Thanks to everybody for an interesting thread on how to deal with people who say idiotic, ignorant things about politics in social situations. I’d like to emphasize that I don’t mind talking to real wingers at all, as long as they don’t say anything racist and aren’t family members. For example, I find it interesting to hear the Paultard currency theories. If people really believe this crazy shit, I can see why they’d want to convince others of it, they may think they’re saving the world.
What bugs me is the I’m-a-centrist, both-sides-do-it shit, because it’s so unbelievably arrogant and nihilistic. It’s not about having a position. In fact, it’s about not having a position, it’s about thinking that your mind is so beautiful it can’t be sullied by political involvement other than “I can’t take a side, because I’m bigger than the game.”
Atrios described this well:
While chatting a man came up and discussed registering to vote, but seemed more interested in proudly trumpeting his Hamletesque indecision as a mark of principled independence or something. Apparently had Obama chosen Clinton, but, well, now he likes Palin…
Anyway, he was clearly a member of that segment of the population for whom politics is just another reality TV show, and his vote is simply about which of the candidates is his “favorite” and who will spend the next 4 years entertaining him as the star of The Presidency. Many Villagers are like this too, and they look forward to being extras in the show.
Donny, these men are cowards (and, yes, they’re pretty much always men). And it’s probably not worth arguing with them in social situations, because they don’t believe anything anyway. They’re simply glib narcissists.
Anyway, those are the one I have a hard time with, not your standard issue Republicans.
Dollared
Lotssss of MBAs in this category. There’s another factor – the Rebublicans have done such a great job of destroying the Liberal Brand, that these guys, even when to the left of Bloomberg, cannot – can.not – say that they will vote Democrat. The Obama cool brand actually works well here – they can say they still hate poor people, but That O Guy, he’s OK. But it’s a disaster down ticket.
Brachiator
How do you know that they don’t believe anything? Instead of assuming that they are all dumbasses because they don’t agree with you or want what you want, why don’t you ask them what they believe and why they believe it?
And yeah, a lot of these people really are dumbasses, but they might still reasonably ask who the fuck you think you are to say that they are arrogant, while you are just a humble truth bringer.
And while I think that re-electing Obama may be all that stands between us and the abyss, I know there are a lot of people who don’t see it that way and never will, for what is for them totally valid reasons. Politics, and life, is funny that way.
handy
Listen, I work with a Paultard. He chews out doctors and nurses who suggest he immunize his young daughter because vaccines are evil, he bought a water filtration system because of flouride in the tap, and he just confessed to me the other day that he thinks evolution is clearly false because scientists obviously don’t know anything.
Then there’s the Glenn Beck lady down the hall from my office.
Doug I wish I lived in your world.
danielx
Yup. It’s kind of akin to people who back one sports team over another. Except that if your team loses on Sunday there are real world consequences for lots of people on Monday, possibly including you.
Unless you’re a Villager in good standing like Tom Friedman, say, in which case there are no consequences at all for anything you may say or do short of an actual felony and maybe not even then. Certainly that good old spirit of austerity isn’t going to have any effect on you and your beautiful mind. You can go on pointing out how things would be so much better if only the fools in charge would listen to you…
Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Valdivia
I’m totally with you on this.
It’s not even hard with that other group, Republicans pretending to be independents out of shame for the Republicn brand after the Bush ‘triumph’. The most drive-me-up-the-wall obtuseness comes from ‘moderate’ types who care about how it looks or the nasty nasty ways of that Obama calling out the rich. Try and confront them with the underlying logic of their both sides do it bs–that they expect Democrats have to be pure as driven snow while Republicans can be hard charging dirty players–and you get the beautiful mind look of offense in their eyes. Not even the Orenstein piece calling out the Republicans filters through the thick fog of denial.
I will confess that extreme lefties who think Obama is worse than Bush and Romney would be a-ok are where I leave rationality and become a harpy.
Spaghetti Lee
People who make a big show out of their moderate-ness are annoying, but then people who make a big deal out of any pretty much unremarkable thing tend to be douchebags. People who are sincerely in the middle of the spectrum I don’t particularly hate. I can at least have a conversation with them, even if it goes nowhere. Dealing with true believer right-wing nuts is like dealing with rabid animals-I just want to be out of the room before the crushing weight of their insanity drags me down with them.
Metrosexual Black AbeJ
@Brachiator:
They believe exactly the middle of what the two extremes believe, regardless.
How old are you? I get the feeling you are about 18 or 19 and you may not know what the older people here are talking about in terms of our day-to-day conversations sometimes. Not a criticism, I’m just curious where you’re coming from.
Metrosexual Black AbeJ
@handy:
I can’t tolerate anti-vaccine stuff either.
hhex65
The totebagger is a destructive wingnut as far as I’m concerned, so I follow the 3 steps:
Identify triggers
Recognize the warning signs
Do not engage
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Unfortunately, I find myself surrounded with either these types of centrists or full on wingers these days with me being the only avowed Obama voter left in my circles.
It’s just…christ. I get earfuls now about how trickle-down is the ONLY thing that ever worked, unironically, or crap about how Romney’s business acumen makes him better as President even if both him and Obama sucks, but at least Romney isn’t a PROVEN failure yet, so fuck all those shitty stupid retarded Dems and their job-killing Union hacks.
Oh…not to mention the patent continued absurdity of people acting like Unions own the entire fucking process when they’ve been on the downturn for decades and barely carry any power period. But fuck it, they’re the perfect boogeyman, functionally powerless but still bring the fear of god out of people who think they’re the most awfulest thing ever.
Just shoot me.
YellowJournalism
@Metrosexual Black AbeJ: A woman I know mentioned in passing that her sons had had all their vaccinations except for chickenpox. For a split second, I thought about opening that can of worms. I decided against it because she’s also a client.
JGabriel
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Dollared:
Of course there are. They’re the one demographic both parties really are courting, the money people.
.
Spaghetti Lee
One thing I’ll note is that I’m younger than a lot of you here, and people my age that I meet on the internet who often would fit right in to the Democratic party simply refuse to identify as such (or with any other party). I don’t mind talking with them, since we agree on a lot, but when I say I’m a Democrat, they usually say they’re more of an independent.
Mind you, these are just random chumps on a forum-they’re not David Brooks with his reputation as Mr. Almighty Centrist to protect. My suspicion (and I’m being kinda broad here, I know) is that people who have come of age since, I don’t know, the 80’s have heard more messages that belonging to any sort of group is for squares. Everyone wants to be a unique snowflake. Labels like “Democrat” or “Republican” are just as bad as “nerd” or “loser” or whatever. For older people, community groups, organized groups like Scouts or Little League, maybe their parents were in some sort of union, they were at least more comfortable with group identity growing up, and it doesn’t bug them to say I’m in this or that party.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Metrosexual Black AbeJ:
In other words, ardent believers in the Golden Mean fallacy. They exist in real life too, not just the Village. You know how we semi-joke about the GOP standing for ‘whatever the Dems are against, revised daily’? Chronic Centrists stand for ‘the exact midpoint of what each party stands for, revised daily’. The kinds of folks that cherish process and tone over actual policy sense.
freelancer
@handy:
I work with a gay kid who is a complete Paultard. He hates Obama because Obama “kills people”, posts stuff on FB all the time about FEMA camps, listens to Alex Jones daily, and is currently reading Jesse Ventura’s book, loves “free markets”, but thinks Warren Buffett is “an evil man”.
I like to toy with him every once in a while and ask him about Rand Paul’s anti-gay slurs or Ron Paul’s unabashed defense of the Confederacy.
asiangrrlMN
@Valdivia: Right there with you on your last sentence, Valdivia. I lose all sense of reason when I hear “Worse than Bush” or “Bush-lite”. I become very shrill. Contrary to my online persona, I’m nonconfrontational in real life, so I try not to discuss politics *too* much as I lose all sense of reason.
Metrosexual Black AbeJ
@Spaghetti Lee:
Yes, I hear that one a lot too and it doesn’t bother me so much. It’s much different than Brooks and Friedman.
gaz
Politically, I agree. The nihilistic BothSidesDoIt routine has done a lot of damage. The “principled independent” bullshit is exactly as you say. Politics as reality TV.
On a personal level though, I can’t abide the presence of wingnuts in my life. They are cowardly, hateful, stupid, and mean. Down to the last one. Often violently so. Not that all of the violent bigots are wingnuts, but every wingnut is a violent bigot. I won’t entertain them. I have no room for them in my life. They make it personal.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
any interesting question is always asking people if they remember being taught in social studies classes in school if they should always split their vote, and never pull the party lever.
Frankensteinbeck
Which is why I thank my lucky stars that at this pivotal point in election history the dumbass GOP chose Mitt Romney. NO ONE wants to watch a TV show with Mitt Romney as the lead. Crazy can make it through local politics. People will vote for stupid, sometimes enthusiastically. Boring gets you nowhere. It is just possible Romney is a worse option for the GOP as a nominee than Santorum, although I guess Santorum’s wild incompetence would make the difference. Romney is only mildly incompetent.
Valdivia
@asiangrrlMN:
Hi! So happy we happened on a thread so I could salute you. Hope things are good MN-way.
I rarely get over the top out of control angry. But I see red, like you, when I hear that. And I inevitably think of your rusty pitchfork and how I’d like to borrow it :)
JGabriel
@Metrosexual Black AbeJ:
I’m utterly baffled by the anti-vaccine stuff. It’s been thoroughly discredited, debunked, and Wakefield has been proven fraudulent.
I mean, it’s as crazy as believing austerity will help an already ailing economy … oh, wait, I get it now. They’re just bonkers.
.
satanicpanic
@Valdivia:
I can chalk about being a Republican to being a misinformed dumbass because their mindset is so much different than mine. With other lefties it’s personal. like, why do I have to be on the same team as you, you idiot!
asiangrrlMN
@Valdivia: Any time you want it, it’s yours! My rusty pitchfork™ is open-source. I have tight control over my anger, so it’s a matter of me raising my voice a notch, putting a bit more intensity in it, and feeling like I’m about to explode. I’ve been told from the outside that it’s not cataclysmic – it just feels that way to me.
How you doing? I’m in the last stage of prepping for parental visitation and NOT happy about it!
@satanicpanic: Word. Plus, I think, “Is nothing not good enough for you, you ungrateful cretin?” That’s an in-my-head thought, though, and not a voiced one.
Valdivia
@satanicpanic:
I am usually left speechless or wanting to kick their behinds with a very pointy high heeled shoe :)
David Koch
Well, “the both sides do it”, “I hate partisanship”, and the totebagging “can’t they just compromise and get along” who reads Bobo crowds exist. And they are swing voters
The blogoshere hates it, but if you want a slice of their vote, you have to give them some “bipartisan” rhetoric.
This is why McCain was dangerous as a candidate. With the collaboration of the media, he had really sold himself to these voters as a “maverick” who went against his own party. It wasn’t true. But they really bought it.
Obama won by 7 points, but had he run against a Huckabee or fred thompson, Obama would have won by 12 pts.
Valdivia
@asiangrrlMN:
I tend to feel like a red tide is raising towards my head. I can be a pretty ferocious and ruthless debater so I either go full lecture and mocking mode or I stare in speechless rage thinking about the pitchfork or using my shoe (see comment above)
Good luck with the parental visit. I know how those are for you so I’ll be toasting you and hoping for a painless one. I’m good, been a hectic few months with my dad having been ill and his operation and life that marches on relentlessly in spite of it all. But I went to Italy for a good 10 days so I really can’t complain! :D
asiangrrlMN
@David Koch: Plus, McCain self-destructed near the end of the campaign.
Time to go sit in my empty fridge after I clean it. Later, bitchez!
Walker
@Valdivia:
This nonsense has made Yves Smith unreadable.
Both Sides Do It
mistermix I feel like I want you to adopt me
mai naem
@handy: I also worked with a Paultard whose father was uninsured because had been unable to afford to buy health insurance(partly because of that pesky little pre existing condition issue.) Anyway, the dad had a major stroke so not only did he lose everything but was now unable to work. He was helping his father apply for medicaid/welfare etc. I wanted sooooo bad to ask him how that personal responsibility/survival of the fittest theories were working out for his daddy. Oh, did I mention you he didn’t want his father living with him, interrupting his life? Dumbfcuks.
FlipYrWhig
@Spaghetti Lee: I think this is an interesting point, and it squares with the phrase that pains all feminists, “I’m not a feminist, but…” I think conservatives really, really like to be conservative, flash the signs, buy the tchotchkes, the whole lifestyle aspect. But liberal-minded people are very suspicious that doing that sort of thing makes them a patsy or a conformist. So they come up with all these qualifications and qualms to show that they’re not just reflexively into what you think they’d be into, oh no. They won’t be put in a box like that.
David Koch
O.T.
Obama’s drones are winnowing out the cast of Mad Men, one by one.
Redshift
@Spaghetti Lee: With ones who seem reasonable but refuse to identify, I would concentrate on the importance of voting. There are lots of “independents” who happen to always vote Democratic — when they vote.
James E Powell
@FlipYrWhig:
So they come up with all these qualifications and qualms to show that they’re not just reflexively into what you think they’d be into, oh no. They won’t be put in a box like that.
You’re right, you never get that kind of “distancing” from right-wingers. They don’t separate themselves from the drooling bigots in their party, they either deny they exist or bring up Al Sharpton or someone else.
And for the most part, these are educated people. They can figure things out but choose not to do so. The anxiety caused by knowledge = duty to act is too much for them.
David Koch
@FlipYrWhig: Rachel Maddow has done this. In an interview with the Times, she said “I’m not that much of a typecastable liberal” and in WaPo, she said, “I’m a liberal. I’m not a partisan.”
No one puts Baby in a corner.
BBA
Here in the financial industry I’m surrounded by people who are pro-choice, pro-SSM, believe in evolution and all that, but vote Republican solely for lower taxes. Cynically but accurately, they don’t see any other differences between the parties changing their daily lives in any way (especially here in New York), so why not vote for tax cuts?
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
Thus has it ever been, I think. But as annoying as it frequently is, I’d say it’s a symptom that comes with not being the party of reflexive authoritarianism.
@James E Powell:
I agree completely. I’ve more than once met a conservative where I thought “you know, if you’d just actually allow yourself to think and follow your own thoughts to their conclusion, you’d be alright.” But stepping out of the intellectual comfort zone is just too much to ask.
Anne Laurie
@JGabriel:
Those people, from The Tribe Down the River, want to pollute our precious bodily fluids. Are you gonna let Them rape your dogs and eat your children?
Of course it’s not logical, but that particular mind-virus (bad coding string?) has been an effective way for humans to control other humans since — well, probably since before we were humans. As the proverb says, you can’t reason people out of a position they didn’t reason into in the first place.
mclaren
There’s an even more annoying and offensive group of political people: the folks who use obviously incorrect analogies in order to condemn those who correctly identify corrupt hypocritical politicians.
Let’s take an example.
Many people noticed that Barack Obama had broken every one of his campaign promises and, worse, instead of delivering his promised “hope and change,” he had descended into following most of the same policies as the Bush II administration. In fact, Obama is worse than Bush in some ways: Obama orders the murder of U.S. citizens without even charging them with a crime, Obama has continued the practice of torture but has done a much better job of covering it up, Obama has signed off on the Bush tax cuts and gotten his contituency to approve it with doubletalk about “the lesser of two evils,” and so on.
The really annoying people are the fools who sneer “You’re just like the people who claimed there was no difference between Bush and Gore, and we all saw how that turned out!”
That’s a completely false analogy for a whole range of reason. In effect, it’s a lie. And not just any lie, but a really Big Lie with capital letters. The kind of Big Lie that’s so huge it blots out the sun. A Big Lie as enormous and mind-boggling and creatonism or denying global warming.
First, with Al Gore vs Bush II, we had no way of comparing these people because neither had served as president. So we didn’t really know anything solid about either of these guys. What we knew about Al Gore was overshadowed by the fact that he was vice president. You can’t just make policy and send up bills to congress if you’re VP: the president does that. You may or may not have some input to the president, but in the end, the prez is the top dog, not the VP. So we had no accurate way of gauging Al Gore’s true beliefs and genuine intentions, because Al Gore was never actually president. Ditto the drunk-driving C student. He acted as governor in Texas, but, as history shows, that didn’t tell us anything about Dubya’s actually beliefs. The governor of TX is a part-time unpaid position and because of the way the TX state government is set up, it operates very differently from the relationship twixt the president and congress. So Dubya was able to rack up a fairly moderate-seeming record as governor of TX, covering up what we now realize was a fanatically far-right bizarrely dishonest and sociopathic personality and set of political beliefs. But back in 2000, essentially none of that was visible in Dubya’s record or public statements.
By contrast, we have the full record of the Bush’s presidency. We know the crimes he committed and the lies he told. We have full visibility of all his sociopathies and dysfunctions.
And after 3 years, we now have a pretty good idea of Obama’s actions. He have a reasonable overview of his attitudes as embodied in his actions as president.
This was completely not the case for Bush v. Gore, but it totally the case for Bush as opposed to Obama.
Second: the sneering claim that anyone who criticizes Obama today for following most of Bush’s policies “is just like those fools who said Bush was no different from Gore” assumes a counterfactual. Namely, the unspoken implication is that if Al Gore had gotten elected in 2000 by an overwhelming majority, why, then things would’ve been completely different!
We have no way of knowing that.
Would Al Gore have been swayed into invading Iraq by the same cabal of neocons who influenced the drunk-driving C student? We don’t know.
Would Al Gore have invaded Afghanistan? Almost certainly. Would the same systemic forces that conspired to mire U.S. troops in Afghanistan for the last 11 years have resulted in Al Gore keeping troops in Afghanistan for the last 11 years? Probably yes.
Would Al Gore have been able to make any more headway getting global warming legislation passed than the drunk-driving C student did? The answer here is clear and unequivaocal: no. Absolutely not. The U.S. congress is dead set against passing any kind of carbon tax legislation or any other legislation to prepare for global warming, and the U.S. business community is united against that kind of legislation with the kind of fanatical determination formerly only found in Red Guards during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
Would Al Gore have ordered drone attacks the way Obama does? We don’t know, but the answer is probably yes. Drone attacks are illegal and an atrocity and a war crime because they murder mostly innocent children and women in countries with which we’re not in war. But they’re tremendously popular because they make it look like the president is doing something about terrorism when in reality no president can do anything meaningful about terrorism, and because they involve no U.S. troops and cost very little.
Would Al Gore have enacted the incredible tax cuts the drunk driving C student signed off on? Probably not, but once again, there was such a huge push from the far-right congress for massive tax cuts for the rich that it’s not clear that Al Gore would’ve been able to do anything to stop it. Remember: we had an actual surplus. In 2001, America looked like it was on top of the world, with money squirting out its ass and the greatest military in history and a roaring economy. That was all illusory, as it turned out. But no one knew that at the time. So when the Republican-dominated congress made its frenzied push for tax cuts for the rich, it’s not at all clear that Al Gore could have blocked them.
suzanne
@FlipYrWhig: Bingo. Most of the liberals I know don’t like thinking of themselves as a member of a cohort. I understand it—I’ve said before that I don’t like joining things, as it seems to bring a scripted agenda or schedule to whatever the activity may be. But real power comes from numbers, and those don’t come from individual special snowflakes.
mclaren
@Walker:
The kind of grotesque ignorance and dishonesty in your comment is a form of the fundamental attribution error, as it’s known from sociology.
You’re implicitly claiming that America today is fucked up because one particular person, George W. Bush, got elected in 2000. If he hadn’t gotten elected, everything today would be hunky-dory.
This is a gross fallacy because most of the problems America has today have been building for 30 years. More: the problems America has today are mainly not the result of a good or bad president, but from a dysfunctional congress (which is not the fault of the one guy who gets elected to the Oval Office every 4 years, it’s in large part due to the fantastically delusional and dusfunctional behavior of American voters who keep voting insane far-right Republicans into congress) and a dysfunctional military (America would have stayed in Afghanistan for 11 years even if Al Gore was president, because the entire U.S. military system is now so badly broken that the American military cares nothing about winning wars and is in fact unable to win them, but cares only about continuing the gusher of cash that began on 9/11) and a massively dysfuctional economy. America began offshoring its jobs and destroying its middle class under Bill Clinton and Al Gore. It would have continued those policies under Al Gore as president. So America’s economy would be as badly fucked up today if Al Gore had been president as it would have under the drunk-driving C student.
Moreover, the push for tax cuts for the rich came mainly from congress. If Al Gore had been president, he might have tried to stop that, but he wouldn’t have been able to, so we’d still have gotten tax cuts for the rich and a colossal deficit. Worse: if Al Gore had been president, the Republicans would be able to argue that the global economy collapsed because of Democratic liberal policies. So we need more tax cuts for the rich! And instead of Obama, we’d have Jeb Bush or McCain as president today.
Does that sound like an improvement to you?
Both Sides Do It
Whoops wrong m name with an x in it. Metrosexual black AbeJ: I dig what you’re laying down.
srv
– Rush Limbaugh
xian
When someone writes something like, “Many people noticed that Barack Obama had broken *every one* of his campaign promises” (emphasis added), which is both literally a lie and figuratively a gross distortion of reality, and “is worse than Bush in some ways,” which uses weasel words, and “has continued the practice of torture” without in any way justifying or proving this slander, I’d reach for my gun, if I were the kind of person who had a gun.
xian
this is also false: “Moreover, the push for tax cuts for the rich came mainly from congress” as it came from Bush’s campaign promises and general orientation and was sold with a paper-thin regressive trickle-down so that “everyone gets a cut” because “it’s your money” (yes, it was our money, our social security money, and it was given primarily to the superwealthy).
Lojasmo
@xian:
I can shorten that up for you. Fuck yourself, @mclaren:
Ron
I ran into a situation yesterday where I had to bite my tongue. I was working with a bank teller at our bank to open a new account. (why I had to do that is a whole other bizarre story). In the middle of this we were chatting and I said something about annoying ATM fees. She said that the banks had to have those fees because of the government and what it makes the banks too and opined that the government should just stay out of the banks business essentially. As tempted as I was to say something, I decided it wasn’t worth getting into an argument with someone trying to help me. So I just sat there and didn’t say anything when she said it.
MattMinus
“Both sides do it” can be a very useful pressure release valve when discussing politics with someone on the other end of the spectrum, even if it is disingenuous.
You’re not ever going to get very far trying to convince someone that your team is lawful good and theirs is chaotic evil. By making some rhetorical concessions, you’ll have an easier time getting to specific cases and matters of degree. “Both sides do it” makes for a good neutral starting point.
A lot of otherwise interesting conversations never would have gotten of the ground if I wasn’t willing to cede that Nancy Pelosi is just as extreme as Michele Bachmann.
Frankensteinbeck
@xian:
Mclaren used to pitch that Obama was helping BP cover up the Gulf spill and didn’t just deny that we were getting out of Iraq, but claimed that we were in ‘3-4 permanent, unwinnable wars’. It lives in its own little world with its own little facts, and would wither and turn to ash in the glare of our yellow sun.
lol
And here comes mclaren to offer up a good solid example of the “both sides do it” idiocy on the left.
lol
@suzanne:
Or as Will Rogers put it: “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.”
Tyro
@David Koch: I am the exact oppose. I will point blank say, “There are some things I’m not that liberal about, but I am a very, very partisan Democrat.”
Jerzy Russian
Most of the vocal “independents” I have known seem to all have Republican positions of most things. Perhaps they are embarrassed by being a Republican, which I suppose is a good thing.
ericblair
@MattMinus:
This is true: a lot of people don’t want to argue about politics and it’s a good way to get out of one. I’ve used it with clients or other people I’m not inclined to start a fight with.
As a worldview, it’s a way to avoid joining a team and avoid having to think through issues as a true “independent”. If your kids come crying to you going on about how one took an extra cookie and the other said that your spouse let him take the cookie for doing a good job on the homework and the other then argues that that was yesterday and not today, you don’t care about all this explanation and just end up giving each one a cookie to shut them up so you can get back to watching your show. That’s centrism.
Epicurus
“Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism; at least it’s an ethos!” Wise words, indeed, Walter; but you’re STILL an asshole.
McJulie
Unthinking partisanship can be dangerous — if you initially identify with a party because of a certain ideology, but that ideology drifts over time, you could end up voting for a party that doesn’t actually represent your interests or beliefs. You definitely see this with Republicans — a lot of them signed on when the party was way less crazy. It’s heartbreaking to see formerly sane people deliberately make themselves crazy in order to stay on the team.
So, I’m a liberal, and I’ll happily vote for Democrats until there’s a more liberal party out there that can reasonably be expected to win elections. But if the Democrats became the more right wing party, I like to think I’d notice and stop voting for them.
But knee-jerk centrism is its own kind of unthinking partisanship. The truth does not always lie somewhere in the middle between the two major parties, a pox on both your houses or whatever. You can say Republicans are wrong about everything (which they are) without implying that the Democrats are right about everything. In a choice between half right and all wrong, I’ll take half right, thank you very much.
nastybrutishntall
“Both sides do it” is not just a centrist issue, as many are noting and/or displaying (@mclaren: Exhibit A). I live in a county dominated by Communist-Fearin Cold-Dead-Handers here in Colorado, with a sizeable minority of hippy outdoorsies. Anyone who is around my age or below (20’s-30’s) generally lean either Paul or both-sides-do-it-fuck-em. Very few voice their support for Obama. Maybe if Obama stopped sending the Feds in to harass cannabis operations and stopped assassinating people and generally pushing the envelope on the Unitary Executive we all hated and feared in Bush II, the kids would be alright. As it stands, I don’t know how we’re going to get turnout. We can talk all we want about Obama’s technocratic accomplishments in the face of the Do-Nothing Congress, but the cold hard fact is that he’s painted himself into a dark little corner with regard to civil liberties, and most people with brains see the Pres as a good-intentioned, brilliant man who knows the Constitution front to back – a Constitutional scholar, no less! – but who still draws us closer to the brink of tyranny. For all our talk of the SC, Lily Ledbetter, pre-existing conditions and all that, it’s like recommending better pain meds to a hospice patient. The game’s over and we know it. We know we most likely won’t get anyone smarter or better in our lifetime, and with dead certainty some GOP Franken$tein is eventually gonna grab the reigns of power Obama has been holding for them and kick the horses into a gallop all the way to end of our Democracy. Both sides don’t do it to the same extent and in every direction, but both sides do do “it”: the bad stuff. And it makes it hard to sell the good stuff after that.
PGFan
I agree that sanctimonious “centrists” are as, if not more, infuriating than nutbag righties. Hard righties are the product of FOX and the rest of the right-wing machine. They are people who have gotten into a habit of hate — in a way they’re addicts. Hate is energizing and the right-wing machine provides their daily/hourly fix. Their habit transcends everything else and makes them extremely hard to reach.
But what’s so maddening about the “centrists” is that they consider themselves superior to “extremists on the left and right” but they are almost as uninformed as the righties. Rather than FOX, they look to mainstream media outlets for their information — they think Meet the Press and CNN are “balanced”; they read Newsweek and many listen to NPR. So what they’re really steeped in is conventional wisdom and the view of “very serious people”. Since they look no further they rarely if ever encounter information that would upset their comfortable views of the world.
When confronted with “centrists” I have found that 2 approaches will often either shut them up or even make them think. One is to ask them what a centrist believes and what they believe, and to compare and contrast what they believe to what “lefties and righties” believe. You can ask in a completely non-judgmental way — out of curiosity; out of a desire to be enlightened. This disarms the initial tendency we all have to dig in when challenged. It usually doesn’t take long to unearth the fact that what they believe is smoke and air – insubstantial — a collection of cliches, labels and suppositions. They can’t defend their positions because they don’t really have any and they’re knowledge is typically very superficial.
The other approach is to give them a list of what I believe. I’ll label myself as a progressive and say that they would consider me a member of the extreme left. Here’s some things that I believe: all people should be equal before the law, there should separation of church and state, democratic governments should serve the citizens, freedom comes with responsibility, checks and balances to power are required because people motivated by power will abuse power if the opportunity arises, etc. Then I ask what the “centrist” position is on those things. After some bumbling around what usually happens is that they try to divert the conversation from “what they believe” to pronouncements about pragmatism; about how the world is the way it is and we have to be “realistic” about thorny things like government, the economy, etc. This takes them back to a comfortable place again because they like to think they’re the realists and everyone else is naive — they’re the “grown-ups in the room”. Depending on my mood I’ll either make them go back to the initial discussion – what do they believe? or I’ll mention various social change triumphs and ask them how those happened.
Some of them will actually think about things.
nastybrutishntall
haha. “Reigns of Power” should stand in the above, I guess, as far as dumb homophonic malapropisms go. Basically works as is.
abby20
@Brachiator:
This was spawned by a discussion about voting… somewhere in there is a question about or at the very least a space in the conversation to actually say what they believe. They opt to hedge and avoid making an actual statement.
Atrios and Black AbeJ are not referring to those who would say “I don’t know what I feel about X.” That is a valid statement because no one can be adequately informed to form opinions about everything and because there are things that are complex enough that it is hard to come to a definitive conclusion.
They are referring to a different breed of indecision — that is really non-commitment. These people refuse to take a side not because they haven’t thought enough about it — thought is a secondary consideration — but because that are “too cool” to be committed to any one side. You can insert almost any issue and and you’ll get the same response. Politics, for them, is about posing not participating in meaningful dialogue.
I totally agree with BlackAbeJ, talking with the true wingers is something that I value doing — as long as they are not family. I am curious what their current issue and position on it are and I am fascinated by the differences in our thought processes.