Ringside Interview -- Taking Aim at the Judge's Scoring
John Hawkins and I just finished Round 2 of our debate. His remarks are here. Mine are here. Please do check them out.
We’re due to go one last round, an opportunity to quickly address outstanding disagreements and write up our conclusions. Prior to penning that entry, I’d like to highlight a couple sections from Mr. Hawkins’ latest, because I think they shed light on the ongoing divisions on the right. I’ll link this post when I compose my final piece, and should Mr. Hawkins desire it, I’d gladly publish any response he has to this entry in particular as a full post here at The American Scene.
It is important to know that Mr. Hawkins and I were discussing the right’s failures during the Bush Administration — specifically, a list I offered in my first post that included:
…profligate spending, the prescription drug benefit, the early management of the Iraq War, No Child Left Behind, the financial industry bailout, the Harriet Meyers nomination, attempts at foolhardy immigration reform, rising deficits, a GOP establishment that lost touch with the grassroots, official corruption, etc.
Mr. Hawkins states that these weren’t cases “where conservative politicians pursued conservative positions and were rejected by the American people.” Quite right! As I’ve written many times, the Bush Administration’s failure doesn’t reflect poorly on conservatism. He goes on to assert that the failures of the Bush era were in fact cases “where conservative politicians were convinced by people of Conor’s ideological temperament to abandon conservative governance, and it led to disaster.” This is a groundless, preposterous assertion.
I didn’t favor any item on that list, save the Iraq War, a conflict I wrongly supported when I though that Saddam Hussein possessed biological weapons. It is a bit unclear who Mr. Hawkins regards as belonging to the same “ideological temperament” as me, but there are plenty of so-called dissident conservatives who opposed all those policies, and it is quite a ludicrous to say that any of them managed, via their blog posts at The American Scene or The American Conservative or Reason, or via Crunchy Cons or Grand New Party, to “convince conservative politicians” to pass No Child Left Behind, or to bailout the financial industry, or to let the deficit grow to epic proportions, or to launch the K Street project, or to cozy up to Jack Abramoff.
Aren’t there several obvious reasons why conservative politicians during the Bush era failed to govern according to the ideological principles they espoused? A student of American politics might cite factors including the median voter theorem, the combination of Rovian political strategy and Bush’s bully pulpit, the influence of moneyed donors on Republican elected officials, or any number of other factors that usually explain why politicians break with principle. For Mr. Hawkins, however, these failures are due to people like me — opinion journalists! — convincing conservative politicians to abandon their principles. A premise that wrongheaded explains the irrational antagonism directed at those regarded as dissidents, and as striking is the degree to which Mr. Hawkins seems unable to distinguish between political moderates on one hand and those who critique the conservative movement for its failings on the other.
Elsewhere in the same exchange, I assert that the right would do well to practice “tolerance of dissent and engaging dissenters on the merits of their arguments, rather than heretic-hunting or accusations of disloyalty/bad-faith.” Mr. Hawkins responds, “Does that same standard EVER, EVER, EVER get applied to people like David Brooks, David Frum, or for that matter, Conor Friedersdorf? Why do the people who get accused of being racists, xenophobes, and too dumb to understand politics always have to be the ones who forgive while the same blockheads who never learn from their mistakes insist on getting their way again?” This causes Mark Thompson at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen to note, “The first punch in the combination on racism and xenophobia hits home hard – it’s tough to earn someone’s trust if you’re making claims like that about them.”
In fact, this paints another inaccurate portrait of dissident conservatives. Where have David Frum, David Brooks, or I — or any of the other dissidents with whom we’re familiar — claimed that folks on the right who disagree with us are racists and xenophobes? For my part, I’ve explicitly written that figures as diverse as Rush Limbaugh, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin aren’t racists in the space of the last couple weeks!
And while Mr. Brooks, Mr. Frum and I are an odd trio to lump together, insofar as we disagree on so many things, we’re also united in routinely disagreeing with others on the right about politics without claiming that our interlocutors are “too dumb to understand politics.” Orthodox movement conservatives tell themselves that they’re constantly put upon by elite interlocutors who regard them as stupid, but the fact of the matter is that folks like Mark Levin, Dan Riehl and Sean Hannity are the ones who almost constantly claim that dissidents are “too dumb to understand politics,” going so far as to explicitly call us naive useful idiots. Mercilessly mocking us by marshaling the most insulting ad hominem attacks imaginable are a constant feature of their rhetoric, yet their audiences are convinced that it is they who are put upon by Inside the Beltway elites who regard them as idiots. Even in the instances where they are correct, they’re invariably thinking about the wrong elites.
One last point. I concluded my recent entry by addressing a bunch of disparate points that came up in round one. In response to Mr. Hawkins assertion that the right is in some ways better off than it’s ever been before due to the rise of conservative media, I write, “When it comes to news and opinion media outlets, I’d argue that quality matters, and that the right still lags markedly behind the left when it comes to the quality of the journalism it produces — is there any publication on the right, for example, that even approaches the quality of writing and reporting one finds every week in The New Yorker?”
Here is how Mark Thompson characterizes my remark:
This sequence puts Hawkins on the ropes, and Conor looks poised for the knockout. But just before the bell rings, Conor runs out of steam and throws a few weak punches denigrating the quality of the conservative media as compared to the quality of the explicitly liberal media. This series of punches misses because it’s not clearly tied with the theme of the rest of Conor’s argument and Conor lacked the time at the end of the post to set this line of argument up properly. The truncated resulting argument thus comes off as unconvincing and quite likely as a gratuitous shot at conservatives that Hawkins will no doubt use heavily to his advantage in the final round.
Still, the first 3/4 of Conor’s round were near-flawless and landed some clear hay-makers, where Hawkins’ round was inconsistent despite landing some solid blows. Friedersdorf wins the second round of a tough fight. After two rounds, I have it scored 19-all. However, had Conor left out the last paragraph, Hawkins may well have suffered a knock-down that would have left the round 10-8.
If I understand correctly, Mr. Thompson finds my arguments sufficiently persuasive on the merits that I scored a near knockout, but quite apart from its substance, regards the fact that I dare mention the right’s media deficiency as so unpalatable to conservative ears, regardless of its truth, that we’re basically tied in the debate. This is a suboptimal way of evaluating a battle of ideas, and it suggests that Mr. Thompson may be experiencing the soft bigotry of low expectations when he puts himself inside the mind of our audience. Perhaps if I persist in refusing to even consider the merits of certain arguments due to misguided ideological orthodoxy, I’ll one day find myself in a debate where I get to score points even though I’m wrong because my interlocutor made the mistake of saying something true but unpalatable. As yet, I’ve never benefited from that kind of victory.
I would like to see this debate go deeper than the surface squabble within the Republican Party. The blame-game and establishing who is right and who is wrong is not very interesting — there is clearly a split in philosophy. I would like to see each side clearly state and defend the differing political philosophies and let the reader decide which ideas are valid. Between the poles of statism and limited government, where does each faction fall, and how is this position defended?
I suspect the “whatever works” position is no longer valid — the guessing game and pragmatic blundering is obviously not working.
— mike farmer · Nov 12, 01:36 PM · #
Conor:
Going to the video tape, the judges note that Hawkins’ punches on the racism issue were not as stong as initially believed.
On the quality of the conservative media issue, my point isn’t that you should ignore it – quite the contrary, I think it’s an important issue worth discussing and historically an argument you make very well. The problem is that it’s an argument that, to the uninitiated, requires more than three or four sentences. When it gets boiled down to just three or four sentences, it comes across as no more than “conservative media sucks, liberal media is awesome,” with no supporting evidence. Sure, to the average person from outside the conservative movement, those three or four sentences merely state the obvious; but to the type of person who relies almost exclusively on conservative media outlets for their news, making the argument in that way comes across as a gratuitous attack on their culture. And, of course, in this debate, that latter group is the only one that you’re trying to reach. To even begin to avoid this problem, you probably need – at a bare minimum – half of your 750 word limit for one of these posts.
— Mark Thompson · Nov 12, 02:12 PM · #
Damn Conor. That’s a pretty uncharitable take on what Mark wrote. It not only misses the point, it ignores all the parts where Mark agrees with you. Is that really how you want to play this?
— E.D. Kain · Nov 12, 04:02 PM · #
“Between the poles of statism and limited government, where does each faction fall, and how is this position defended?”
I’d argue that one of the intellectual cul de sacs the right has gotten into is that there are far too many conservatives happy to talk about statism vs. limited government in principle, as long as that discussion is disconnected from any practical or political realties. Many conservative voices today sound too much like Marxist college professors from the 1980s who defended communism by claiming “it’s never really been tried anywhere”.
Mike
— MBunge · Nov 12, 04:37 PM · #
This caused me to think. What are the most insulting ad hominem attacks imaginable? Surely not ‘blockhead’ or ‘useful idiot’.
My number one has to be something like, “You write like your cunt mother gives head.” But I’m sure we can do better than that.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Nov 12, 05:25 PM · #
Here’s some practical advice for the right. Don’t do this. If applying your principles leads you to veto a bill allowing gay partners to bury their loved ones, change your principles or stop applying them.
But if you want real advice, here goes.
Transcend the faultlines which disconnect principle from principle; do it by pursuing pragmatic synthesis.
Do that by defining and applying an algorithmic theory of government, which, to work, must exist in compromise with agents who hold radically situated existential philosophies. This will supply you with natural limits, force you to define measurable aims, and embrace clearer, more grounded governmental watchwords like ‘parsimony’ and ‘elegance’. It will also help to define your key platforms with rigor and consistency. For instance, forget limited government, pursue problem recognition, performance, and efficiency.
Support multiculturalism as domain specific intragroup stability through continuity. Support liberty and equal opportunity as an efficient Hayekian sorting mechanism of state assets — from the state’s Archimedean viewpoint — and as the necessary precondition of agency from a radically situated existentialist’s subjective viewpoint. Use this Myworld/Ourworld pragmatic synthesis as the common ground on which to raise a unitary language of American values. Which language gets defined as the centrifugal force necessary to perpetuate a society. And so on.
When made explicit, these changes will discipline your party, bolster legitimacy, strengthen the ‘attachment of the people’, and lead to insights that would have remained hidden behind the veil of politics as usual. Or you guys can continue kvetching about moderates and heretics, and continue humping your poorly defined and poorly understood ‘self-evident’ intuitions and principles until the cows come home and hang themselves in the bathroom.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Nov 12, 06:43 PM · #
Centripetal force, natch.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Nov 12, 06:45 PM · #
Conor I share your dislike of mindless partisanship and group loyalty. The fact that it is also exists on the left and has been present throughout our history makes me think it is futile to think you can change it.
“why conservative politicians during the Bush era failed to govern according to the ideological principles they espoused?”
For thirty years the right has espoused cutting taxes as its top domestic priority. Bush cut taxes more then any other president.
The right has been critical of economic regulation. Bush governed accordingly for seven and a half years.
The right has promoted “free trade”. Bush passed trade pacts and did nothing about China’s currency manipulation. He also did nothing to curb the use temporary visas to facilitate outsourcing of US jobs overseas.
Bush governed on taxes, regulation and trade following the conservative line. What were the results for average Americans? Terrible. What is the conservative response? Cut taxes.
I think you should worry more about the poor economic results of following supply side program then about mindless partisanship.
— Mercer · Nov 12, 06:58 PM · #
“Many conservative voices today sound too much like Marxist college professors from the 1980s who defended communism by claiming “it’s never really been tried anywhere”.”
That’s why a philosophical grounding is necessary — to discount empty theories like communism without having to waste 100 million lives.
— mike farmer · Nov 12, 07:48 PM · #
“As I’ve written many times, the Bush Administration’s failure doesn’t reflect poorly on conservatism.”
As much as I am inclined to agree with this, I can’t help but notice that it sounds exactly like someone saying “As I’ve written many times, the Soviet Union’s failure doesn’t reflect poorly on Marxism.”
Now, of course, there is a point at which we can say “so-and-so isn’t a true Scotsman”.
But… whenever one encounters someone saying “oh, he’s not a TRUE Scotsman”, the “no true scotsman” fallacy comes to mind for some reason.
— Jaybird · Nov 12, 08:51 PM · #
E.D.,
I appreciated Mark’s comments, and focused on our disagreements because that’s where there is more conversation to happen. I presume that everyone at the League knows I respect their writing.
And Mark, having read your comment above, I take your point about conservative media, but I wonder whether John Hawkins and his audience are really so firmly and exclusively ensconced in conservative media.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Nov 12, 09:09 PM · #
Fair enough Conor. It seemed like the focus was too skewed toward those disagreements, but maybe that’s just how I read it. No worries.
— E.D. Kain · Nov 13, 02:43 PM · #
Well, how about foreign policy: if Bush’s foreign policy can be described as “conservative”, in that it’s what most conservatives support, then I would say it reflects very poorly on conservatism.
And since most conservatives voices like National Review, the Weekly Standard, Fox “News”, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc., are not just supporters, but are cheerleaders, for more war, more going-it-alone, virtually unlimited defense spending, pissing off Russia, etc., then I’d say conservative thinking on foreign policy is a debacle.
I realize there are thoughtful dissident voices like Daniel Larison, but that’s clearly a minority. Or is someone asserting that Bill Kristol, John Bolton, etc. are not conservatives on foreign policy?
I’d sum up the current conservative foreign policy view as “America is always right, and we can make war with anyone we damn well please. No price is too high to pay as long as we ‘win’.”
Might makes right.
And George W Bush could be the poster boy for that monumental stupidity.
— Socrates · Nov 13, 07:16 PM · #
Speaking of George Bush, Rove was on Fox today commenting on Bush’s admission that he made a mistake going against his free market instincts with the bank bailouts, and still couldn’t admit Bush was as complicit as Obama regarding bailouts and spending — Rove said Bush’s actions were absolutely necessary or the financial industry would have collpased, while all Obama’s actions are unnecessary. It’s this type of partisanship and intellectual dishonesty which makes me sick.
— mike farmer · Nov 15, 01:51 AM · #
I wrote the following about a week ago in response to another Conor post. I refrained from submitting it because it seemed a bit much, length-wise and snark-wise, but mostly because I just don’t know what Conor really beleives in the end, even if I think I have grounds for my guesses. It is a bit much, but maybe, just maybe, it will cause Conor to tell us what’s really what about his brand of politics and his obsession with conservatives.
So, here goes:
Conor Friedersdorf is not a conservative.
He’s not a social conservative.
He’s not a conservative seriously concerned about the alteration of the Constitution by judges. Consider the sloganistic way he always talks about gay marriage, willfully oblivious to the Constitutional implications of the way that gay marriage will ACTUALLY get enacted in our time (say, next 20 yrs or so) if it does.
I’d say he is perhaps a socially liberal conservative, a Giuliani minus the neocon foreign policy, but unlike the politician Giuliani he seems rather unconcerned about maintaining a workable peace/coalition with these other sorts of conservatives.
He is sort of a fiscal conservative, as he is against NCLB, Bush’s drug-prescription benefit, etc., (and let us remember that without the latter Kerry might have won in 2004, so he had better be able to say and explain in fiscal terms why, yes, it would have better if Bush had lost in 04 to a Kerry administration—not a ludicrous case, but one that does have to be made if you’re going to tout your superiority to the more standard conservatives circa 2000-2004), but do note he appears to be against more than just Mark Levin’s tone/manner in trying to return conservatism to fiscal conservatism. So he’s a fiscal conservative by damning Rove-ism, but then next thing he’s damning Levin-ism. Nobody’s pure enough for him, and insofar as his purism goes beyond opinion-provocation-journalism (and I think it does) his position amounts to defacto letting the Dems-as-they-are win, which is fiscal insanity. And so one suspects he either voted Obama or refrained from voting McCain. I’d be happy to hear him deny both charges.
On foreign policy, he’s not for an aggressive defense of U.S. interests, not for our interest in following through and WINNING wars we begin—I take it that he would have let Iraq go to hell in 2006 contra Bush/Petreaus, that he would probably have given into demands to try our guys for war-crimes who water-boarded had these demands been pressed hard enough, and I hold that overall he refuses to honestly admit the nature of the choices Bush and co. faced on these issues.
Now, a restraint-oriented but not isolationist foreign policy approach really could be considered conservative, but it would have to a) stoutly resist the current moves toward a regime of international law, and b) restrain itself from merely echoing with slightly less volume the shittily uncivil Demo attacks on the whole ‘neoconservative’ bogeyman. I really don’t know where Friedersdorf winds up on for. pol. issues…but at present it seems defined by the non-doctrine of Not-Bush.
So. Not a social conservative. Not a Constitutional conservative. Perhaps a fiscal conservative, but one without a coherent political plan. Perhaps an uncommon breed of conservative on for. policy, but also a fairly free-wheeling denouncer of the most common conservative positions on such.
And regularly, he’s deeply unimpressed/disturbed by conservatives.
He doesn’t know if he’s going to vote R in 2012? Of course he doesn’t. And yeah, the conservative movement does need to keep voters like him in mind, and remind them of the plain facts about the Dems-as-they-are. But how can Friedersdorf expect conservatives to keep PUNDITS like him in mind on the questions of ‘what is conservatism,’ and ‘what must a winning-yet-principled coalition consist of?’ Perhaps back in the day he believed in (cue: angelic voices) Conservatism (cue: angelic voices fade out) TOO much, I don’t know, but wherever his obsession with the faults of real-life conservatives comes from it does not make for good punditry even if it might someday make for good journalism. I just can’t keep trying to take it seriously. I do think his various ongoing crusades against conservative indulgence of incivility and crude-thinking are genuinely important and useful, but alas, their usefulness gets obscured by the less-than-civil tone he so often brings to these. A thin line to walk, to be sure, but something is amiss.
Mr. Friedersdorf needs to figure out what sort of Independent or Moderate he is, and then he can talk coherently again and usefully again to conservatives like Jonah Goldberg or social cons like myself, talk to us AS an Independent or Moderate, perhaps one “with-conservative-roots,” who from his unique but essentially non-conservative perspective has a take on what’s going on. Maybe he can repackage himself as “an investigative/analytic journalist on the conservative movement beat.” I of course have no authority to “expel” anyone from conservatism, but I just think it would better for Friedersdorf if he came to square terms with his political evolution(?) and classification vis-à-vis the larger opinion terrain.
— Carl Scott · Nov 17, 08:26 PM · #
Who gives a shit? He’s either right or he’s wrong. If his arguments are faulty then expose the flaws.
Enforcing party purity is why your camp is in the straits they’re in, and why intelligent people are abandoning conservativism in droves.
— Chet · Nov 19, 04:41 AM · #