The party of envy, the party of anger
Good insight here by David Harsanyi:
American politics has become a giant appeal to the base emotions of envy and/or anger””depending on what party you happen to be in.
That’s not to say that every member of the respective parties responds to those particular appeals, but a huge percentage do, and it seems much worse than it used to be. Let’s not even get into whether the emotions are justified or not; it doesn’t really matter, the point is that this is what we’ve come to, and the appeals are blatant rather than hidden. No one’s ashamed of what used to be considered base emotions that one ought to rise above (and yes, some anger is definitely justified, but it’s not enough of a foundation on which to choose a president). Now we can use the words “base emotions” in a different way, as well—to mean “emotions motivating a party’s base.”
Harsanyi says a lot more about the choice of Donald Trump as a receptacle for anger. Of course, the majority of Republicans have not chosen Trump. A third of them have—at least, so far, in answer to poll questions. But it’s still a sizable number:
There are many rational people on the right who either justify or are sympathetic to this movement for understandable reasons: They’re sick of corruption. Sick of the frauds and the failed promises. Sick of the abuses of the other party. Republicans want their own Obama.
But all of that is somewhat of a non sequitur. If the average Republican, who incessantly grumbles about establishment politicians with no principles, ends up supporting a demagogue with none, what can constitutional conservative and small”“l libertarians do but oppose him? It’s not as if we’re not constantly making idealistic arguments about liberty and principle, about free markets and the value of life, about the importance of mitigating the excesses of state power. They don’t care. At all.
The ugly reality of the right-wing electorate might be that a majority (this includes the Trumpkins, rent-seeking donor class, those who rarely pay attention, etc.) doesn’t give one whit about Buckley-ite conservatism anymore. The other day, Rush Limbaugh pondered whether “nationalism and populism have overtaken conservatism in terms of appeal.”
But I think that last sentence is operating on an incorrect premise. I don’t know whether that’s what Limbaugh actually said, or whether it’s Harsanyi’s interpretation of what Limbaugh said, but I don’t think that it’s true that “nationalism and populism have overtaken conservatism in terms of appeal.” Actually, they have always had more appeal than conservatism—that is, they have always appealed to more people. Why else use the word ““populism”?:
Populism is a doctrine that appeals to the interests and conceptions (such as hopes and fears) of the general population, especially when contrasting any new collective consciousness push against the prevailing status quo interests of any predominant political sector….
…Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell define populism as an ideology that “pits a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous ”˜others’ who are together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity, and voice”.
Populism is old as the hills, and it appeals to the people, and it’s long been “popular” in every sense of the word.
There’s this old quip from H.L. Mencken about democracy—implying pessimistically that democracy is at the mercy of a sort of mindless populism. I’ll let the old curmudgeon have the last word on it for today, or maybe the next-to-last word. By the way, not all populists, and not all populist candidates, are mindless. The best and most winning candidates combine thoughtfulness and even wisdom with some sort of strong populist appeal:
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
Conservatism is not the same as populism, of course, and one of conservatism’s problems has long been that it doesn’t appeal to what the left might call “the masses.” In my observations of conservatives on blogs and elsewhere, a lot of them think their philosophy is so obviously superior that the populace should have seen the light long ago and elected more conservatives—in other words, that conservatism should have become even more popular. But now a significant percentage of “the people” on the right are supporting the decidedly populist and non-conservative Donald Trump, and conservatives see disaster. The most fanatical (and most angry) Trump supporters see anti-Trump conservatives as just being elites whining about their own loss of power.
I’m with the conservatives on this one—and I’m not whining about my loss of power, because I’m pretty sure I don’t have much. This blog reaches quite a few people, and I love you all (well, most of you), but it’s still just a few thousand, a drop in the proverbial bucket.
It is true that Envy motivates many on the Left, but I think it is incorrect (and politically dangerous) to not recognize that there are many who do not fall into this category. I know people who are very successful, some of them quite wealthy, and who appear to have pretty good lives in all respect, who are nevertheless generally on the Left.
David Foster:
It’s a generalization, about the populist appeal of each party in particular, not meant to be all-inclusive. As I wrote towards the beginning of the post, “That’s not to say that every member of the respective parties responds to those particular appeals, but a huge percentage do, and it seems much worse than it used to be. ”
However, the people I know who are liberals are motivated by envy in a way even if they are not envious. In other words, they are motivated by guilt at the envy of others for their good fortune, and the desire to expiate that guilt by being good liberals.
I think a very high % of Leftists are motivated largely by a desire to fit in with those around them, or who they would *like* to have around them….related to “circle dancing,” which you’ve written about previously.
Also, popular culture is *very* important to most of these people.
Is it at all remarkable that serious thought of sacrament for its own sake seems to melt away in the presence of populism or of these emotions envy and anger, only to reappear in the mouths of the populist partisan leaders when the invocation of some sacrament becomes useful to the leader’s own interests or those of his party? And yet somehow the followers themselves don’t seem to notice they are also useful or made use of in this act? Such are, we may suppose, the virtues of envy and anger: i.e., very useful to others.
You have on the one hand a party of client class vampires, collective responsibility opportunists, and bureaucratic finaglers spouting a doctrine of social evolution through efficient centralized management; and on the other an increasingly frantic collection of ever less free victims, who are willing to try any goddamned thing at all in order to get these drooling others off of their backs and out of their everyday lives.
It is a matter of different philosophical – in fact radically incompatible and antithetical – anthropologies, and life-way values.
We do not have a moral community in this country. We are simply enemies co-existing on the same landmass.
It has been this way for a long time. Modern liberals have not for many years now, even pretended to believe in a community of interests which could be discovered beneath the surface – in a moral scheme in which an objective “good” was agreed upon, and could be distributively (in the strictly logical sense) reckoned.
Nothing new. It is just that it has publicly gotten to the point that the Trumpenproletariat can no longer ignore what is in store for them; or, to even in private life, evade the demands which are relentlessly made of and on them.
They cannot, because it is part of the progressive mindset that it recognizes no boundaries, no limits to its sway, and no point of satiety. That is what makes it, pajama boy, and all the rest of its kind, “progressive” in the first place.
What can the Trump supporters do, they think, but either reply in kind, or climb up on that cross of principle which their so-called representatives have decided is a fate for them better than burning the house down while fighting back?
I’m with the conservatives, too, but I don’t believe that long-entrenched dinosaurs such as the recently outspoken Dole are for anything but an extension of their grip on the GOP. When Dole said, regarding Cruz, “I question his allegiance to the party,” I couldn’t help but wonder, allegiance to the party as opposed to the best interests of the citizens that you and so many other career pols have dared to claim to be working for?
I didn’t consider Cruz as presidential material before, because it seemed he tried too often to ruffle feathers (especially of his fellow Republicans), and I worried that following his lead could hurt the GOP in future elections. Now I’m beginning to wonder if I should have been wishing for more congressmen with the same spine as his.
The Wiki link given by Neo on populism (Albertazzi and McDonnell) yields this as the source:
Albertazzi, Daniele; McDonnell, Duncan (2008). “Twenty-First Century Populism” (PDF). Palgrave MacMillan. p. 3.
I have read their intro, and the rest of the 245pp. seem worthwhile. Their focus, interestingly, is on contemporary Euro populism. And surely there is no better current example of the contempt held by the Euro Ruling Class for its subjects. Unless it is Obama and his Democrats, but it’s neck-and-neck.
Populism is something to be understood and quite often respected as a powerful force, IMHO. Which is not to say its practitioners are virtuous.
Does Harsanyi, quoting Limbaugh, mean nationalism or ethnic nationalism?
On reflection, I personally would define populism as the expressed resentment by the Country Class against the Ruling Class (thanks to Angelo Codevilla), leading to pushback.
Trump is of course a leading member of the Ruling Class, but he is a skilled reader of the times, an exploiter, a demagogue.
Like Obama.
Here is a short example from Reuters today on the Euro Ruling Class and why it builds populist sentiment:
LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke on Monday and agreed there was more work to be done to reach a deal on a reformed relationship between Britain and the European Union, a spokesman for the British leader said.
Cameron has said he hopes to come to an agreement with EU leaders over his plans to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the bloc at a Feb. 18-19 summit. That could pave the way for a British membership referendum as early as June.
“They agreed that there had been progress since December’s European Council and that there was genuine goodwill across the EU to address the British people’s concerns in all four areas,” a spokesman for Cameron said following a phone call between the two leaders on Monday.
“Both concluded that there was more work to do ahead of the February European Council to find the right solutions.”
The European Council? Wiki says, “it is a strategic (and crisis-solving) body that provides the union with general political directions and priorities, and acts as a collective presidency. The European Commission remains the sole initiator of legislation, but the European Council is able to provide an impetus to guide legislative policy. Decisions of the European Council are taken by consensus, except where the Treaties provide otherwise.”
Ah so. A “collective” that makes decisions on crisis policies by “consensus.”
There has been “progress’, with “goodwill” to “address concerns” of the British people.
If that’s not enough to make one a populist, maybe Merkel’s invitation to migrants is.
I hope I’m among the loved, that’s all.
Conservatism is superior, but it’s not obviously superior. It’s something you have to work at to understand and even go through life experiences, that with humility, that in the end you might come to value it.
Keep in mind the game isn’t HS debate club, though the Narrative contest for the zeitgeist looks like it. It’s a maneuver contest.
Which is to say, it’s not only a comparison of ideas, and not principally that. It’s foremost a contest of method for social movement.
I call it a war.
I know people who are very successful, some of them quite wealthy, and who appear to have pretty good lives in all respect, who are nevertheless generally on the Left.
How much would these Leftists pay to sleep with a clear conscience at night?
That’s what they envy, the ones with a clean conscience.
To add to my comments at January 25th, 2016 at 3:57 pm and at January 26th, 2016 at 8:09 am, guard the premises carefully.
Consider the implicit frame of Harsanyi, Limbaugh et al’s statements carefully:
Are the functional definitions and the identity groups affiliated with American “nationalism” and “populism” now to be conceded at the premise level of the political discourse to Trump-front alt-Right activists?
In the activist game, mainstream conservatives should not concede critical rhetorical ground and demographic ground in the Narrative contest for the zeitgeist so easily.
As a libertarian-influenced conservative there is a lot for me to dislike about Trump. Since I really have very little idea what he will do if elected. A President Trump is a question mark.
As long as the establishment and Trump do not “get along”, I think he could succeed. I’m defining success as destroying the current status quo. What I think that he will do is cut deals and kind of manage the existing mess that is DC. I think Trump will shake up a couple of Federal Departments and when he is gone the bureaucracy will revert to its prior ways.
Also, as a Southerner, Trump reminds me of the populist democrats of the past. This is not a compliment. The struggle in the South split the Democrat party with the conservatives becoming Republicans and the leftist Populists taking over the Democrat party. So Trump’s approach reminds me of some fairly detestable people.
Will I vote for Trump if nominated? Well, Bernie/Hillary will turn this country into Venezuela. The “tear it all down” approach has it’s appeal but I’m not willing the sign up for that – yet.
Weirdlore:
As a libertarian, I’m curious what you think about Trump and Kelo? And Trump and Michael Forbes?
I think it’s very clear that Trump would have no hesitation whatsoever to trample on people’s liberties. None. His previous record is very clear. As a private citizen, he tried to get government to do it, and he joined in to smear the people whose liberties he was trampling on.