Shout out to my old friend, Joshua Davis, for inspiring this post’s main story.
Yesterday, Bret Stephens published an op-ed, “The Case for Trump…by Someone Who Wants Him to Lose.” A healthy practice often lost in binary environments: identify and weigh arguments for something you oppose. Only then can you strengthen your own argument.
While this is a basic debate prep tactic, social media silos us into environments where we don’t necessarily need to consider the other “side.” As I’m currently reading Jeff Sharlet’s fantastic book, The Undertow: Scenes From a Slow Civil War, in preparation for interviewing him on next week’s Conspirituality, this practice is especially fitting.
Sharlet spent a lot of time driving across America talking to a range of MAGA supporters and Christian nationalists, which requires a reporter’s instinct and empathy: to listen without judgment, allow the quotes to stand for themselves. Most people love to talk to willing ears. If you can shut off the automatic reply system and really listen, you can learn a lot.
Back to Stephens, who I agree on his overall thesis, especially as I listen to red flags daily on the morning news: liberal and centrist pundits claim this election is different from 2016. People aren’t paying attention yet. Once they hear Trump, they’ll certainly vote for Biden, even if they have to hold their noses. Polls are irrelevant. Go Blue.
Polls reveal slices of truth, yet I’m not putting a ton of stock in them. I’m also not ignoring them entirely. I’d rather be cautiously right than ignorantly wrong in assuming Biden is a guarantee. It often feels like the left is suffering from amnesia.
Yes, pundits, things are different, but not always in the ways you think.
Let’s focus now on Stephens, who frames the argument:
You can’t defeat an opponent if you refuse to understand what makes him formidable. Too many people, especially progressives, fail to think deeply about the enduring sources of his appeal — and to do so without calling him names, or disparaging his supporters, or attributing his resurgence to nefarious foreign actors or the unfairness of the Electoral College.
Stephens then writes that Trump got three things right. The first is the general fear around immigration. Yeah, Trump is the birther guy. Makes up horror stories about Mexicans, wants to ban Muslims, talks about “shithole countries” in Africa. Horribly racist stuff that taps into too large a category of white grievance in America.
Thing is, there is a problem at the border, and progressives too often overlook the real-world issues when arguing against identity politics. A grain of truth exists in most culture war issues. A sustainable and fair entry process should be a liberal agenda. Yet open border policies aren’t either, and it’s often difficult to find a case for such a process from the left—at least one that’s broadly discussed. I’m talking about outside bureaucratic institutions; actual immigration policies are rarely entertained in leftist online spaces.
This all leaves a huge opportunity for people like Trump, one which he’s exploited much to the delight of his base. As Stephens writes,
Only now, as the consequences of Biden’s lackadaisical approach to mass migration have become depressingly obvious on the sidewalks and in the shelters and public schools of liberal cities like New York and Chicago, are Trump’s opponents on this issue beginning to see the point. Public services paid by taxes exist for people who live here, not just anyone who makes his way into the country by violating its laws. A job market is structured by rules and regulations, not just an endless supply of desperate laborers prepared to work longer for less. A national culture is sustained by common memories, ideals, laws and a language — which newcomers should honor, adopt and learn as a requirement of entry. It isn’t just a giant arrival gate for anyone and everyone who wants to take advantage of American abundance and generosity.
I don’t agree with all of Stephens’s points. My great-grandmother spent a good portion of her life in New Jersey without speaking anything but Magyar. She had a familial support system and a large Hungarian community in New Brunswick that allowed for that, so the “you have to learn our language” dictate doesn't reflect the reality of diverse communities, such as Chinatowns across the country. America doesn't have one “national culture,” which is part of our strength.
Yet I can understand arguments for public services and jobs going to citizens, even when I personally differ on what that means or how such goals are implemented. Regardless of your feelings on the topic—they should be open to debate—there are a lot of aggrieved Americans, and their default reaction is to blame the “other,” whether or not it’s true.
American infrastructure is failing. Pushing off projects to private industries or allowing them to get caught up in bureaucratic red tape are real issues. We need effective legislation and actions to fix them. The irony is that Trump has no actual plan for doing so. But he screams about them enough to anger his base, which for him is the point.
Which brings us to Stephens’s second point:
The second big thing Trump got right was about the broad direction of the country. Trump rode a wave of pessimism to the White House — pessimism his detractors did not share because he was speaking about, and to, an America they either didn’t see or understood only as a caricature.
Again, this doesn’t necessarily reflect data about America; it represents a feeling people have. And that’s often more relevant.
As Stephens notes, only 36% of Americans still believe the American dream is possible. Here we do have data, given growing income disparities and a media focused on stock market trends, not worker’s wages. Those have been flat or decreasing for generations while executive pay has skyrocketed.
This problem should inspire people from across the political spectrum to unite. Indeed, last year was one of the best for unions in a century. The problem is that those are often regional or single-industry movements. Even when they garner media attention, they’re not fitted together in people’s minds as aspects of a single movement. This is a messaging failure by Democrats.
Lastly, from Stephens:
Finally, there’s the question of institutions that are supposed to represent impartial expertise, from elite universities and media to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the F.B.I. Trump’s detractors, including me, often argued that his demagoguery and mendacity did a lot to needlessly diminish trust in these vital institutions. But we should be more honest with ourselves and admit that those institutions did their own work in squandering, through partisanship or incompetence, the esteem in which they had once been widely held.
Point taken. But there are problems on a case-by-case basis. Stephens writes about the messaging and implementation failures of the CDC during the pandemic. This is a common complaint, but Stephens, like many others, fail to mention three important factors:
No agency could get everything right during a pandemic that features a novel virus, especially in the age of social media where misinformation travels faster than credible recommendations. Yes, directors made faulty assumptions, especially early on. Science is a slow process while most people demanded immediate answers. Too often people supplied them. But this is also due to
The fact that the CDC was part of Trump’s administration at the outset of the pandemic. Agency leaders were pushed to make certain decisions to appease him. That meant painting a rosier picture than the reality of the situation. And as soon as there were errors, they
Entered a right-wing media ecosystem that already ignores science. This media ecosystem parroted talking points supplied by corporate leaders who were losing revenue and wanted things “back to normal” even as normality fled from every corner of our lives. Good science never had a chance in these channels. They still don’t.
Stephens gets some of the facts wrong but the sentiment right. He blames liberal media for becoming partisan in 2016 but doesn’t mention the right-wing media ecosystem that sucks up so much of the oxygen, and which has been growing for nearly 30 years. Somehow they get a pass in thought pieces like this.
I agree that some institutions blacklist figures “pushing back even modestly against progressive orthodoxy.” The flip side is that right-wing institutions rarely invite progressives for any discussions. Liberals serve better as punching bags, not debate opponents. So for Stephens to put the blame entirely on the left for institutional failures, especially when the right was in power at the time, is to miss a key component of the story.
Yet here’s what Stephens gets really, scarily right: right-wing media (including Twitter influencers that dominate that universe) doesn’t care about expanding the story. They’re going to continue scripting their own, welcoming any disaffected progressives or centrists tired of the left ignoring a more holistic picture of relevant issues.
And if they aren’t issues the left cares about, maybe we need to rethink our strategy. Right now, the administration seems to be letting Trump shoot himself in the foot, like when he cheerleads himself for “terminating Roe v Wade.” That’s important, as female bodily autonomy will be on the ballot in a few months. But so will a lot more.
The right is paying attention, pundits. And they’re not waiting for everyone else to wake up to their demands, however “ludacris” they might be. They’re just moving forward.
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