Surveying the Right
UPDATE: Link fixed. Sorry!
Given my recent work on The GOP Speaks — 26 entries now posted, and more to come — I found this survey of conservative Republicans fascinating, and consistent with the answers I’ve been getting from GOP county chairmen.
It is a must-read for everyone engaged in the conversation about the future of conservatism.
Especially noteworthy:
1) It is wrongheaded and counterproductive to ascribe ideological opposition to President Obama to his race.
2) Talk radio and FOX News are so tremendously influential among the most dedicated movement conservatives that it is creating an alternate reality of ill-conceived paranoia — those who regard this stuff as hilarious, amoral entertainment underestimate the harm it causes.
3) It’s time for the right to start dis-aggregating the entities that make up “the media.” Treating it as a single antagonistic collective working in concert to thwart conservative ends is rendering conservatives unable to understand reality. That even sophisticated if sometimes blinkered media critics like Andrew Breitbart fall into this trap is not reassuring.
Conor,
Your ‘this survey’ link points to your own survey: ‘The GOP Speaks’. Is that what you intended? Given the context, I expected you to link to this:
http://www.democracycorps.com/focus/2009/10/the-very-separate-world-of-conservative-republicans/?section=Analysis
— RobF · Oct 18, 01:44 PM · #
Oh come on Conor. Look at the questions.
Ask someone if they are a racist and most will deny it…it is a social taboo.
They should have asked the birther question…..then you could have estimated the true racism in the GOP by adding the birthers (about 50% isn’t it?) to the openly self-declared racists.
Try not to be simple.
Your problem is that minorities have evolved an exquisite sensitivity to stealth racism…….their lives depended on it sometimes.
When even Daniel Larison defends belonging to the League of the South, an institution the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated a white supremicist organization (like their designation for the Klan), YOU ARE MOSTLY RACISTS.
Whether you admit it or not.
That is why you can’t attract the black/brown vote, and it also hurts you with any color of youth, and the college-educated of any color.
— matoko_chan · Oct 18, 02:20 PM · #
I don’t think you, Conor, are a part of it, but there is a strategy among progressives to marginalize opposition by isolating them as a paranoid group outside the mainstream. If you polled ordinary people on the left, you’d find the same “paranoid” responses, just different conspiracy theories. The fact is that ignorance causes much of this — but the groupings on both left and right, regarding serious paranoia, are relatively small. Most of the people on the right who oppose progressivism have legitimate concerns, and these concerns are expressed with varying degrees of sophistication, but they are legitimate. I think it would be helpful to use common sense to exclude the extreme fringes of both sides, then begin to look at the legitimate differences between the left and right. Out of all the articulate and inarticulate responses, what I glean is that the right is opposed to government over-reach — this is a general cause of opposition.
What the right fails to understand is that right and left have allowed intervention for decades — social security, welfare state, post office, infrastructure, public schools, Medicare/Medicaid, and the list goes on and on. The right is a little late to game making a big stand against healthcare reform, but I guess it’s better late than never. The problem, however, is understanding that we need a new mindset regarding government, and that limited government will takes years of gradual change, and that it will require sacrifice. If the right is not willing to fight for the principles of limited government, even when they have power, then the present opposition is just a show.
— mike farmer · Oct 18, 04:01 PM · #
I’m a misanthropic narcissist, a cold-hearted pragmatist, a big fan of sexual liberation, a bigger fan of those women who bought it, an enemy of authority (unless it’s me), an overeducated pedant, a privacy skeptic, a gun humper, a reflexive jingoist, a considered anti-nativist, an asymptotic atheist, and finally — an entrepreneur. And I’m under 30. To which party do I belong, Matoko?
Republicans flatter my entrepreneurial, jingoistic, gun-humping government hatred. But I despise them for everything else.
I prefer Democrats during interesting times and locally, but not at all nationally or when they’re bored. And sexual liberation already happened.
I’ve resolved this by voting Democrat my entire life except for 2004 when I voted against Kerry. But I’m really starting to despise the stupidity of the national Democrats (already there with Republicans), and they are tripping my anti-authority alarms with what looks like reckless abandon. They’re like Kerry Collins: great last year, but so bad this year that I find myself clamoring for Vince frickin’ Young.
Where to turn, where to turn.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 18, 04:53 PM · #
“If you polled ordinary people on the left, you’d find the same “paranoid” responses, just different conspiracy theories.”
The difference is that virtually no one in the liberal political establishment and very few in liberal media actively validate and promote those paranoid beliefs.
Mike
— MBunge · Oct 18, 04:55 PM · #
What the right fails to understand is that right and left have allowed intervention for decades
I tend to doubt this, but I suppose it depends on what you mean by “the right.” Sure, you’ll find some people who don’t understand it, but keep in mind that conservatives have opposed government interventions since at least New Deal times.
— The Reticulator · Oct 18, 05:03 PM · #
The difference is that virtually no one in the liberal political establishment and very few in liberal media actively validate and promote those paranoid beliefs
This is not true.
— The Reticulator · Oct 18, 05:05 PM · #
The difference is that when the people on the left want to know what the right believe, they survey the right to see what they believe. The people on the right, if the comments here are any indication, just make shit up and call it even. This serves as a useful metaphor for how lots of differences between the left and the right play out.
— Bo · Oct 18, 05:12 PM · #
Reticulator — yes, they have rhetorically opposed, but they have governed differently — an example of the confused thinking is the right’s current defense of Medicare “take your government hands off our Medicare!” Plus, most people considered Bush on the right, but look at how he governed. Goverment power increased under Reagan.
— mike farmer · Oct 18, 05:13 PM · #
You’ve proven that GOP activists don’t believe that they are racists or hold political views partially as a result of racial animosity. That’s a long way from proving that this is actually the case, Conor.
— Zeke · Oct 18, 05:36 PM · #
“When even Daniel Larison defends belonging to the League of the South, an institution the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated a white supremicist organization (like their designation for the Klan), YOU ARE MOSTLY RACISTS.”
Tha’t‘s absurd. Daniel Larison is just a weird dude who gets off on taking unpopular positions. He’s also very smart, which is why people listen to him. He’s certainly not a mainstream conservative, or a mainstream Republican. I myself sort of softly boycott him, for his defense of the League of the South, and also because he actually doesn’t often engage his opponent’s best arguments. Anyway.
“The difference is that virtually no one in the liberal political establishment and very few in liberal media actively validate and promote those paranoid beliefs”
“The difference is that when the people on the left want to know what the right believe, they survey the right to see what they believe. The people on the right, if the comments here are any indication, just make shit up and call it even.”
This is also just silly. I don’t know where you live, but I’ve personally heard numerous well educated Dems supporting crazy theories. Dems who worked on the Obama campaign. And lots of Dems defended Van Jones. And Obama attended that church for all those years – he is certainly willing to act as if lunatic extreme views deserve to be discussed.
— John · Oct 18, 05:41 PM · #
Rob F,
Thanks, that is indeed what I meant to link. Fixed now.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Oct 18, 05:46 PM · #
Lots of conservatives dramatically overstated exactly what it is that Van Jones supported.
This I guess I don’t understand, except to note that once again there’s a double-standard at work – attend a church that mentions the historic fact that the CIA was involved in the introduction of drugs into black communities, and that’s a “fringe”, extremist church that can’t possibly be mainstream. Attend a church that rails against the “gay agenda”, believes that all biologists are involved in a global conspiracy to deny scientific proof of God, and violates the traditional legal separation between religion and politics – why, that’s just good ol’ hometown family values!
It’s about a culture, particularly a media and political culture, that embraces and legitimizes conservative and Republican fringe beliefs, no matter how disgusting, racist, counterfactual, and just plain stupid they are. Absolutely nothing comparative exists on the left, to the extent that unpopular facts are considered illegitimate to believe, because they conflict with the dominant conservative narrative.
— Chet · Oct 18, 06:02 PM · #
KVS…… I SAID Conor is LYING to himself if he is trying to use that survey to prove that race is not an issue for OVER 50% OF THE BASE.
I don’t give a damn where you peg in the political spectrum.
— matoko_chan · Oct 18, 06:55 PM · #
Frankly, my dears, I don’t give a dayum if Larison is a racist or just pallin’ around with racists.
To minorities in this country…….being a racist is just like being black.
It only takes one drop.
— matoko_chan · Oct 18, 07:22 PM · #
I don’t know where you live, but I’ve personally heard numerous well educated Dems supporting crazy theories.
Shit, they’ve discovered the anecdote; we’re doomed now.
— Bo · Oct 18, 08:12 PM · #
Conor, re the harm that Fox, Beck, et al cause, you haven’t proven your case. The knowns are: (1) there are a bunch of people who believe these things; (2) there are a few media entities who espouse them; and (3) the entities in category #2 are popular with the people in category #1. Where’s the evidence that Beck, Limbaugh, etc. are responsible for creating those beliefs, rather than just catering to them? What do you think these people would believe if there were no FoxNews or Rush? If Rush started talking about what a great guy Obama is, would they all say “oh wow, I guess we were wrong all along”, or would they change the channel and wonder what the hell happened to Rush?
— kenB · Oct 18, 09:05 PM · #
“If Rush started talking about what a great guy Obama is, would they all say “oh wow, I guess we were wrong all along”, or would they change the channel and wonder what the hell happened to Rush?”
They would change the channel and listen to someone else. You are absolutely correct — Rush is saying things they believe — not everyone, all the time, but for the most part.
— mike farmer · Oct 18, 09:34 PM · #
Whether large swathes of the Republican party are awash in racial resentment, and whether racism is at the heart of the freakout over Obama’s ascent to the presidency, are two quite different matters. The answer to the first question seems quite self-evidently affirmative, but the second is much less clear. Anyone who was around in the 1990s would have to doubt that the crazy was any less rampant when a white Democrat was in the White House.
— kth · Oct 18, 11:39 PM · #
Oh how wonderful! Ikeda-san wa yonjū-ni sai da.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 19, 04:46 AM · #
look…im sorry KVS.
You do make an honest try.
But all that is left of the right seems to be clueless naifs like Reihan and Conor, evil clowns like Beck and Rush, and effete spectators like Schwenkler and Poulos.
When you ask someone if they are a racist and they say no, that does not mean they are not a racist.
It just means they can’t bear ro admit it, even to themselves.
— matoko_chan · Oct 19, 11:49 AM · #
“This is also just silly. I don’t know where you live, but I’ve personally heard numerous well educated Dems supporting crazy theories. Dems who worked on the Obama campaign.”
Let’s make a list of elected government officials; Democrats who said nice things about Truthers and Republicans who said nice things about Birthers. I’ll bet you a thousand dollars the GOP list is considerably longer. Has Rachel Maddow ever said anything, any time, anywhere that’s the equivalent of Rush harping on Obama not having a birth certificate just hours before someone else who thinks Obama doesn’t have a birth certificate shot up the Holocaust Museum in D.C.?
Are there Democrats and liberals who believe crazy stuff? Sure. What they don’t have are political leadership and a media machine that echo and amplify that crazy stuff back to them.
Mike
— MBunge · Oct 19, 02:14 PM · #
“… Rush harping on Obama not having a birth certificate just hours before someone else who thinks Obama doesn’t have a birth certificate shot up the Holocaust Museum in D.C…”
More lefty folklore…you have no actual idea what RL was talking about on that day, do you?
You’re just repeating what you heard from your liberal friends, huh?
— tomaig · Oct 19, 03:12 PM · #
“More lefty folklore…you have no actual idea what RL was talking about on that day, do you?
You’re just repeating what you heard from your liberal friends, huh?”
No, fool. I was listening to him and heard the words come out of his mouth. He wasn’t making a joke or being ironic or trying to make any actual point. I wouldn’t even have particularly noted it because Rush says a lot of crap like that, except for the whole “Birther shooting up the Holocaust Museum” thing happening almost immediately afterward.
Mike
— MBunge · Oct 19, 03:30 PM · #
“To which party do I belong, Matoko?”
I don’t know, Kristoffer, but if you find one that fits, let me know. They sound like they might be fun!
— Erik Vanderhoff · Oct 19, 04:55 PM · #
It appears that a significant number of these commenters think that those GOP folks are racist, unknowingly or otherwise. Hmmm. Impossible to prove. And apparently, impossible to disprove. Disprove this: many Dem operatives are subconscious communists. You can’t. Can’t be proved either. Its why this whole discussion of the MOTIVES is irrelevant. No one knows. A bunch of bunk, and a smear to avoid real issues.
— JC39 · Oct 19, 09:46 PM · #
“Disprove this: many Dem operatives are subconscious communists. You can’t. Can’t be proved either.”
Uh, have you listened to Beck, Hannity or Limbaugh lately? They’re smearing Obama and company as completely conscious communists.
Mike
— MBunge · Oct 19, 10:03 PM · #
JC39
Impossible to prove.
But simple to estimate.
— matoko_chan · Oct 19, 10:09 PM · #
m_c, go ahead, keep thinking that way. It will get you nowhere. m_c, if that link is supposed help us estimate or prove somthing, then you are clueless. I find it amusing. Accusing the opposition of being racist only makes you seem weak and out of arguments. And independents hate that sort of talk. So, keep it up!
— JC39 · Oct 19, 11:02 PM · #
JC39, it doesn’t really matter to meh.
It matters to YOU.
Like I pointed out, minorities are sensitized to stealth racism. They had to be.
So, oh, we aren’t really racists, we are just worried obout socialism and the presidents birth certificate is a non-starter for them.
In theory, half the people trend conservative, half trend liberal. Like I am always hearing about how black and brown people share socon values. But sadly, traditional WEC racism has locked you out of those demographics.
The reason the whole Michael Steele “Who us, racists?” campaign is such an epic fail is that you can’t reform your branding overnight.
Like with Bush, you are going to have own it and then start over.
Pretending the low information base isn’t over 50% racist doesn’t mean you aren’t racists….it just means you are stupid enough to think you can get away with it.
— matoko_chan · Oct 20, 11:58 AM · #
Daniel Larison is just a weird dude, but the SPLC has no credibility in any case. Two strikes.
— Adam Greenwood · Oct 20, 03:35 PM · #
I found this very interesting. I USED to be a conservative. Less government, fiscal and personal responsibility. Bush disgusted me, and so did Clinton. Then there’s Obama, who was this democrat that didn’t totally thrill me, but seemed like someone I could work with.
Then my friends weighed in with the sorts of far right “conservativism” found in this survey. Now I’m an avid liberal.
What passes for conservativism these days just makes me sick. There’s very little in the way of real personal responsibility or restraint. They rally around ignorance and deride achievment and ability. They think of the electorate as “useful idiots” who can’t be trusted to make rational decisions. They’re so convinced of the rightness of their conclusions that any dissent must be due to either stupidity or mallicious intent.
Then there’s the unreality of their radical belief in the free market and the perfection of the constitution (up through amendment 11).
Suffice it to say, that the traditional, level headed, reality based, American conservativisim I grew up with is as dead as George Washington. I can’t wait until this movement dies out too.
— JohnM · Oct 27, 06:03 AM · #