Rage Left, Rage Right
Today, reading David Talbot’s deliciously righteous “analysis” of the roots of the popularity of Al Franken and Howard Dean among the Democratic left, it occurs to me what precisely underlies the partisan rancor that has infected our political life for the past generation. I’m not speaking here of the dark agendas that motivate the inner circles – I’m talking about the irritating wedge issues that drive millions of decent Americans on either side of the political debate into emotional fits of frothing rage.
It’s pretty simple, really. People hate a phony.
In the case of the current crop of Bushies, it’s not necessarily the hardline policies that grate so much as the manifest fact that these guys don’t even believe it themselves. If this were strictly a political debate over policies, it might be possible to reach a consensus. Some may disagree with me here, but I think there is an on-the-merits case to be made for most of the conservative agenda, from deregulation to tax cuts to an assertive foreign policy posture in the Middle East. Many right-wing libertarians are far ahead of the so-called liberals on issues like Internet privacy, copyright law, drug policy, and homeland security. Even opposition to abortion could conceivably be reconciled with genuine pro-family values if it were simply about ending the procedure, accompanied by a concomitant emphasis on sensible sex education and contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancy and genuine, tangible programs to support reluctant mothers with choices and dignity.
But, compromise here isn’t the point. These are “wedge issues” meant to divide us, not bring us together around real solutions. At base is a tribal affiliation among the true-believers. The words uttered by Bush and his crew do not attach themselves with genuine meaning to policies and proposals, but signify basic themes that are understood by his audience in very particular ways. It is fundamentally different from the malleable, inclusive language of politics and diplomacy, and for that reason is uniquely ineffective as a tool for convincing skeptical audiences – as Bush found out in the debate over the UN Resolution last fall. But what is most outrageous is the gap between the plain meaning of the words spoken and the hidden meaning that everyone recognizes but goes unexpressed, and therefore holds the speaker unaccountable.
This seems, from the Bush-hater perspective, to be a novel development of this administration. In fact, however, a similar dynamic was at work in 1994, when conservative anger touched off a sea-change in the political landscape. Let’s leave aside for a moment the question of how much of that reaction was manufactured by screaming-head talk radio hosts and a highly-organized right-wing propaganda operation. There was genuine outrage there, and not all of it was unsophisticated, hate-filled or necessarily wrong.
By 1994, when those people looked at the Democratic party and listened to people like Bill Clinton, Tom Foley, and Jesse Jackson, they didn’t hear the words coming out of their mouths and consider them in good faith and spirit. They heard pretexts – sweet-sounding programs that in fact were mere justifications for the transfer of wealth and power from themselves to an undeserving constituency of urban elites, minorities and corrupt unions. It wasn’t just that they disagreed with the intentions and outcomes of those proposals – they hated the act of deception they believed was implicit in the manner in which they were being proposed. Just the term “politically correct,” for example, denotes a presumptive arrogance that rankles even when its intentions are noble. That alone is enough to piss a lot of people off.
And you know what? It wasn’t an unreasonable position. Elements of Democratic politics had become riddled with special interest influence, and the governing party then was just as indifferent – arrogant, even – as the one we’ve got now with respect to the kind of outcome-oriented scrutiny that many are now insisting be applied to Bush’s programs. As to the packaging of the message: well, I think even his fans would agree that forthright sincerity was not Bill Clinton’s signal virtue.
It was this combination of the suspected unspoken and deeply destructive agendas that laid behind the façade of Democratic policy proposals, and the glib, shameless insincerity with which they appeared to be communicated, that turned opposition to Clinton into rage. Yes, there was calculated manipulation by party hacks and ideologues, plus the culture-war component, but it was that sense of being lied to and manipulated that was the pea under the mattress for the foot-soldiers of the Gingritch uprising.
In the end, it comes down to temperament. No one likes being lied to, but people put up with it for their own reasons. Some people look at Bush and see someone trustworthy, because he lacks the habits of more sophisticated habitual liars. Some people look at Clinton and cut him slack, because anyone that smart probably understands the issues properly, even if he’s lying about them at the moment. In either case, the gap between words and deeds is enough to push people with a sincere interest in actually solving the problems at hand into paroxysms of rage.
That rage paid off for conservatives in ’94. It remains to be seen if it can translate into results for Dems in ’04.
8:07:07 AM 
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