"Politics" vs. Principles

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Writing in the New Republic, Jonathan Chait writes one of those pieces you see from time to time, in which some pundit offers half-gloating "advice" to political enemies he claims (and hopes) are destroying themselves. In this case, we have a leftist slamming the Tea Party for throwing its support behind Christine O'Donnell against the GOP establishment candidate, Mike Castle, in this year's Republican primary for Delaware's open Senate slot.

Christine O'Donnell is a theocrat who opposes abortion under all circumstances and supports teaching creationism in public schools. Given that, there were plenty of valid reasons for supporters of freedom and individual rights not to support her, but that isn't Chait's message -- except to the extent that, as a leftist, he probably equates capitalist sentiment with support for theocracy. (Many conservatives, including quite a few tea partiers, unfortunately suffer from the same misconception.)

No. Chait never urges the tea partiers to get a better grip on what principles actually support individual rights, or to consider whether theocracy and capitalism are really compatible, or to ask whether O'Donnell -- or either Republican -- deserved their support. He attacks the tea partiers for sticking to their guns -- for having principles (however muddied) at all.

And so it has been amusing to watch Republicans as they desperately attempted to persuade Republican voters in Delaware to support moderate Mike Castle over Christine O'Donnell. The political logic is obvious: Castle would have been a near shoo-in to win, while O'Donnell is a near shoo-in to lose. Castle may be a moderate, but half a loaf is better than none. ...
Castle, as Chait indicates, is behind a bill to repeal ObamaCare (for whatever that might be worth), but he also supports one of the few pieces of Obama's radical agenda that hasn't been passed yet: cap-and-trade. (O'Donnell opposes cap-and-trade.) For anyone who thinks that issue is dead after ClimateGate, remember that the premise behind that political debate is all wrong: As soon as someone can credibly claim that the science supports AGW, many anti-warmists will be disarmed since they concede the incorrect idea that if there's AGW, we must therefore adopt state control of the economy. Would O'Donnell necessarily reject such a conclusion (assuming it's wrong), or would the desire to be a good "steward" of God's creation flip her?

Setting aside whether Chait's advice is sincere, consider the following question: Are a soccer team's chances of winning a game better if they have to suck it up and play one man down -- or if they field a full eleven that includes a player whose actions stand a good chance of throwing the game to the other team? I'm not sure I agree that O'Donnell was the better choice here, but I can understand why tea partiers would choose her. In the sense that their choice reflects their keeping their eyes on the prize and their understanding that big government conservatism is no ally of freedom, I applaud it.

Chait may have a valid point about Castle being easier to "send into the game," but what's the point of being able to say there's a Republican majority if said majority does the same things a Democrat majority might? (There remains, in this election, the symbolic value of sending a sharp rebuke to Obama, Pelosi, and Reid.)

Chait closes his piece cynically. If one sees ideas solely as tools for manipulating useful idiots on the way to acquiring power, that's the only way it can end.
But the Republican base has been taught not to think this way. This isn't just politics, remember? This is a twilight struggle for freedom. And Mike Castle didn't just cast a couple bad votes. He acquiesced in a sinister plan to undermine capitalism. How could they ever support a candidate like that?

Moreover, Republican voters have luxuriated in the belief that they represent the true majority of the American people. Obama may have won by fooling the voters, or possibly by stealing the election with Acorn, but the enduring majority of the public is staunchly conservative. Indeed, Republicans only lost because they strayed from the true faith.

Now, most elite Republicans understand that the red meat fed to the base isn't exactly right. It's useful to scare the daylights out of the activists, but writers for the Standard and the Journal editorial page understand that "freedom," as most people understand the term, is not really at risk. They understand as well that politics is a little more complicated than "if Republicans stay true to conservatism, they cannot lose."
I doubt there's really a "true majority" in America today. And Chait is probably right that many in the Republican establishment are soul-mates of his in the "our professed principles are only propaganda" department. But Chait is dead wrong about the relationship between principles and practice. Freedom is in trouble, because America long ago strayed from accepting the principle that individuals have rights that must be protected by the government.

The tea partiers grasp this at least on some level, and Jonathan Chait's sneer barely hides the fact that this really bothers him.

-- CAV

9 comments:

Andrew Dalton said...

This isn't just politics, remember? This is a twilight struggle for freedom. And Mike Castle didn't just cast a couple bad votes. He acquiesced in a sinister plan to undermine capitalism. How could they ever support a candidate like that?

This sneer reveals that Jonathan Chait -- like many, many others in our class of Pragmatist intellectuals and pundits today -- have an approach to politics that could be described as "post-historical." In this view, all of the big events are in the past; we will never again see world wars, pogroms, revolutions, or the disintegration of a major civilization. We'll just have small perturbations on the welfare-state status quo for the rest of eternity. And since nothing really big is ever at stake, then anyone who does claim serious principles or any sense of an ominous trend must be ipso facto overreacting.*

* Leftist moral one-upmanship and rhetorical flourishes excepted, of course.

Gus Van Horn said...

Heh. Or one could describe that approach as "post-lobotomy."

On a more serious note, your characterization -- "...we will never again see world wars, pogroms, revolutions, or the disintegration of a major civilization. We'll just have small perturbations on the welfare-state status quo for the rest of eternity..." -- sounds like a hippie's fantasy, which comes as no surprise since pragmatists merely absorb what already saturates the culture.

mo said...

as one guy put it:

http://www.redstate.com/ben_domenech/2010/09/14/dont-repeat-the-mistakes-of-the-past/

It’s not about being right rather than winning, it’s about the definition of winning in the long term, which cannot be done with elected politicians who don’t believe in conservatism.

In the end, it’s really that simple.”

madmax said...

In this view, all of the big events are in the past; we will never again see world wars, pogroms, revolutions, or the disintegration of a major civilization. We'll just have small perturbations on the welfare-state status quo for the rest of eternity. And since nothing really big is ever at stake, then anyone who does claim serious principles or any sense of an ominous trend must be ipso facto overreacting.*

This accurately captures what I think of as the educated left-liberal attitude to politics and to the Right. They don't see anything life-threatening at stake. The Right are just "fear mongers" engaging in the "politics of hate". I think this is because for Leftists altruism, egalitarianism and collectivism are simply unquestionable. To question them is to have a "mean heart". Chait simply can not conceive that perhaps Obama really is a danger to the Republic. No that's impossible. That's fear mongering.

Gus Van Horn said...

Mo,

That's an interesting sentiment to hear.

Coming from someone open to reason, and willing to learn from mistakes, it is very encouraging. Coming from, say, a fundamentalist, it is not.

If the Tea Party movement maintains its aspirations for long-term victory through not backing down on principles, and gains a more objective approach to principles, then it can offer great promise.

Madmax,

Agreed, but only up to a point.

If only people like Chait really believed their own propaganda enough to act as complaisantly as such a view permits them to!

Gus

mike said...

what are your thoughts on tradition.I noticed that republicans and conservatives in general appeal to tradition.

I'm not sure if you've heard of sociologist Edward Shils who says that all too often those who argue for the need for tradition are dismissed as mere "reactionaries" while the ideal of progress is heralded in opposition.

Shils argues that the idea of progress itself has constituted a tradition in that the movements and ideologies focusing on progress have outlasted a single generation.

He also argues that science itself and the branches of philosophy are based on a tradition (which is the inherited mode of inquiry itself).

He says that perhaps these traditions while offering much good to mankind in the way of removing past prejudices and misconceptions and offering things new) have gone too far and now need to be curtailed somewhat.

Gus Van Horn said...

Mike,

I don't regard tradition, as such, as inherently good or inherently bad.

A tradition is simply something that can be passed down from one generation to another and, as you note, one can count science as a tradition in that respect. One can also count other things ranging from etiquette to superstition as traditions.

Clearly "tradition" is a mixed bag, and some other criterion -- such as that a given belief must correspond to the facts of reality -- ought to be used to determine whether a belief is good, and so, worth keeping or indeed passing down.

Conservatives are just as wrong to simply espouse "tradition" as leftists are to espouse throwing out the baby with the bathwater in the name of "progress." Many traditions are traditions for good reasons, and tossing them aside simply because they are old isn't the way to achieve real progress.

Gus

Michael said...

so a balance between progress and tradition

Gus Van Horn said...

Michael,

Not so much a balance between the two as opting for whichever is demonstrably better when there is a choice. How do we know when to accept, reject, or improve upon a tradition? How do we know when a change represents genuine progress? The answers to either question require standards, and that issue is what BOTH blind adherence to tradition AND knee-jerk demand for "progress" are attempts to hide from.

Gus