Thursday, September 30, 2010

Tea And Honey

As a political pundit, Stanley Fish is a great Milton scholar.  His latest New York Times piece keeps up his record of being different without necessarily being right.

It's on the Tea Party movement.  He believes treating them with contempt plays into their belief in an unanswerable, condescending ruling elite.  What to do?

Mayor Bloomberg may be right when he says (in explaining his endorsement of Cuomo over Paladino) that “anger is not a governing strategy,” but it sure is a campaign strategy and it is one the Tea Party and the Republicans it has tutored know how to execute. [....]

Don’t sling mud down in the dust where your opponents thrive. Instead, engage them as if you thought that the concerns they express (if not their forms of expression) are worthy of serious consideration, as indeed they are. Lift them up to the level of reasons and evidence and see how they fare in the rarified air of rational debate where they just might suffer the fate of Antaeus.

It’s at least worth a try, because the way things are going we may soon be looking at Senator O’Donnell, Governor Paladino and, down the road a bit, President Palin.

The funny thing here is in allegedly appealing to our higher selves, he's being just as condescending as the people whose tactics he's questioning.

He simply can't see that the Tea Party movement is no more angry or emotional than any other political group that wants change.  For years the left was more likely to take to the streets, and if there were any editorials, they were more likely about how refreshing it is to see the people speaking their minds.

If anything, the Tea Partiers seem less angry than most opposition movements.  Doesn't Fish remember the widespread, intense hatred of Bush?  And there was plenty to go around for Clinton, and the elder Bush, and Reagan, too.  For better or worse, this level of debate is politics as usual.

Fish honestly seems to believe his side (which sure ain't the Tea Party) is the reasonable side, with the better arguments.  Thus 1) it's their duty to raise the level of debate and 2) once the debate is on a higher plane, they will naturally win.  But both sides here believe they're the rational one, and it's the other side that will lose in a fair debate.  Truth is the differences aren't merely based on misunderstandings, but more fundamental disagreements.

So if you really want to stop sneering at the Tea Partiers, then stop pretending one side stands for reason and enlightenment, and the other simply doesn't understand what's going on but wins because it fights dirty.

Finally, note this is just strategic advice.  Fish considers a Senator O'Donnell or Governor Paladino so self-evidently horrible that he doesn't need to explain why (or, more to the point, why they'll be worse than many of the polticians we've got now).  But Fish admits his advice may not work.  And if it doesn't, guess it's time to go back to treating them with richly-deserved contempt.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Denver Guy said...

Excellent comments. I honestly don't see how the left fails to connect the visceral hatred expressed toward George Bush with the disdain felt by many on the right toward Barack Obama.

I remember in 1980 when the day after Ronald Reagan's election, my college newspaper published an edition with a completely black front page. It shocked me. The paper actually has the distinction of being one of the oldest publications in NY state. It's editors and journolists strove to emulate professional newspapers. They purported to report events fairly.

Plus, they seemed generally shocked, (Shocked!) that America had turned its back on Jimmy Carter. Had they never read anything besides their own copy? Had they ignored the polls? It was at this moment that I understood what people mean by the "ivory tower."

Ronald reagan was the first politician that was routinely "hated" by the left. Whena Reagan was shot, all kinds of pundits were caught unofficially saying "good" (not to mention all manner of pacifists on campus). Nixon was hated, but Nixon had actually committed some terrible acts.

Having learned the lesson from the Reagan era, the right personally "hated" Bill Clinton. Then the left hated George W. Bush (with a little lapse for 9/11). And now the right hates Barack Obama. I believe this is an unfortunate development in American society, because it means the at least a third of the country at any one time has utter contempt for the government in power, which can't be good.

8:47 AM, September 30, 2010  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The difference is, while the left did not like George Bush, they gave him the honeymoon period that is traditionally reserved only for Republican presidents. His honeymoon was extended significantly by the advent of 9/11. I would say the hatred came out in force only in about the last year of his first term.

The right jumps in immediately with no honeymoon period for a Democratic president to try his ideas. There is no allowance for a possible mandate or any time when the Republicans question whether their policies that came just before might have put them, or their country into a mess. The visceral hatred starts immediately along with direct blocking of the entire agenda.

11:00 AM, September 30, 2010  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Once again, this is more about getting people than getting people in. I think all of this is a smokescreen- the "left" and "right" are probably equally hated. All the Dems need to do to become more popular than the Reps is fall out of power.

The same forces propelling the teabaggers (FOX news named'em that until they figured it out) and sort of the same sentiments that propelled Obama in 2008- both in the primary and general- a complete and utter contempt for the people in the charge whether you call them "insiders" "elites" "professional pols" "Hacks" etc... Obama compared to Hillary was not the typical and seemed new and promising (and this was long before the real economic crash hit in the fall). More importantly he was not Geo Bush (Tom Friedman has stated that Obama's only mandate was to be different from George Bush and in many ways he hasn't been and he is now more closely associated with one of the warring unpopular factions. The TP candidates are clearly the antithesis of elites and have no regard for elite values- they have their fair share of crazies but they are popular for being the complete opposite of those in power (or at least perceived to be in power) We need crazy government for awhile so that ordinary decent criminals can come back into favor.

3:09 PM, September 30, 2010  
Anonymous Denver Guy said...

You think George W. Bush had a honetmoon period? He was absolutely pilloried from the day he stepped into office because the left never accepted that he had won the election. He was portrayed as a chimp and a puppet of Dick Cheney immediately.

It was only 9/11 that gave him a respite, as the country tried to pull together to face a common threat. Anon 1, I think you have a selective memory of the period 1/01 to 9/01.

8:45 AM, October 01, 2010  
Anonymous Denver Guy said...

You would have to show me evidence that Fox News coined the term "Teabagger." It has been a pejorative term from the outset, and a disgusting one at that. Those who use it betray their visceral hatred of the right.

8:48 AM, October 01, 2010  

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