The last few weeks have seen an enormous outpouring of verbiage decrying the potential "coup" committed by the "liberal" John McCain, stealing the Republican party from the true Conservative Republicans. William Kistol summarizes the anger, bordering on MDS (McCain Derangement Syndrome):
The prospect of John McCain as the likely Republican presidential nominee has produced a squall of anger on the right. Normally reserved columnists and usually ebullient talk-radio hosts vie to express their disgust with McCain, and their disdain for the Republicans who are about to nominate him. The conservative movement as a whole appears disgruntled and dyspeptic.
Dr. Sanity points out that the hysteria on the right is every bit as over the top as the left's BDS has been for the last several years. She suggests the Republicans Get a Grip:
The unbelievable paranoia, histrionics (even if we expect it from Ann Coulter) and bizarre conspiracy theories, coming from people I usually admire on the right these days is nothing short of mind-blowing and fully as deranged as anything that the lunatic left could come up with.
Eric at Classical Values wonders about unconscious motivations at work:
Well, it's human nature for people not to realize how good they have it, and there's an instinctive aversion some people have to having it good. What I mean by that is that there are deeply rooted psychological factors at play which go beyond opinions and positions on political issues. It's as if there's a sort of unconscious death wish among many in the party that it's time to crash and burn. They've been riding high for too long, they've become corrupt, and because pride goeth before the fall, a Democratic administration is needed in order to teach them a lesson so they can buckle down and get back to the business of being Republicans. The GOP has had its 1920s boom, and now it's "time" (for lack of a better word) for the bust of the 1930s. That way, the moralists can gain the upper hand with recriminations, blame, and promises of new hope -- provided, of course, that the errant show remorse and agree to mend their ways. This sort of morality play is primal and childlike, and it has a way of resurfacing in almost everything -- whether politics, economics, the Culture War, or even sports. In many ways, I think this country is locked in an endless repetition of the 1920s versus the 1930s. The cycle is reenacted and reenacted, and I think some of the antipathy towards McCain derives from an unacknowledged unconscious need to crash. It's as if winning again is unnatural and unholy.
Eric helpfully adds that the Democrats may have a death wish, too, but it is worth considering the unconscious drives that are fueling some of the antipathy toward John McCain.
My suspicion is that the rage fueling both the left and right shares some fundamental characteristics and is a result of the (partial) triumph of their ideologies.
It is easy to see that the basics of liberalism have been adopted and are no longer really questioned by almost the entire society. We would all agree that an adequate safety net is a fundamental prerequisite for civil society. Almost everyone would agree that government's role includes regulating the exercise of capitalism in order to ensure a reasonably level playing field. Most of the right's arguments with liberalism concern the various threshold limits for invoking the safety net and the level of intrusiveness of the regulations acceptable for a dynamic economy to function at its best. On the far left, the dream of a socialist or communist Utopia have been crushed, and the moderate middle has very little interest in experimenting with socialism. The moderates will elect a quasi-socialist but only when they disguise their socialist proclivities for general consumption. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are not going to publicly run on the slogan, "Vote for Hillary/Barack to Socialize Medicine-Bureaucracy is Healthy for You." Some of their policies may well push us toward socialized medicine but it will be incremental and when it fails, we will move away from their prescriptions.
That is just one policy area but should illustrate the point. The arguments within the parties are on the margins. Ideology purity, either left or right, is incompatible with electoral acceptance by the broad middle.
At the same time many of the core Conservative formulations have also been accepted by the vast majority. We are unlikely to see national gun control. Abortion is becoming socially less acceptable and the extreme positions, of abortion on demand until the moment of birth, have been repudiated. Lower taxes are here to stay. This may be overlooked by those who do not recall 75% marginal tax rates, but today's discussions revolve around the cost/benefit of 38% versus 35% for the highest rates. We are not likely to see 75% or 91% income tax rates again, any time soon. The consensus has spoken.
Since both the left and right have effectively won on some of their most emotionally important points, this leaves them with a problem. It is hard to get people emotionally engaged when the argument is that the other guy will raise your taxes 2% and we'll lower them 4%. (This is especailly true when most taxes are already being paid by a minority of the population.) It is perhaps a little easier for Democrats to get their constituency emotionally aroused by the argument that millions of poor people lack health care (a disingenuous argument in any case, since no one is denied access to health care; the issue is who is going to pay for their health care and how we are going to hide the fact that we must ration health care) but even there, once the cost of universal health care becomes germane to the discussion, all but the most committed liberals in the Congress will balk (though a Democratic President and Democratic Congress could certainly create a great deal of mischief along the way.)
I am not trying to minimize the differences between the two parties. I think there are compelling reasons for preferring a Republican President, not least of which is that our government seems to function best when it is divided, and tomorrow I will attempt to explain why I prefer a Republican to administer our foreign policy, but my point is that the rancor within the parties has much to do with their prior success and the current failure of their traditional ideology to offer a coherent approach to current and near term anxieties.
The quest for ideological purity then is most likely a case of the Narcissism of Small Differences , beautifully explained by Dr. Bliss in her post from 2006:
"The narcissism of small differences" was Freud's 1917 term for his observation that people with minor differences between them can be more combative and hateful than those with major differences. It is a handy concept.
He viewed this as a narcissistic issue because the distress comes from looking in the mirror, as it were, and seeing a pimple.
Read her post, if only for the joke she includes.
Now, I do not mean to imply there are no reasons to oppose John McCain. In fact, I have some major problems with John McCain. I have already written that I think McCain-Feingold has been the single greatest assault on our First Amendment rights to free speech that has taken place in my lifetime. This is not a trivial complaint. Although I supported Campaign Finance Reform when it was enacted, it has been a disaster and a mistake. I changed my mind on Campaign Finance Reform based on the reality of its implementation and effect; John McCain hasn't changed his mind, which suggests either a disregard for some unpleasant realities or a stubbornness that is unbecoming and problematic. Further, I do not particularly trust his judgment when it comes to Supreme Court nominations, though his comments to Chris Wallace yesterday that he would certainly nominate someone in the mold of a Roberts or Alito and would not be deterred from nominating someone who would overturn his signature bill on campaign finance restrictions, (although he would not ask such specifics about a prospective candidate for the SCOTUS) does offer some comfort.
(His response to Wallace could also indicate that while he has the typical politician's aversion to admitting an error, he does not see McCain-Feingold as or himself as infallible.)
With all my reservations about McCain, I think he would be far preferable to the alternatives running on the Democratic side and will have no trouble supporting him in the election should he gain the nomination. Those who insist on purity and rage against his transgressions should consider what fuels their antipathy and try, in the most conservative of fashions, to find the reason that is being subsumed by their emotion.
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