do because they are scared of the future, and they have embraced an inflexible and unsustainable ideology that has boxed them in. They cannot offer up real solutions without violating party dogma. In such an environment, it is no surprise that the candidates feel they are justified in lying, slandering, and misrepresenting opponents. If you want to win, you can't be squeamish.

Take Mitt Romney, who, despite everything, is still likely to be the Republican nominee. It would be an understatement to say I have a problem with this class warrior, the choice of oligarchs everywhere. It isn't the Mormon thing, per se, even if that makes some Republicans squirm. After all, Romney's acceptance of magic underwear or Joseph Smith's inane story of the golden plates is not any less credible than Santorum's belief in transubstantiation or papal infallibility.

It is mostly because Romney has the interests of the one percent at heart; a Wall Street First kind of guy who thinks gutting social programs and further shifting wealth to the very top is viable policy.    

But on a more personal level I am offended by a man who now feels the lying is an acceptable campaign tactic. Adultery and divorce no longer carry the social stigma they once did, much to Newt's relief, so why should bald-faced lying? 

The video below shows Rachel Maddow discussing Romney's honesty issue. As she says, "there is something different" about Romney and his campaign, well beyond the usual twisting and distorting we find with most candidates, the kind we long accepted as the nature of hard-ball politics. Maddow gives specific, undeniable, calculated lies, and then notes the indifference the Romney camp shows when it is caught.

These examples are not mistakes or gaffs; everyone makes those and everyone deserves to be cut at least a little slack when they make them, especially during an exhausting primary race. Maddow's very reasonable question is to ask whether Romney's chronic, almost pathological willingness to lie, even when he knows fact-checkers can easily call him out, is now a leading indicator of where American politics is headed, a new standard of cynicism and calculated manipulation.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Getting More Bang for the Buck

The chart below, and it's from Moody's Economy.com, a mainstream source, says what progressive economists have been saying all along. As the column on the right shows (It's that technical term called "bang for the buck"), progressive policy prescriptions are more effective than conservative ones. I do not know the methodological specifics, but the higher number indicates greater efficiency.

One example is "increased infrastructure spending," which has a score of 1.57. This was, and is, spending urged by progressives and by the Democratic Party in general. In comparison, conservatives, and certainly every Republican presidential candidate, argue for reduced corporate taxes (.32), that the Bush tax cuts should be permanent (.32), and that we should make dividend and capital gains tax cuts permanent (.37). It is not a coincidence that each of these items, despite demonstrated inefficiency, favor the rich. And wouldn't you know it, even a temporary increase in food stamps proves to be the single most efficient item on the entire list, a policy strongly supported by Democratic pols and strongly opposed by Republicans.


The chart does not say why the policies differ so much, and it certainly does not address why Republican pols ignore the evidence, but two observations are warranted.

The first of these is that from an economic perspective, policies that help the working and middle class are generally superior because it is they who prop up the economy, and that is because they work, pay taxes, and, very importantly, are the primary patrons of most businesses in America. They are the true job creators and they are the reason most businesses even exist. Most businesses will tell you that they don't need a tax break, or less regulation. What they need are more customers.

But this does not explain why Republicans so shamelessly shill for the rich, and why so many middle-class Republican voters are OK with this. The answers are mostly not found in economics, but in psychology. My premise is this: Educated progressives are in favor of evidence-based policies. Of course, some policies have not been effective, but those that are not get revised or abandoned. And don't get any ideas about how progressives keep flogging dead ideas like Keynesian stimulus packages; the chart above shows them to be effective. Progressives (mostly) follow the evidence, and base policies that they consider rational and empirically-grounded.

In contrast, true conservatives are not basing policies on economics (except perhaps the economics of personal enrichment), but on psychology. Issue after issue, conservatives are making moral arguments about what they think is right, not what is economically sound. Their positions are often less rational than they are visceral.  Call it the politics of personality. And do note that even ostensibly educated Republicans, such as the presidential candidates, cater to and sound like their conservative base: Their economic policy prescriptions are almost entirely lower taxes, lower regulations, and now that a Democratic is in the White House, lower spending. These are absurdly inadequate and inappropriate policies that are massively at odds with the evidence and expert opinion.

There is a growing body of literature on what motivates conservatives. I have touched on this previously, especially on the role of authoritarianism.  Here let me add two additional academic studies: one has been out for a few years, called The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation, by Drew Westin. The other just came out: The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism From Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin, by Corey Robin.

Read, learn, and arm your brain.  Your nation depends on you to make rational decisions.

Politics as Personality

There is an interesting new study on the personality of Teabaggers called Cultures of the Tea Party, written by Andrew Perrin of University of North Carolina, Steven Tepper of Vanderbilt University, and others. It's posted at TPM (that's Talking Point Memo, not Tea Party Movement).  It is basically a personality inventory of persons who identify with the so-called Tea Party.

The study identifies four primary cultural dispositions: authoritarianism, ontological insecurity (fear of change), nativism, and libertarianism. None of these strike me as dispositions I would personally want to have; they are sub-clinical conditions that most of us would want to address or suppress.

Libertarianism, you might say, is different. Isn't it all about freedom, rugged individualism, and equality in a free, unregulated market, where we are all unfailingly rational in our pursuit of maximum utility?  Isn't that just the stuff the Founding Fathers wanted?

That's what true believers would say. Many respondents, and especially teabaggers, have some idea what libertarianism means. I don't believe they have actually thought about it that much, but they like the idea of libertarianism, at least the version preached on Fox News and talk radio. As with many other philosophical concepts whittled down to talking points, proponents embrace it without necessarily understanding it. They identify with the concept of libertarianism, but not necessarily with nativism or fear of change, two traits that many of us have not thought much about, and may not feel comfortable acknowledging.

The authors' definition of libertarianism is questionable. In their survey they asked respondents whether they favored more rules restricting personal expression, such as public dress codes, content (censorship) on TV and the Internet. Tea Partiers scored a bit higher than average on this.

Is that really getting at libertarianism? Are questions about personal expression and Internet censorship acceptable proxies for libertarian ideas of free markets and free enterprise? High scorers would as likely be progressives as Ayn Rand acolytes.

Nativism focused on attitudes on immigration and immigrants. Negative or anti-immigrant scores indicated high levels of nativism. Now that's got teabagger written all over it.

Ontological insecurity measured attitudes towards social and cultural change. Previous studies on right-wing attitudes have shown hostility to change and preference for tradition, so no surprise here, either.

This leaves us with authoritarianism, what I believe is the most important of the four cultural dispositions, in part because of its troubling implications. The authors measured authoritarianism by attitudes towards child-rearing. The study replicated previous studies which show that authoritarian parents demand high levels of obedience from children, and are less willing to allow them to decide, and think for, themselves. Authoritarians show a strong "father knows best" attitude.

The authors did not elaborate much on the implications of their findings except to argue that the Tea Party Movement cannot be fully appreciated without understanding the significance of the four cultural dispositions, especially in the way they coalesce. However, one can see why teabaggers are so intolerant of outsiders and why they like to see themselves as the "real America," not those blue state big city elitists who vote for communists  Democrats. It has less do with an understanding of policy and more to do with personality.

Nice study, but by far the single best source on authoritarian personality has been Bob Altemeyer. But there are others that are getting some deserved airtime, including George Lakoff, and Karen Stenner.

Altemeyer has repeatedly found that authoritarian personalities have high levels of ethnocentrism, high levels of submission to "legitimate" authority, and high preference for what one could call tribalism, an us-vs-them world view that is intolerant of those outside of their experience. That includes different skin color, religion, creed, and sexual orientation. I'll say right here that Altemeyer makes clear that authoritarianism really means right-wing authoritarianism, or RWA. While not all conservatives are authoritarians, those with right-wing sentiments will generally show elevated authoritarian traits. And those who score high on authoritarianism are invariably right wing. Left-wing authoritarianism is practically a oxymoron.

RWA's also show a marked preference for absolute or simplistic interpretations of complex events. They often accuse others of ethical or moral relativism.

Altemeyer stresses that authoritarian behavior reflects genuine personality traits, and not policy preferences. This helps explain the constant moralizing of authoritarians, and why many of their policy preferences seem so incoherent and contradictory to the rest of us. As George Lakoff has argued, the authoritarians moral sense is fundamentally different than others and has given rise to fundamentally different political views. 

I am just scratching the surface on this; there is so much more already in the literature and I'm guessing more to come. That's cool, but I know that most people do not read academic literature. The problem is that the implications of the role of RWA are anything but academic. They are pervasive and troubling. 

I'll explain why in future posts.

Only a Republican Could Catch Osama, Right?

Jed Lewison's post at Daily Kos helps explain what is so contemptible about the Teabagger mindset; facts don't matter --not when they interfere with ideology.

When George W. Bush took office in Jan 2001 there were 111,634,000 private sector jobs. When he left office in Jan 2009 there were 110,981,000 private sector jobs.

When Bush took office in Jan 2001 there were 20,835,000 government sector jobs. When he left office in Jan 2009 there were 22,582,000 government sector jobs.

That means during Bush's eight years in office, we lost 653,000 private sector jobs and gained 1,747,000 government sector jobs.

Moral of the story: Barack Obama is a Kenyan socialist fuckstick.

And George W. Bush saved capitalism. Plus, he got bin Laden too.

They just can't stand that the guy they hate keeps messin' with their identity, their worldview, and their authoritarian personalities. Isn't Obama supposed to be a weak, feckless, immoral Democrat who wants to destroy America?

No, assholes. You're wrong again.

In your face, bitches

Dogs And Teabaggers Sense Fear

Here is a video I meant to put up earlier. Bill Maher and Michael Moore capture much of the essence of teabagger mentality, and for that matter, much of what studies on authoritarian personalities have demonstrated long before anyone heard of teabaggers, Palin, or Glenn Beck.

Maher makes the point that many Americans are like dogs. That will get the right wing's assortment of serial resenters frothing, but he makes a cringe-worthy and accurate assertion that so many Americans are like dogs because they don't really understand what is being said; they look for voice inflection, style, symbolism, and attitude.

Ok, so dogs don't get symbolism, but Maher is right to emphasize fear as a motivator for dogs and teabaggers alike. Millions let their gut feelings be their guide, which is why, as Maher notes, so many seem impervious to rational discourse. On numerous issues wonkish progressives hold dear, teabaggers do not simply disagree with progressives, and offer a reasoned counter argument; they do not understand the issue in the first place. 

But listen carefully to Moore. He stresses a point you have heard me say before: Dems lost seats in November because the 18-24 crowd didn't bother to vote, while their parent and grandparents did. Moore says 70% of the 18-24 demographic voted for Obama, which sounds about right. However, while 23 million of them voted in '08, only 9 million did so in 2010. Yet Republicans only garnered 5 million more votes in 2010.

Do the math: it's all about voter turnout.

 ________

Reagan's Legacy II

Republicans continue to get hard-ons every time Ronald Reagan's name is mentioned. It is part of the authoritarian personality to show loyalty and demonstrate obsequiousness to authority figures, which, for Republicans, Reagan certainly is. Logical rigor, self-awareness of internal inconsistencies and a willingness to examine conflicting evidence are characteristics that don't rank very high, as the video below shows.

Have a look; it's Cenk Uygur, doing what so few in the mainstream media have bothered to acknowledge.