- The dichotomy revisited, today via Heather Cox Richardson: how Democrats, and Republicans, differ in their approaches to raising money, and spending it.
- Her distinction echoes George Lakoff’s, and the conservative inability to take long-term thinking into account;
- Conservatives echo the values of base human nature, which is why adolescent boys appreciate Trump;
- And why they dismiss support for climate change, prefer strongmen, and use the word fraud to slander civil servants and de-legitimatize the government;
- How constituents are fighting back, via town halls;
- And three strong reasons about how democracy will survive Trump.
Many of these topics can be considered in the broad terms of, what kind of society do Americans want to live in? A selfish and authoritarian one, or one in which people help each other because such help benefits *everyone*? Republicans, busy slashing funds for “benefits” they think are give-aways to free-loaders, seem not to understand that those funds are *investments* toward making society beneficial for everyone, including themselves. The distinction carries along several dimensions, as I’ve explored via various books and links in recent years. Here’s Heather Cox Richardson, who captures it this way, in reaction to the question of how the US should raise money, and spend money.
Heather Cox Richardson, February 25, 2025
Generally, Democrats believe that the government should raise money by levying taxes according to people’s ability to pay them, and that the government should use the money raised to provide services to make sure that everyone has a minimum standard of living, the protection of the laws, and equal access to resources like education and healthcare. They think the government has a role to play in regulating business; making sure the elderly, disabled, poor, and children have food, shelter and education; maintaining roads and airports; and making sure the law treats everyone equally.
Generally, Republicans think individuals should be able to manage their money to make the best use of markets, thus creating economic growth more efficiently than the government can, and that the ensuing economic growth will help everyone to prosper. They tend to think the government should not regulate business and should impose few if any taxes, both of which hamper a person’s ability to run their enterprises as they wish. They tend to think churches or private philanthropy should provide a basic social safety net and that infrastructure projects are best left up to private companies. Civil rights protections, they think, are largely unnecessary.
Compare this to the characterization by George Lakoff (here): “progressives [are] about empathy, protection, and empowerment; while conservationism is about obedience, responsibility, and discipline.”
Another key is that conservatives, by nature, seem hobbled by the inability to take long-term thinking into account. Cory Doctorow captured some of this in an essay about “marshmallow longtermism” that I discussed here. Over and over, despite given their business orientation you’d think would be their ability to assess risk and invest in the future, they cut off investments and foreign aid that would have obvious long-term benefits. Is it our election system? They’re trying to benefit only themselves while they can, until the next election throws them out of office?
The problem, as Heather CR goes on, is that Republican rationales for private enterprise above all else (which benefits them in the short-term), haven’t been working out.
But the Republicans are facing a crisis in their approach to the American economy. The tax cuts that were supposed to create extraordinarily high economic growth, which would in turn produce tax revenue equal to higher taxes on lower economic growth, never materialized. Since the 1990s, when the government ran surpluses under Democratic president Bill Clinton, tax cuts under Republican presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump, along with unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have produced massive budget deficits that, in turn, have added trillions to the national debt.
Now the party is torn between those members whose top priority is more tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations, and those who want more tax cuts but also recognize that further cuts to popular programs will hurt their chances of reelection.
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Another perspective: conservatives reflect the values of base human nature. When we all lived in tribes, and not a global community.
The Atlantic, Jill Filipovic, 26 Feb 2025: The Adolescent Style in American Politics, subtitled “The version of manhood placed on display by Trump and his aides is the one imagined by teenage boys.”
Before they’ve grown up and matured.
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An example of irresponsible short-term thinking.
The Guardian, Oliver Milman, 21 Fri 2025: Outcry as Trump withdraws support for research that mentions ‘climate’, subtitled “US government stripping funds from domestic and overseas research amid warnings for health and public safety”
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And of course we know that conservatives prefer strongmen, despite their stated veneration for the Constitution. Further expression of base human nature, which the Constitution was designed to overcome, or at least circumvent.
Washington Post, opinion by Philip Bump, 26 Feb 2025: What political scientists see as worrisome, Republicans see as welcome, subtitled “Many Trump supporters welcome a strongman government, with 55 percent viewing it positively.”
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And so the Trump administration, claiming a “mandate” by winning the popular vote by 1.5%, isn’t even paying attention to its voters.
Timothy Snyder on Substack, 26 Feb 2025: The “Fraud” Fraud
How does Elon Musk use the word “fraud” to dismantle the US federal government?
The term is not as an attempt to describe the world, but to change it. It is a political tool, used by a politician to justify a political action: regime change to oligarchy.
The word “fraud” operates in six ways.
They are: 1, bait and switch: fraud is what others do, while I am a normal citizen deserving of my benefits; 2, the linguistic inflation: a few incidents of fraud justifies eliminating entire departments; 3, the state of exception: the notion of widespread fraud justifies suspending all the rules; 4, the slander of civil servants (as we’ve seen by right-wing commentators in yesterday’s post); 5, the delegitimation of government; 6 and so, the ennoblement of oligarchy.
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And this.
Slate, Jim Newell, 25 Feb 2025: The Republican Party’s Constituency Has Changed. They Aren’t Acting Like It., subtitled “The congressional majority has a priority. It would be really bad for their constituents.”
Republicans are coming off their best presidential election performance with low-income voters in recent memory. According to the (imperfect) 2024 exit polls, President Donald Trump won voters earning $50,000 or less, something he didn’t do in either his 2016 or 2020 campaign. This is a landmark measure of the Trump-era realignment, with lower-income, noncollege voters of all races moving toward the Republican Party, while college-educated, higher-income white voters migrate to the Democrats.
Republican governance, however, has not kept up with these changes.
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But some voters, even Republican ones, are noticing the chaos of the Trump administration, and how it’s affected *them*. (They didn’t vote for Trump for him to do this, they’re realizing. They wanted him to lower the price of eggs!)
Salon, Nicholas Liu, 26 Feb 2025: Spooked by public outrage, GOP aides urge lawmakers to reconsider future town halls, subtitled “Angry constituents and protesters have been giving their congressmembers an earful over Trump-Musk spending cuts”
After an initially tepid response to President Donald Trump‘s return to the presidency, a series of drastic and possibly unconstitutional cuts to the federal workforce has incited anger among people who fear that they and their communities will suffer from those policies. While a handful of protests outside federal agencies targeted by Elon Musk‘s DOGE has drawn the most media attention, viral clips of rowdy crowds at lawmakers’ town hall meetings have since spread across the internet.
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Media Matters, 26 Feb 2025: People are calling into right-wing radio shows to voice frustrations with the Trump administration
With a list of a dozen examples. The first:
Fox host and loyal Trump ally Sean Hannity told a listener who was pleading for the jobs of military vets in the federal government that “there will be other opportunities.” The caller elaborated on their experience: “One of our tenants just recently got laid off from the USDA, and he’s a stable vet, multiple deployments overseas. And yeah, the guy is without a job now, and I’m just afraid that, you know, stuff like this is going to get out there.” The caller noted Hannity’s “soft spot for military and police and EMS and all those guys” and said that it’s “just a little concerning that we don’t let these guys, you know, fall off the wagon here and get neglected, because they’ve done so much for our country.” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 2/21/25]
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LA Times, Mary McNamara, 26 Feb 2025: Column: Donald Trump and Elon Musk are coming for your summer vacation
Considering a trip to a national park? Be advised that the firing of more than 1,000 national parks employees will inevitably lead to difficulty accessing some of the most beloved and iconic portions of this country — the lines at the Grand Canyon and the headache of campsite booking at Yosemite are sure to get a whole lot worse.
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But there is hope. No matter what conservatives think, or propose, you can’t change reality.
Vox, Abdallah Fayyad, 26 Feb 2025: Three reasons why American democracy will likely withstand Trump, subtitled “American democracy is more resilient than you might think.”
The three reasons:
1) The Constitution is extremely difficult to change
2) The Trump presidency has a firm expiration date
3) Multiculturalism isn’t going away
Orwell’s NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR worked in a small, insular country. Big Brother redefined reality (“Ignorance is Strength” and so on) but only in a small, monocultural world. There are many parallels between Orwell’s world and Trump’s world, but there are also many differences, of which these three may be the most fundamental. We live in a global society now, and need to address global problems, and there’s no turning back.
