The Resentment Strategy
Paul Krugman has an important column in the New York Times on the GOP's resentment strategy -- the argument that small-town and rural residents should vote Republican because the Democratic "elites" are laughing at them. I noticed it a lot in Sarah Palin's VP speech at the Republican convention:
Long ago, a young farmer and habber-dasher from Missouri followed an unlikely path to the vice presidency.
A writer observed: "We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity, and dignity." I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman.
I grew up with those people.
They are the ones who do some of the hardest work in America ... who grow our food, run our factories, and fight our wars.
They love their country, in good times and bad, and they're always proud of America. I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town.
* * *
Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown.
And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves.
I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening.
We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.
As Krugman points out, that's rich, especially when the other speakers railing against the "Eastern elites" include the wealthy former Governor of Massachusetts and the divorced, adulterous, sometimes-cross-dressing, gay-friendly ex-Mayor of New York City.
I've noticed it in other facets of the cultural right, too. It's not quite a claim to victimization -- it's more pugnacious than that; more of a we're under attack and we need to fight back. It's similar to the "War Against Christmas" stories that Fox News runs every December. If you can get people to feel like their core beliefs are under atack from a defined enemy, then you can rally them. The Christian Right does the same thing with the ACLU.
I had dinner with a fundamentalist Christian friend a week ago and we were talking about this. She'd always been told that the ACLU was anti-religion -- that they were trying to keep prayer out of the schools. She acknowledged that the schools shouldn't be leading the prayer -- teachers shouldn't be favoring one religion or another, because people have different religious beliefs and that should be respected. And she seemed very surprised to learn that that's the current state of the law. Schools aren't banning prayer. They can't. Kids can pray at their desks if they want to, or in the cafeteria, or around the flagpole before class, and the schools can't stop them. So why do people say that the liberals are trying to ban prayer in schools, she said? Because they're trying to rile up the religious right, I said. They want money and votes. They're using "wedge" issues to get people to vote Republican and support economic policies that they'd otherwise shun, if thy weren't packaged along with "values" positions.
For example, I never stop being astounded by documents like this: the "Values Voters' Contract with Congress." It's a weird blend of fundamentalist Christian belief and right-wing talking points -- vows to "AFFIRM the national relationship with God in our places of worship, schools, mottos, and public spaces" and "SECURE our national interest in the institutions of marriage and family" mixed with statements of support for "[l]egislation affirming that government may not redefine “public use” to take the private property of one person to give to another," efforts "to fundamentally reform the national tax system and reduce the tax burden on Americans," and greater border security. I guess it's possible that, for these people, Republican secular interests and Christian religious beliefs are so tightly interwoven that they're both near and dear to their hearts. But the cynic in me just thinks that the GOP is mostly using the God-talk as a Trojan horse to get their lower-taxes, less-regulation agenda passed.
I know I have some blinders on when it comes to the left. What's the liberal version of this? For example, what is multi-millionaire trial attorney John Edwards really trying to do when he brings out the populist tropes?
Long ago, a young farmer and habber-dasher from Missouri followed an unlikely path to the vice presidency.
A writer observed: "We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity, and dignity." I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman.
I grew up with those people.
They are the ones who do some of the hardest work in America ... who grow our food, run our factories, and fight our wars.
They love their country, in good times and bad, and they're always proud of America. I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town.
* * *
Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown.
And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves.
I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening.
We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.
As Krugman points out, that's rich, especially when the other speakers railing against the "Eastern elites" include the wealthy former Governor of Massachusetts and the divorced, adulterous, sometimes-cross-dressing, gay-friendly ex-Mayor of New York City.
I've noticed it in other facets of the cultural right, too. It's not quite a claim to victimization -- it's more pugnacious than that; more of a we're under attack and we need to fight back. It's similar to the "War Against Christmas" stories that Fox News runs every December. If you can get people to feel like their core beliefs are under atack from a defined enemy, then you can rally them. The Christian Right does the same thing with the ACLU.
I had dinner with a fundamentalist Christian friend a week ago and we were talking about this. She'd always been told that the ACLU was anti-religion -- that they were trying to keep prayer out of the schools. She acknowledged that the schools shouldn't be leading the prayer -- teachers shouldn't be favoring one religion or another, because people have different religious beliefs and that should be respected. And she seemed very surprised to learn that that's the current state of the law. Schools aren't banning prayer. They can't. Kids can pray at their desks if they want to, or in the cafeteria, or around the flagpole before class, and the schools can't stop them. So why do people say that the liberals are trying to ban prayer in schools, she said? Because they're trying to rile up the religious right, I said. They want money and votes. They're using "wedge" issues to get people to vote Republican and support economic policies that they'd otherwise shun, if thy weren't packaged along with "values" positions.
For example, I never stop being astounded by documents like this: the "Values Voters' Contract with Congress." It's a weird blend of fundamentalist Christian belief and right-wing talking points -- vows to "AFFIRM the national relationship with God in our places of worship, schools, mottos, and public spaces" and "SECURE our national interest in the institutions of marriage and family" mixed with statements of support for "[l]egislation affirming that government may not redefine “public use” to take the private property of one person to give to another," efforts "to fundamentally reform the national tax system and reduce the tax burden on Americans," and greater border security. I guess it's possible that, for these people, Republican secular interests and Christian religious beliefs are so tightly interwoven that they're both near and dear to their hearts. But the cynic in me just thinks that the GOP is mostly using the God-talk as a Trojan horse to get their lower-taxes, less-regulation agenda passed.
I know I have some blinders on when it comes to the left. What's the liberal version of this? For example, what is multi-millionaire trial attorney John Edwards really trying to do when he brings out the populist tropes?