THE existentialist challenge of the late 1960’s. Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller wrote 70 top hits across 6 decades. Think Elvis Presley. This was a very unusual song for them, based on novelist Thomas Mann’s late 19th century writings and echoing the 1930’s German world.
I always thought that this was a song in Cabaret. Life sucks and then you die. Today, I see it as a more positive tune. Despite the challenges of life, we always have a positive path forward.
Finkam won 36% of the primary vote versus 32% each for Woody Rider and Fred Glynn. Her 4,595 vote total was just 400 higher than her two opponents. Finkam and Rider are experienced city council persons who have mostly supported the pro-growth, pro-density, pro-investment, pro-debt, pro-quality of life policies of 28-year mayor Jim Brainard. The mayor has been able to pursue a moderate, activist strategy as a Republican in this high income, growing suburb because he has delivered positive results. Finkam emphasized transparency and governance improvements in her campaign. Glynn campaigned and voted as a “fiscal conservative”, previously winning district elections for county council but losing elections for mayor and state representative. Rider was endorsed by Mayor Brainard and mostly campaigned on a continuation of the mayor’s policies, even though he had opposed the mayor on a number of issues historically.
Carmel has 63 precincts. Finkam won 25 while Rider and Glynn each won 19. This was a true three-way election. Finkam exceeded the neutral one-third of the vote in her winning precincts by 480 votes while Glynn beat the 33.3% benchmark by 323 votes and Rider gained 158 net votes in his winning precincts. In her 25 winning precincts, Finkam mostly pulled extra votes from Glynn. In Glynn’s winning precincts he earned 284 votes above the neutral level, reducing Rider’s votes by 188, but Finkam’s by just 96. In Rider’s winning precincts he earned an extra 193 votes, reducing Glynn’s votes by 158 and Finkam’s by just 34. To summarize, Finkam won the most precincts, and she won a few extra votes in the precincts that she did win. She and Rider both won votes from Glynn while Glynn mainly took votes from Rider.
Finkam enjoyed an average winning margin of 29 votes in her winning precincts compared with 23 for Glynn and 16 for Rider.
Finkam’s top 10 winning precincts delivered 518 extra votes versus 430 for Glynn’s top 10 and 238 for Rider’s top 10.
Two measures of “clearly winning” precincts mostly provide the same results. I used the standard deviation of percentage votes earned and the standard deviation of votes won above the one-third expected level to determine “clear” precinct winners.
Finkam clearly won 12 precincts, Glynn 10 precincts and Rider 5 precincts. Finkam clearly lost just 5 precincts while Gynn lost 12 and Rider lost 9. On a net basis, Finkam clearly won 7 precincts, Glynn lost 2 and Rider lost 4.
In a close 3-way race, two candidates can win more than one-third of the votes. Carmel has 63 precincts so 21 is the minimum required for a win. Finkam earned at least one-third of the votes in 39 precincts compared with Rider’s 26 and Glynn’s 24.
Finkam had the fewest 3rd place finishes, losing 17 districts, compared with 21 for Rider and 25 for Glynn.
Another way to slice the vote is to compare the number of votes versus a neutral 33.3% finish. The distribution of votes at the precinct level points to 15 extra or short votes as a material win or loss. Finkam earned a dozen such wins and just 4 losses by this measure. The net vote result in these precincts was 297, indicating that vote differences in just one-fourth of the precincts delivered her win. Glynn had 8 positive and 12 negative precincts with a net loss of 114 votes. Rider had 3 winning and 10 losing precincts, resulting in a loss of 142 votes.
Finkam’s precinct votes were most opposed to Glynn’s, with a negative correlation (R) of -0.60. Her correlation with Rider was a much lower -0.39. Glynn and Rider reported a middle level correlation of -0.52.
Rider’s 5 clearly winning precincts were broadly scattered. Foster Grove, Northwood Hills, Windemere, Lennox Trace and Westfield. He was competitive in most precincts but did not have a clear winning pattern.
Glynn leveraged his strengths around his home and campaign history near 106th and Keystone. He strongly won 7 precincts in this area: Orchard Park, The Woodlands, Holaday Hills and Dales, Homeplace, College Plaza, Chesterton and Carolina Commons. He also won 3 older areas of Carmel: west of Clay Terrace, 136th/Guilford = Old Meridian/Main Street and Thistlewood at 136th/Spring Mill.
Finkam’s strength was in the newer and wealthier areas north of Main Street (131st Street). She won Cool Creek North and Foster Ridge in the central area of Carmel. On the west side, she won Hunter’s Knoll, Spring Mill Ponds, Spring Mill Streams, Spring Mill Farms and Kingsborough. On the east side she won Plum Creek Farms, Avian Way, Settlers Ridge, Cherry Tree Grove, Briarwood and Legacy at 146th/River Road.
Carmel’s voting precincts can be divided into 9 geographical areas using 116th and 131st/Main Street to divide vertically and Spring Mill Road and Keystone/Carey Road to divide horizontally. By this split, Finkam won 4 regions (W, N, NE and NW), Glynn won 4 regions (C, S, SE and SW) and Rider won a single region (E). Finkam won a very strong 44% of the vote in the northeast, gaining 258 votes, mostly at the expense of Glynn. She also won a solid 39% in the northwest, winning 65 votes, mostly from Glynn. Glynn had a strong showing in his home South area, earning 46% and 142 votes, but his advantage was divided between lost votes by Finkam and Rider. He also earned a strong 39% share in the Southeast, but these extra 58 votes were mostly taken from Rider. Glynn had small wins in the Central district, taking 17 votes from Finkam and in the Southwest district, capturing 26 votes from Rider. Finkam’s fourth winning district mainly took 38 votes from Glynn. Rider’s single winning district was a near tie with Finkam, taking a total of 92 votes from Glynn.
Overall turnout was just 19.7% in Carmel in this municipal election. 86% of voters cast ballots for the Republican mayor’s race. This makes the ratio of Republican primary voters to registered voters just 16.4%, or one out of six registered residents.
Turnout in the precincts won by Finkam, Rider and Gynn varied materially from 18.3% to 16.0% to 14.2%, respectively. If the precincts all had 16.4% Republican primary voter turnout, Finkam would have lost 62 votes and Glynn would have earned 76 additonal votes, a small fraction of the 400 vote margin.
Rider and Finkam together won 68% of the vote, confirming that two-thirds of Carmel voters generally approve of the retiring mayor’s general strategy and policies. Finkam was able to solidly convince the northern subdevelopment residents that she would do a better job than Woody Rider.
Democrat Miles Nelson was elected to the city council in 2019. He is running for mayor this year. Carmel has become more Democratic in the last 20 years. I don’t think that a majority of Carmel voters will reject the path of the last 3 decades.
Conservative, suburban, small town Indiana Carmel elected Jane Reiman and Dottie Hancock as women mayors from 1980-1992. I think that Sue Finkam gets a small advantage as a woman candidate in this environment.
Since WW II pollsters have tracked Americans’ opinions on the most important problems or issues facing the nation. Politicians learned early that “framing” the issues was their most important tool. Helping the media and thought leaders to prioritize and highlight the “most important” issues became job one. Framing policy responses as positive, negative or “beyond the pale” became job two. The pollsters ask the questions in different ways and get slightly different responses, but the overall results are usually pretty clear. The media tends to focus on the “top 5” or the increasing differences between Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Through time there are nearly 50 items that appear as material, most important for at least 4% of Americans in a survey. This focus on the “top” and the “differences” tends to hide major changes in public perceptions.
I’ve tracked the surveys back to 1948. I group the issues as policies versus institutions. I split the issues as foreign and domestic. I split the domestic issues as economic and social. I divide the social issues into those generally favoring Democrats versus Republicans. This summary shows the public’s views on the most important issues from 1948-2020 grouped by presidency.
War, terrorism, international trade and nuclear weapons were 12% (1/8) of the top issues historically. They are close to 0% today. Republicans have been more hawkish historically, emphasizing the threats to the US. This has been a political winner for them, criticizing Democrats for being “soft on defense”, “soft on terrorism” and “soft on China”. This appears to be a relatively minor political issue today with Democrats maintaining Trump’s more hawkish policies.
The economy is the top priority today for 30% of poll respondents versus 44% historically. Within the last 75 years the US economy has progressed from a moderate business cycle to stagflation to a minor business cycle plus disruptions model. Booms and busts were normal in the prewar period and the early post-war period. This pattern was moderated in the sixties, but the “guns AND butter” approach of Johnson and Nixon drove a stagflation period during Carter’s presidency. Since that time business cycle expansions have been longer, recoveries have been quicker and recessions have been mainly triggered by “exogenous” factors like oil prices, stock market crashes, real estate busts and pandemics. The economy is not as important today as it was historically. That benefits the incumbent president/party on the down cycle and limits the benefits to the president/party on the up cycle.
Democrats are benefitting today from the best job market in 50 years. Jobs were a top priority for 12% of respondents in the past, a top 4 issue. Jobs are a minor 1% concern today.
The federal budget deficit has been a political weapon for Republicans against Democrats who generally believe that some degree of deficit spending in pursuit of other policy goals has a neutral effect on the economy. This was a top issue for 12% of the people historically. It is a top issue for just 1% today. Citizens have witnessed business cycle and ongoing deficits that have not created havoc. Republican presidents have overspent as much (or more) as Democratic presidents. This issue was a lower priority today in the second half of the Obama presidency and Trump presidency. It is becoming a somewhat larger issue today, but mostly just among Republicans.
The overall “economy” was top-rated by 15% historically and 13% today. This has become a very partisan measure, with opposing parties criticizing the results of the incumbent presidents. The US economy has proved resilient and better at creating value than other countries throughout the last 75 years. Despite current Republican criticisms, Biden is winning this one.
Inflation is another important economic measure. Inflation grew through several business cycles in the 1970’s-1980’s before becoming a non-factor for 30 years. The pandemic, supply chain disruptions, Ukraine export limits and rapid recovery of goods demand after the pandemic shock drove high inflation beginning in 2021. Inflation averaged 5% of the top political priorities, but it was mostly focused on a small period of time. Today, inflation/gas prices are a large 15% priority. This hampers the incumbent Democratic presidential party.
Social issues that tend to benefit the Republican party have grown slightly from 18% to 22% of the total. Culture/morality and education remain minor at 3% each. Concerns about crime are at 6%, comparable to the historical average. Concerns about drugs have fallen from 5% to just 1%, despite the “opioid crisis” which greatly impacts the white middle class. Concerns about immigrants have more than quadrupled from 2% to 9%. Trump resurrected a powerful wedge issue despite a downward trend in illegal immigration. The recent increase in immigration from central America and Venezuela has given this issue strong legs.
Social issues that tend to benefit the Democratic party have increased by two-thirds as top priorities in recent years, from 15% to 25%. Poverty, wages, inequality and affordable housing combined remain in the 4-5% range, mostly just a progressive Democrat issue. Health care funding, coverage, obesity and nutrition have declined from 7% to 4% as a top issue. Obamacare is now accepted (even if grudgingly) as part of the country’s “safety net”. Race and racism are just a little more important at 4% versus 3% historically despite the increased media attention paid to police killings and progressive Democrats’ attempts to elevate this as a core issue. Gun control and mass shootings have grown from near zero to 5%. Democrats, independents and a share of Republicans feel a strong need to “do something” about gun crimes. The Supreme Court decision to vacate “Roe v. Wade” and Republican states’ tight abortion laws have motivated Democrats and independents to revive this as significant issue, even though the 3% score is not as meaningful as many articles have portrayed the impact on local elections. The environment/climate change was an immaterial policy issue after the passage of basic laws in the 1970s. It has grown to a solid 5%, driven by Democrats and younger voters. One-fourth of voters make these liberal leaning issues a top priority, including a decent share of independents and moderate Democrats.
A fourth category is the role of government, politics and leadership. Concerns about polarization and lack of unity have grown from zero to 5% as a top issue. Concerns about government and leadership have grown from 10% to 18%. Combined, this is a doubling, from 11% to 23%. This is a mixture of left, right and center voters. Republican concerns about government as a threat to individual liberties grew in the 80s and 90s, and then again with the Tea Party movement in the 2010’s. Republican concerns about “deficit spending” and “funding social security” have grown with each Democratic administration. A non-negotiable commitment to no tax increases is a Republican candidate requirement for the last three decades (strangle government in the bathtub).
Some of the increase is an increased emphasis by Republicans. I believe that most (75%) of the increase is due to centrists and independents watching their power undermined by the far-right wing of the Republican party, which has eclipsed the moderate, Main Street, Wall Street, New England, RINO, philosophical conservative and neoconservative factions. Extreme economic and social issues positions were adopted by national Republicans even before Trump (think Sarah Palin).
Centrists and independents also look at the Bernie Sanders, progressive, New York, California, green, woke, media, university wing of the Democratic party as being foreign to their views and priorities.
Centrists, moderate Democrats and some Republicans express increased concern about “preserving Democracy” following the rise of concentrated single party state power, partisan gerrymandering, politicized judiciaries, politicized local elections (school boards), unlimited campaign financing, debt ceiling brinkmanship, decreased civility, Supreme Court nomination politics, various Trump attacks on the independent power of federal agencies and the January 6th threat to a peaceful transition of power.
Overall, I’d say that the 23% that identify government/politics as a top issue is roughly balanced between the two parties, with the concerns driven by quite different reasons.
Category Recap
The economy is a lesser political factor today, garnering 30 percent versus 44 percent historically. The economy has done very well in the last 20 years, despite the Great Recession and the Pandemic.
International issues, trade, war and terrorism have declined from 12 percent to zero. The middle eastern wars and “war on terrorism” have left most Americans with little appetite for foreign wars. Funding Ukraine’s war and imposing maximum sanctions against Russia are supported, but any escalation is taboo. Similarly, the country is ready to support a “tougher stance” on China, but not ready for real escalation or a fight for Taiwan.
Republican leaning issues that emphasize fear of attacks from “others” maintain a slightly increased 22% share of top priorities. The increased emphasis on preserving individual/family choice on education, libraries, religion, media, and university wokeness is not yet apparent in the numbers, but media coverage of these issues has grown in the last few years.
Democratic leaning wedge issues on guns, abortion and climate have grown from near zero to 13% as a top priority. Traditional concerns about race and inequality have not grown as priorities despite data and situations that might be expected to move public opinion.
Republicans increasingly doubt the legitimacy of government activities and politics. Democrats increasingly doubt the legitimacy of government actors, processes and polarization.
This is one blog post that I won’t file under the “good news” category.
“This was first conceived as a book about cognition and decision making … it became a book about morality and the inner life”.
0. Introduction: Adam II and the “Eulogy Virtues”
Contrast the Adam I “resume virtues”: job market, external success, career, ambition, building, creating, producing, discovering, status, victory, how things work, venture forth, utilitarian logic and success with the Adam II “eulogy virtues”: kind, brave, honest, faithful, relationships, moral, serene, right and wrong, love, sacrifice, truth, soul, why things exist, return to roots, charity and redemption.
We all live these two selves, but there is an inherent tension between their competing claims.
Adam II logic is inverted: give to receive, surrender to gain, conquer desire to get what you crave, failure leads to the success of humility and learning, forget to fulfill yourself, confront your weaknesses, not just leverage your strengths. [Nietzsche’s “weak religion” claims echo here]
American culture today prioritizes the “resume virtues”. School and career competition. Product marketing. Fast and shallow communications. Self-promotion, elevator speech, LinkedIn. [These are not new criticisms. See Daniel Bell’s 1976 “The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism”.] The emphasis and power of the “transactional” virtues have grown since 1945 or 1976 to make the modern world almost unrecognizable from earlier times.
Brooks describes this imbalance producing merely a “shrewd animal”, capable of playing one game, with a vague anxiety about lack of meaning, boredom, missing love and unattached to any moral purpose making life worthwhile. Inner consistency, confidence and integrity are missing. Without developed morals, the achievements of Adam I are undercut.
Brooks promises to deliver an “older moral ecology” for modern times by sharing biographical essays. This is the “broken timber” tradition, emphasizing human weakness, brokenness, sin, moral drama and development. He admits that no simple outline or list of principles is adequate. Moral development requires an individual journey, experiences, feelings, intuitions, awareness, a community, principles, choices, feedback, small steps and habits. Each person’s journey is different.
Those who are further along on the moral journey have certain characteristics: inner cohesion, calmness, ability to face adversity, persistency, consistency, dependability, reservedness, reticence, humility, kindness, cheerfulness, restraint, respect, temperance, balance, dignity, centeredness, service, comfort, quiet action, receptivity, reflection, support and depth. These are the classical moral virtues. They are less common, but no less important today.
1. The Shift
The central fallacy of Adam I life is that accomplishments and the pursuit of happiness will produce deep satisfaction. The Adam II view is that desires are infinite, fleeting and an inadequate basis for a meaningful life. The ultimate joys are moral joys pursued by living a moral life, in spite of our flawed nature. Brooks argues that our culture since WW II has lost the experience, language, norms and habits to encourage most people to pursue the moral life rather than just the surface-level materialistic life.
V-J Day celebrated the end of the war, the second “war to end all wars”. News coverage highlighted the views of politicians, celebrities and regular people. The tone was one of self-effacement and humility. This is it. What can you say? Thank God it’s over. We won because our men are brave and many other things. I hope we are more grateful than proud. Joy, yes. But solemnity and self-doubt too.
Brooks inserts the disclaimer “in so many ways, life is better now than it was then”. Racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, conformity, limited cultural options, cold culture, hierarchy, rigid parental roles, etc. His vignettes and text highlight the benefits of “the moral journey” without claiming that any formula, church, culture or person were perfect. His deepest point is that humans are flawed (sinful), but in spite of that nature, they can lead a morally worthy journey. He is concerned that today we don’t emphasize this dimension of life, reducing opportunities for individuals and society as a whole.
The “greatest generation” displayed humility. Even most of the celebrities shared these characteristics. Bragging was considered gauche or “out of place” by every class. People were more grounded, skeptical, balanced and aware that everyone has challenges and demons to face. The “hardness” of life in the generation after the “roaring twenties” had impacted habits and culture. Cabinet members served; they didn’t write memoirs.
The “Big Me” view of life, focused on child development started immediately after the war with self-help, get ahead and parenting books all aiming to apply the “humanistic” psychology that contrasted with Freud’s much darker view of humans and humanity. Rock and roll and the “swinging sixties” receive more press, but they were part of an overall change in popular culture rooted in an individual oriented psychology that gave less emphasis to the non-individual dimensions. Human nature did not change. People did not become more evil. But their focus started with the individual and often simply stayed there.
Brooks cites data showing that individuals today consider themselves more important, display more narcissistic traits and pursue fame more often. Popular culture reinforces the parenting and schooling changes. “You are special. Trust yourself. Follow your passion. Don’t accept limits. Chart your own course. You are so great”. Part of this was a reaction to the “conformity” of “mass society” in the 1950’s. But the reaction swung to an extreme rather than finding a new and better balance.
Brooks outlines why the Adam II, eulogy virtues path of a moral journey is “better”. Self-effacing people are aesthetically pleasing. That is, Brooks simply likes this style. Self-promoters are fragile and jarring. Humility is intellectually impressive. It takes great effort, insight and discipline to offset our natural tendency to embrace ignorance. Humility leads to wisdom, not merely knowledge. The path of wide-awake “trial and error” supported by a community develops insights and confidence. Wise people have learned to see things from multiple perspectives and broader perspectives, to know their own limits, to integrate pieces, to reach tentative conclusions, to deal with issues, accepting that others may make better choices in the future. Humility has a direct moral value, avoiding pride and hubris.
Wise, humble, moral individuals approach life as a journey. They start with the same broken human nature and grab-bag of talents and weaknesses. They experience highs and lows. But they learn from the lows as they are open to learning, feedback, looking inside, restarting and taking small steps forward in hope of improving. This self-awareness allows them to not become distraught by their repeated brokenness, but to embrace the human condition, the opportunity for grace, help from others and always another opportunity. This apparently “negative” or “pessimistic” view of life leads to a tempered optimism, a confidence that these small steps are the essence of a good human life and that despite the backsliding, the journey is good. They also accept that the demand for moral perfection remains but cannot be fulfilled. In spite of this, they move ahead graciously and positively.
Brooks emphasizes the complementary side of the semi-sweet, bittersweet, self-disciplined path he has outlined. Austerity and hardship play a role, but love and pleasure are required too. The experience of nature, people, love and art are required to be humble, wise and human. There is a balance again. Devotion to a cause, service and mystical wonder are essential ingredients of the journey. This journey has an “everyman” quality, encouraging individuals of all classes, professions and backgrounds to join in and support each other.
The author reiterates that “human nature” has not changed in the last 3 generations, but our culture has moved to an “individualistic” extreme that encourages parents, children and adults to focus on the “success” dimension of life above the “moral” dimension. We are losing the habits, language, examples, understanding and beliefs needed to maintain the “moral” dimension as an important part of our civilization.
2. The Summoned Self: Frances Perkins
Brooks uses the life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s multiple-term Secretary of Labor, to develop the ideas of a moral journey, a calling or vocation and the tension between different aspects of a person’s self and their environment. In thumbnail terms, Perkins was one of the first liberal, feminist pioneers, advocating for women’s, children’s and worker’s rights. She reflected her stern and religious New England upbringing and the special guidance of Mount Holyoke at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Perkins’ “calling” arrived when she experienced the horrific Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, when she was 31. Dozens of eighth through tenth floor workers died from a fire where the exits had been blocked. New York City reacted with mourning, outrage and shame. Working conditions had been highlighted by a strike two years earlier, but management had prevailed, and society had ignored the ladies’ plight. Prior to this time Perkins had worked in her field of social service in a conventional manner, but now knew that she would truly have to devote her life to improving working conditions, even at personal cost to herself in terms of time, methods, dress and relations.
Brooks describes today’s commencement calls to individuals to “follow their passion, to trust their feelings, to reflect and find their purpose in life”. Their best role is to be found by looking inward. It is to be shaped in Adam I terms: what is my purpose? what do I want? What do I value? Inventory my talents. Set some goals and metrics of progress. Map a strategy and go. Apply your self-determination achieve self-fulfillment.
In prior times, highly talented, driven and aware individuals like Perkins approached these questions from the opposite side: what does life want from me? Servants don’t create their lives; they are summoned by life to meet the needs of their time and place.
Brooks highlights Victor Frankl’s 1942 experience in Nazi concentration camps where he was positioned with “no choice”, but was able to identify his one remaining choice, to focus on the gap between stimulus and response, to decide what response could be made in the worst environment. Frankl could choose to not surrender, to focus on the wishes of others, to serve, to educate, to preach, to work out a means of survival. Most people try to avoid suffering. Frankl embraced it and survived. Lived experience and the condition of society can (and should) play a role in determining one’s vocation, not just personal reflections.
The author describes a vocation as a “calling” versus a job or a career. Some are called by God, indignation, nature, literature, or a personal experience. The vocation chooses the individual. A vocation is not chosen on a utilitarian basis to maximize happiness. The person becomes an instrument of the cause, religion, movement, industry, tradition or profession. They are part of something larger than themselves that applies across time. Such a vocation is serious, but not burdensome. The rewards of professionalism, craftsmanship and service are fulfilling even if conventional success is not assured or achieved.
Perkins’ background was nineteenth century New England Yankee. Dead serious, parsimonious, earnest, brutally honest, focused, reticent, self-reliant, egalitarian, and emotionally tough. Yet the social conservatism was combined with communal compassion, local government action and a faith in education. There was a balance, or sorts. Mount Holyoke existed to help teenagers become adults by shaping their moral character, identifying weaknesses, building discipline skills, wrestling with religious obligations, connecting themselves with life, identifying opportunities to serve, tempering idealism, pursuing heroic causes with humble steps. Perkins selected a I Corinthians verse for her class motto: “Therefore my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord”.
Perkins “career” included roles as a teacher, social worker, manager, lobbyist, leader and public policy analyst and influencer. She served in New York State commission roles before becoming Secretary of Labor. Her views were shaped at Hull House in Chicago which directly involved women with the local poor and immigrants, offering a wide variety of services in a cooperative environment. Staff were taught to serve God and the cause rather than individuals, so that they would retain their motivation.
Perkins was effective in promoting her causes, using her knowledge and passion to sway legislators, owners and journalists. She embedded herself into every needed political environment to become influential, going where ladies had not gone before, playing real politics, compromising as required, even dressing to look older and appeal to the “maternal instincts” of her audience. While Perkins’ career looks like a linear success, her personal life was difficult and cold, at best. Her husband and daughter suffered from mental illness. She managed them and kept this separate from her public life. She retired to live in a dorm and teach at Cornell.
Perkins believed in reticence. She kept her private life private. She did not feel a need to use her inner feelings, passions and desires as tools for public policy. They belonged in private. Brooks notes that Perkins had her weaknesses. She was not best at emotions, intimacy, public relations, introspection or softness. As a woman in a man’s world, especially the epitome of labor relations, she was “all business”. On the other hand, Perkins’ “all business” approach was successful and she was humble about her style, pioneering status and results. Anyone else with the same opportunities would have done the same things, she said.
Perkins was an astute observer of people, managing FDR and writing a biography about him. She appreciated FDR’s adopted style of humility and interactions with people. She saw that his incremental, probing, seeking, improvising, balancing decision-making style was successful, even if it was difficult for his colleagues, opponents and the world. She noted that he crafted policy as an instrument of the process, not as an engineer himself.
Brooks summarizes her great political results in defining, supporting and delivering the New Deal. He contrasts her insignificance as a Mount Holyoke student, shaped by a system that chipped away at her weaknesses of laziness and glibness to then pursue idealistic goals as a servant of mankind. She set aside her own image and family to pursue this calling. She met each new challenge and steadfastly pursued objectives. She combined activism with reticent traditionalism, hesitancy and puritanical sensibility. How unlikely a career path. But, not so unlikely as a calling for a young lady enrolled at Mount Holyoke in 1900.
3. Self-Conquest: Dwight Eisenhower
Dwight Eisenhower is another leader of the FDR era, born in 1890 and raised on the frontier prairie around Abilene, KS. Brooks uses Eisenhower’s life to illustrate self-conquest and moderation.
Ike’s father David had limited career success, was quiet, somber, solitary and difficult. He married Ida Stover and raised 5 boys, each remarkably successful. Ida was born in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in 1862, lost both parents of her large family by age 11, and worked as a cook for a family as a teen. She moved away, finished high school, joined a westbound caravan and settled in Kansas. She studied music in college, married David Eisenhower and joined the River Brethren church, which believed in plain dress, temperance and pacifism (!). While Ida adopted the strict faith of her church, she maintained her warm, joyful, optimistic, vibrant, gregarious personality and belief that each person must make their own faith choices.
The boys were raised in this economically marginal, but psychologically mixed home. No drinking, card playing or dancing. Plenty of Bible study and verses. A focus on thrift, self-discipline, chores, manual labor, temperance, self-restraint, self-wariness and natural risks. The prairie was an unforgiving atmosphere that emphasized prudence, hard work and endurance.
“Sin” remained an important enemy in the Eisenhower home. Ida and Dwight were both schooled in Bible verses and skilled at applying them to real world situations. The need to “conquer sin and your soul” was obvious. Developing character was a central part of life. Brooks shares that we don’t speak of “sin” today, even though human nature has not changed, and we still experience a dual nature of being selfish, deceiving and self-deceived while also showing God’s image and seeking transcendence and virtue. The darkest Puritanical obsession with sin lies in our historical past. The Victorian commingling of “sin” and pleasure is mostly gone. The use of “sin” as a catch-all term to ensure that no one has fun is less common. The use of “sin” as a tool for strict parenting, irrespective of moral development, is also fading away. So, we are left with the downside of human nature, but no vocabulary to describe it.
Brooks argues that the moral concept of sin cannot be ignored because it is so central. Despite the materialistic scribblings of some scientists and philosophers, life cannot be reduced to atoms and forces. People make moral decisions. Bad choices are not simply errors or mistakes. They are choices made within competing moral forces and shortcomings. Sin is a social term. Our decisions impact others. Their expectations impact us. We recognize the universality of sin in our neighbors and seek help and forgiveness. Sin is real. Individuals “know” right from wrong. We still do the wrong thing. We don’t want to be hard-hearted, cruel or ignore situations, but we do. Our talents drive complementary shortcomings from exaggeration or pride. Sin is large and small, mostly small. The habit of avoiding small sins helps to avoid large sins. Small sins lead to large sins. We face moral choices every day. Moral character is built upon the control of our partially sinful nature.
Ida Eisenhower lived a “both/and” life. She was funny and warm-hearted but demanded compliance with her rules. She required work and offered freedom. She demanded that her family cultivate the habit of small, constant self-repression. Etiquette, attending church, deference, respect, plain food, avoiding luxury, keeping the Sabbath. Practice the small outward disciplines to build character. Work hard. She also used love as a character-building tool. Love of children, country, the poor, giving and neighbors. Strict and kind. Disciplined and loving. Sin and forgiveness.
Dwight always had a temper. Ida helped him learn to control it. At West Point he excelled at demerits. Although he mostly controlled his temper, Ike’s colleagues and subordinates learned to read his face, watch his neck arteries bulge, observe his moods, and avoid him on brown suit days. Ike was aware of his challenges. As a staff officer, he adapted to his superior. He focused on the details and processes to produce results. He identified and studied the habits of his most effective colleagues. He guided disagreements and complaints into the trash or his diary. He bought into the military’s hierarchical culture and accepted that his best place was where the military assigned him. Ike was happy to assume a persona as a staff leader, general or president. He used the persona to his advantage.
Ike was slow to fully blossom. He entered full service after WW I, behind thousands with higher ranks and experience. He remained a lieutenant colonel for two decades. His brothers gained early career success. Yet, Eisenhower continued to serve his country and develop his craft, earning honors and attention for the performance of his duties and his school record. He was attached to Generals Connor and MacArthur for a decade, mastering politics, management and leadership. When his time arrived, he delivered. He was able to bridge between competing factions and earn the respect required to make critical decisions and win support. Ike kept the focus on the team, praising victories and embracing defeats closely.
Ike was not a saint, a visionary, a creative thinker, a brilliant strategist, a leader of human rights or a warm human being. He was comfortable with himself. He was comfortable with his second self, the persona required to achieve his objectives. Brooks notes that this inauthenticity is often criticized today. Being true to oneself is seen as a supreme value. Ike put this in perspective.
Brooks praises Ike’s moderation. Once again, we have a flavor of both/and rather than either/or. Moderation is not compromise, average or equanimity. It is the ability to identify conflicting perspectives or dimensions and use the best of them to make practical decisions. Conflict is inevitable. A fully harmonious person does not exist. A single coherent philosophy cannot guide all choices. Various political goals are incompatible. In politics, philosophy and personality things don’t fit together neatly. Passion and self-control. Faith and doubt. Security and risk. License and liberty. Equality and achievement. Order and liberty. Individual and community. The key is to recognize that clean solutions do not always exist. Good solutions require balance, long-term and short-term, practical and ideal considerations, action and calm. Like FDR, Ike saw that incremental decisions may be the best choice.
The “moderate” instinctively considers options, accepts compromises, considers goals and values, incorporates multiple perspectives, separates means from ends. He or she is wary of simple solutions, single truths, zealotry, and unbridled passion.
Brooks does not say this, but this is the historical basis for “conservatism” from Edmund Burke forward. The accumulated wisdom of history, tradition and society is a valuable counterweight to the latest progressive insight, breakthrough or revolution. The conservative is wary of risk, especially the biggest risks. This approach reduces those risks.
Dorothy Day is less well known than the others featured in this book and perhaps the most difficult to summarize, categorize, explain or relate to. Born in 1897, she was a radical Catholic social worker. Her life was shaped by a seeker’s need to know, to connect, to understand, to matter. She delivered results for millions of people and inspired millions more. She challenged orthodoxy and promoted versions of the Catholic faith and social practices. She is a feminist hero. She is recognized as a “servant of God” by the Catholic Church and may become a saint someday. I’m guessing that Brooks included her to provide a left leaning example in his pantheon of heroes, to explore conversion and suffering as virtues.
After a challenging first 30 years of life, Day joined the Catholic Church because she saw the practical and ideal effects it had on poor immigrant workers in the city. She was rebounding from a series of disappointments but had discovered romantic love and experienced childbirth and motherhood. She needed a new and better answer to her striving for truth, beauty, justice and meaning. Initially, she was drawn mostly to the orderliness of the religion, but she saw that its doctrine of radically true equality of individuals could be the basis for real, transformational service.
She built upon her previous radical politics and journalistic experience to found a newspaper advocating for workers. This evolved into a newspaper that served the working people, soup kitchens, food pantries, group housing and political activism. Brooks notes that she wanted to demonstrate the ideal of true human service to others, partly to address human needs, but also to set a radical example to challenge individuals to read and reflect upon the church’s teachings.
Throughout her life, Dorothy Day was a seeker, a feeler, a maximizer, a searcher, a dramatist, unbounded, fearless, driven, experimental, focused and testing. She wanted to know truth, beauty and justice. She burned with a passion for this wisdom. She deeply felt the virtue of unity and the pain of separation. She looked for new perspectives and understood that there are many layers of depth in our journey. She lived day to day, but honored history and eternity. In the end, she knew that she could not fully achieve this kind of mastery or certainty as a human but was grateful for her life and her religious experience.
In her youth and young adulthood, she actively sought but did not find. She began writing at a young age. She was a voracious reader from a young age of philosophers and “deep” novelists. She learned about the conflicts between the spirit and the flesh at a young age and explored this tension into her thirties. She explored alternative lifestyles, living arrangements, work, drinking, drugs and sex. She was attracted to radical politics, especially addressing injustice. Brooks interprets this as her heart was in the right place, but without a proper structure there was no ability to connect with the infinite, the eternal, the transformational until she was a practicing member of the Catholic Church.
Day was “wound so tight” that she never experienced the deep serenity which many other saints have been claimed to find. She pursued service and community and practice, but retained a doubt if she was “good enough”. Was her action pure or prideful? How could one know? She served the community, but did she do enough for her family? She chose to remain celibate after losing her partner and father of her daughter due to irreconcilable religious and political differences. This human longing was never refilled. She innovated, served, lectured, lead others, wrote, lobbied and impacted millions, but was this enough? Was it the best course? She lived in community with the poor and colleagues but still felt alone.
Day embraced suffering. She was hard on herself. She accepted small windows of relief. But she was relentless. What else can I do? Brooks outlines the potential good of this kind of radical suffering. Suffering can help the seeker to find a new dimension, a deeper reality that leads to a better world. Suffering is a natural byproduct of an honest complete search for holiness, divinity and the perfect life. Suffering connects us with others who need help and who share our universal experience. Suffering allows an individual to “hit bottom” as in a “12 step program” and surrender to a higher power. Suffering can help us to empathize with others as they actually live their lives, different from our experience. Suffering jolts us away from our everyday, surface, bourgeoise, Adam I life. Suffering ensures that we understand that we are not in control, we are not self-sufficient. Suffering exposes layers and dimensions that we had tried to hide. Suffering teaches gratitude. We gain perspective on the “highs and lows” of life. Suffering can connect us to history, providence and God. Suffering can lead individuals to their vocation or calling, or at least scare them away from false gods. Individuals can respond to deep suffering with magnanimous responses of community service.
In the end, Day found enough to satisfy her longings. Her experience was “good enough”, adequate, but still not perfect. She continued on her journey, adapting, improving, adjusting and praying. She embraced order, routine, service, communion, motherhood, community, prayer, writing, reading, discipline, practices, and much progress that was made for the poor, the community and the world. She was gracious and thankful for her life’s experiences. That was enough.
5. Self-Mastery: George Marshall
The memory of General George Marshall is fading from public consciousness with time. As an Army general, he led the overhaul of training and prioritization of senior officers to prepare the US military for WW II. He served as Army deputy and chief of staff for FDR, advising the president, managing relations with Congress and the press and preparing for the D-Day invasion. After the war he served as ambassador to China, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and leader of the “Marshall Plan” to rebuild Europe.
Other American leaders considered him the very best in a time filled with heroes. Towering intellect, unnatural genius, integrity, selfless devotion to duty, beyond all influences, telling the truth, immensity of integrity, terrific influence and power, no politics involved, trying to win the war the best way.
Marshall was born in 1890 and raised in a small Pennsylvania coal town. His father was a successful small businessman who risked everything on a real estate venture and lost. Marshall experienced childhood poverty in a proud family distantly related to Supreme Court Justice John Marshall. George was an unengaged elementary school student but “buckled down” in high school when he heard his brother say he did not want George to follow him to the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) and embarrass the family.
Marshall enrolled at VMI and found the school’s history, tradition and military culture to be a good fit. VMI had produced many Civil War generals and considered itself like West Point despite the Confederacy’s unfortunate outcome. VMI was part of an older military tradition that intended to shape the character of young men bound for future public leadership. It combined ” a chivalric devotion to service and courtesy, a stoic commitment to emotional self-control, and a classic devotion to honor”. It believed that leaders were made, not born. VMI taught reverence for the heroes of the past as a way to define, form and motivate self-discipline and build character. Marshall blossomed at VMI where he “excelled at drilling, neatness, organization, precision, self-control and leadership”. He graduated without a single demerit and was the unquestioned leader of his class.
Brooks emphasizes that this training to be a “great leader” does not fit with today’s “find yourself” and “express yourself” model of personal development. Leaders are public servants. They should strive to be magnanimous, to rise above the passions of mere mortals. Holding power, they will be subject to the risks of abusing that power, exaggerating their own weaknesses and strengths. They will need to rely upon their own good judgment as they are subject to the pressures of politics. Hence, they must develop a core sense of “right and wrong” and habits that allow them to work alone as necessary, seeking advice but not relying upon coalitions. They must develop complete self-control to attract and wield power and influence, for others and upon themselves.
This style highlights the role of institutions, society and traditions versus the individual self. The self is weak and subject to influence and emotions. A stoic self-reliance is needed. This is built from the outside in by practicing self-control in the small things of life; drill, decorum, etiquette, language, erect posture, shiny shoes. By building and applying the habit of self-control to daily routine, the leader is able to apply it in the great decisions, where it really matters.
Like Eisenhower, Marshall was caught in the after WW I period with more experienced officers holding the higher-ranking positions, preventing his promotion for two decades. Marshall did serve in WW I as a logistics officer and caught the attention of General Pershing who moved him to his general staff office. Marshall served mainly as a staff officer, managing things like ordnance, logistics and training. He excelled in these roles but only won his promotion to general at age 58.
Marshall applied and exemplified the military virtues. As an aide to others, he subordinated his views to theirs, applying extra energy to ensure that their wills and orders were delivered. He was loyal to the military as an institution. It came before him and would follow him. He was honored to participate in the institution, gaining from it and contributing a bit. Brooks highlights the role that professions and institutions can have in counterbalancing self-centered individualism. Through participation an individual is shaped and molded to think like the group, to serve, to mirror the culture and ethics of the group. The connection between an individual and the group is more than transactional. It is more like a solemn commitment to support, learn, serve and honor the wisdom of the collective whole and those who had served before. In return, the group connects the individual to a meaningful something that is larger, and which lives on. Some might call this a conservative viewpoint while others would describe it as a balancing force.
Marshall’s picture could appear in the encyclopedia under the entry for soldier or general. He looked and acted the part. Stoic, reliable, dead serious, private, attentive to details, focused on victory, impatient with politics or frivolity. He was a reserved person with few close friends. Personable but not garrulous. Devoted to duty and his two wives, but not interested in “club life”, he filled key roles because of his talents, trustworthiness and history of delivering results. He was a natural leader, a revered leader, but not an inspirational leader in today’s terms of public speaking, charisma and emotional impact.
Despite his slow academic start, Marshall learned to apply himself academically. He developed an outstanding memory for details. He learned to connect mission, vision and values with strategy, tactics and logistical details in the most complex situations. He was an innovator, willing to overhaul procedures to make them more effective. He was willing to set aside emotions and potential consequences and “speak truth to power” as required. He refused to ask FDR for the D-Day leadership role because he honored the president’s role in making such a decision based upon all factors, including personal and political ones.
Marshall was not perfect. He could be cold, rigid and aloof. His distaste for the frivolous part of politics and journalists sometimes leaked through. He didn’t have a large group of friends or allies. In the end, he was a “magnanimous” leader as VMI sought to create. He pursued a leadership role in a public institution where it was best for him to be “above the fray”. Society needed someone to lead, advise and deliver reliably, without second guessing their motives. Society needed some individuals to look and act like “heroes”, hiding the doubts and shortcomings of the leader and society. This leader was made of marble, qualitatively different from others but committed to his nation. This leader earned great honors because he was worthy of them based on achievement and character. In the post-sixties, post-Watergate, post-Clinton era we struggle to truly “look up” to any leaders. We prefer irreverence.
Marshall died just shy of his 80th birthday. He ensured that there was no big ceremony, no grand eulogies, just a soldier’s honorable burial.
Brooks next chooses two civil rights leaders who are not as well-known as Martin Luther King, Jr., but who had the same level of impact on the African American community and the US between 1940 and 1970. “Dignity” is an ironic title for this chapter. There is clearly great dignity in the cause of civil rights, the dignity displayed by these two leaders and the dignity mastered by civil rights action participants. I am a man. We are men. We belong. We are morally strong. We have God and history supporting us. However, Brooks’ main message, in my reading, is not about simple human dignity. Rather, it is that the greatest achievement of the post-war, modern “liberal”, secular, individual rights world view, real civil rights, was achieved by self-doubting radical conservatives.
Randolph was born in 1899 in Jacksonville and moved to New York City in 1912 after completing high school. Rustin was born in 1912, raised and educated in Ohio and Pennsylvania before moving to New York City in 1937. Both were deeply influenced by the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church and the norms of the emerging Black middle class. Both were good students with strong interests in the humanities. Both mastered the precise speaking skills and manners required for Blacks to hope to advance in a still racist world.
Randolph pursued “dignity” as a goal. He was taught that he could and should “transcend” his social environment. Son of a minister, he was a student of the Bible and familiar with the roles of ancient and modern heroes. He adopted a formal, polite, dignified approach to life, emphasizing self-control, self-mastery, renunciation and self-discipline. He accepted being poor and considered luxury as a temptation or even a moral failing. He understood that he would need to be a moral leader in all of his work, eliminating any signs of corruption or self-dealing in order to attract followers and participants in his political, union and civil rights efforts.
Like Marshall, he looked at the big picture and saw a need for public leaders who would be “different” from regular people, held to a higher standard, relied upon as solid and ethical, aware of their own potential faults but self-aware and self-correcting. He would need to be “public-spirited”, working to identify a common core of beliefs, policies and actions that met the public’s needs and were effective, even if they weren’t his own exact beliefs.
Randolph started as a radical leftist, promoting Marx and the Russian Revolution. He became more pragmatic in his work and as a married man and Harlem socialite. He worked as a union organizer, earning some victories. He worked with the Pullman Car porters for a dozen years, attracting union members and union recognition, followed by a breakthrough contract in 1935, giving him a high national profile.
With the build-up to WW II, the country needed more war production but failed to employ the Black workforce in large numbers. Randolph was able to persuade FDR to issue an executive order prohibiting discrimination in war factory production. Randolph used the threat of a “march on Washington” to achieve this goal. FDR blinked, perhaps reconsidering his statement that “You can’t bring a hundred thousand negroes to Washington, somebody might get killed”. Other civil rights leaders urged Randolph to use the threat of a march to push for greater victories, but he chose to not push any harder at that time. Randolph used his public standing, charisma and moral integrity to promote civil rights in the 1940’s.
Randolph adopted Gandhi’s nonviolent resistance model in the late 1940’s, opposed by many other civil rights leaders who subscribed to the “arc of justice” view that education, prosperity, communication and modernity would slowly persuade Americans to drop their prejudices and advantages and offer equal opportunities and equal rights to all. Brooks emphasizes the “ironic” nature of nonviolent resistance. It is designed to use weakness to build leverage against the powerful oppressor by forcing him to act and expose his worst side and thin excuses. It requires extreme self-discipline to embrace the suffering required for effectiveness. It is rooted in the biblical prophecy tradition, calling upon higher principles, demanding justice, forcing confrontation rather than simply hoping for good-will and time to prevail. It embraces a religious view of broken man, requiring strong forces to move him out of his sinful thoughts and habits.
Rustin was shaped by the AME church and the Quakers. A scholar, poet, speaker and athlete, Rustin had many talents and many interests. He began as an organizer in a Christian pacifist organization. Linking religion and politics, Rustin tried to combine a path to inner virtue with a strategy for social change. Rustin became a speaker and organizer for the civil rights movement, risking his life in various civil disobedience acts. He chose to go to jail for his pacifist beliefs rather than do service as a conscientious objector during the war. Even within prison he promoted desegregation. Following his 3-year prison term, Rustin resumed his civil rights activism.
Rustin accepted his gay self during college and found some support from his tolerant family and a Harlem subculture, but America at that time did not tolerate this personal option. Despite Rustin’s attempt to fill the role of a morally solid, dignified, respected leader, he was tempted by promiscuity. This caused him and his organizations problems leading him to back out of any public leadership role in 1953. He remained engaged as a civil rights leader, training, organizing and promoting activities, events and other leaders.
In 1962 Randolph and Rustin revived the idea of a massive “march on Washington” as a way to pressure president Kennedy to act rather than just study or discuss civil rights legislation. The more progressive and traditional civil rights leaders initially opposed this escalation, concerned about the risks and the potential reduction of their political influence. The Birmingham marches and police responses raised the temperature and convinced most to support the “march on Washington”. Randolph and Rustin organized and led the march. King served as the headliner. It attracted attention and served as a “tipping point” for civil rights.
Brooks emphasizes the active nature of the civil rights movement based upon a “crooked timber” view of man. This was not a more radical “Black Panthers” approach, but it was radical nonetheless. The participants were willing to invest their lives into a cause, an institution, greater than themselves, on behalf of their ancestors and descendants. The leaders understood that extreme action was required. They understood that their own actions were subject to the same human weaknesses. Action required leadership. Leaders quarreled and indulged their own weaknesses. Yet, these leaders prevailed.
Mary Anne Evans was born in a small central England community in 1819, as the Victorian age was digesting “cracks in the faith”. Her father was a carpenter and middle-class land agent/manager. Her mother struggled with severe medical challenges and died when Mary Anne was 16. Mary Anne and her siblings attended boarding schools. She received a superior education for a young woman of her time but was required to return home and become the female head of household when her mother died. Biographers contrast this extremely intelligent and well-educated young woman with an emotionally deprived young woman.
Evans began her fiction writing career at age 37 and was soon world famous. She adopted the pen name George Eliot to shield her personal life from public attention and to ensure that she would not be pigeonholed as merely a woman writer. Silas Marner, Adam Bede, Middlemarch and her other works are considered classics of Victorian, British, Western and World literature.
She is considered one of the first to truly describe the inner self. (Freud’s influential writing began a quarter century later in 1890). D. H. Lawrence wrote “It was really George Eliot who started it all. It was she who started putting the real action inside”. She is considered a master of “realism”, describing local worlds, characters and times as they fully exist. Her work is prior to “depth psychology” or purposely making characters represent or illustrate abstract philosophical, psychological, scientific, artistic or political viewpoints. She introduces women as deeply real characters, on par with men, emphasizing their real-world interactions, not just romantic fantasies. Her novels are written bottom-up, inside-out, organically or holistically, connecting the pieces as in real life, allowing readers to see multiple levels and perspectives. She is considered a perceptive and empathetic author, highlighting the real character development of ordinary people. Her work is noted for its excellent plots, descriptions, dialogue and character development, especially moral development.
In 1840, when Evans came of age, the Enlightenment, Protestant Reformation, Counterreformation, Scientific Revolution, Colonialism and Deism were old news. The Industrial Revolution and rapid urbanization were causing problems in Europe and the United States. The philosophy of Locke, Hobbes, Voltaire, Hume, Diderot and Kant was widely understood by intellectuals. Hegel was seen as a leading new voice. John Stuart Mill was consolidating the Utilitarian perspective. Fichte, Schiller, Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, Emerson, James and Spencer were attracting attention. While the Victorian Age was socially conservative, this was a pivotal period in intellectual history with increasing challenges to the “received Christian tradition”.
As an intellectually precocious youth and young adult, Mary Anne digested the newer views in the context of her “lived experience”. At 21, she encountered Charles Hennell’s early “historical Jesus” work and agreed that there was little evidence to support the claimed miracles. She befriended Charles Bray who proposed a combination of a watchmaker God/Deism and Social Gospel activism based on deeply understanding the rules God provided. She translated Feuerbach’s “The Essence of Christianity” from German. Feuerbach proposed that the essence of Christian morality could be preserved through love. Love was the highest power and truth, capable of triggering transcendence. Her husband, George Lewes, was freethinking and romantic. He was knowledgeable about French and German life and writers. He was witty and effervescent in a British society that valued dour self-importance.
Brooks outlines Eliot’s journey of character development. She began as a very needy individual, intellectually advanced but emotionally handicapped. She sought love, acceptance and affirmation, but did not find them. She smothered her brother, father and a series of men, but failed to win their affection. Biographers say that her neediness and plain appearance were equally damaging in not reaching her goals. At age 23, she informed her father that she could no longer practice a religion which she did not believe in. This led to a dramatic separation and reconciliation. Evans began to learn that intellectual principles must be applied, weighed, compared and balanced with other human, familial and social considerations. Brooks notes that her intellectually driven need to pursue “the truth” helped her to apply the same principles to herself, seeing that she was selfish and narcissistic.
Mary Anne applied her intellectual talents as a writer and editor with some success. She pursued men and failed to win them. She developed intellectually and emotionally through her twenties. She was romantically attracted to the young philosopher Herbert Spencer, but this did not work out. Evans was disappointed at age 32, but was incrementally developing her worldview, self-confidence, dignity and agency.
Mary Anne met George Lewes in 1851 at age 32, and they agreed to “marry” in 1854. Lewes brought much baggage. He had been married to a woman for 11 years who had a long running affair with another man and children. Lewes adopted the children and never divorced his wife. Mary Anne and Lewes moved to the Netherlands, Germany and other continental countries to escape the inevitable rejection from British Victorian society.
Brooks describes Evans’ relationship with Lewes as based upon “intellectual love”. Evans continued to seek someone who would affirm, support, accept, embrace, value, engage, understand, and love her. Brooks asserts that she found this. They shared a world of ideas, the pursuit of moral and intellectual truth, common acquaintances, intellectual experiences and a vocation.
Brooks views “love”, however derived, as an even larger force than mere agency and sees it applied in Evans’ life with Lewes and her remarkable literary career. Love is described as reorienting the soul, losing control, falling, irrational, surrendering, vulnerable, naked, weak, broken, fused, affirmed, growing, giving, receiving, poetic, losing mind, magical, submissive, embracing, local, specific, narrowing, transcendent, awakening, enlarging, energetic, softening, serving, amazing and caring. Whew! He claims that Evans and Lewes were transformed and ennobled by their mutual claims and commitments to each other. Evans viewed marriage as a spiritual rather than a legal connection and observed the conventional dimensions of married life with her new husband.
Evans and Lewes continued to learn on their European journeys. She started writing fiction at age 37. Her works were quickly well received. She had leveraged her inherent talents of observation and empathy with her position as a “marginal” person in society, carefully watching her interactions with others skeptical of her status as a member of society. Eliot never achieved a self-confident state. She wrestled with anxiety and depression. Writing was a struggle. She had to feel the experience of her characters in order to translate them into words.
In the end, Eliot was a radical, innovative, breakthrough author much at home with the intellectual developments of her time. Yet she was a traditionalist honoring the ways and values of her time and her father. She was a realist about life, most famous for describing the reasons for unsuccessful marriages. In her writing and her philosophy, she adopted no grand schemes. Her successful characters worked within their own limits, trades and neighborhoods. They lived incremental, practical, cautious lives, reflecting who they were. They were humble, tolerant, sympathetic and decent. They grew practically and morally by making small decisions. They were honest men and women pursuing their lives within a social fabric.
Like many coming 19th century philosophers and novelists, Eliot points to day-to-day life as the answer or meaning of life in a disenchanted world. Local experience. Practical institutions like marriage. Small decisions of self-control, duty, sacrifice and service. Daily work in a vocation. Tolerance and acceptance of neighbors. Embracing the ugly, stupid and inconsistent people in life as they are. Cherishing all possible hopes.
Brooks summarizes Eliot as a “both/and” inspiration. “Tolerant and accepting, but also rigorous, earnest, and demanding. She loved but she also judged”. I think Brooks chose to highlight Evans/Eliot because she considered the intellectual forces rejecting Christianity, agreed with the detailed criticisms, but remained focused on the need for a society based upon broken human nature and practical possibilities within a set of familiar local experiences and institutions.
8. Ordered Love: St. Augustine of Hippo
Brooks attempts to condense Augustine’s life, journey, conversion, theology and impact into 16 short pages! He focuses on the contrast between an upwardly mobile rationalist and skilled rhetorician and the passionate tugs of his own heart and his mother.
Brooks highlights irony, contrast, tensions, complements, duality, evolution and journeys throughout this book as he seeks to illustrate, teach, inculcate and build character. Augustine’s conversion story is familiar to many who have read it in church, Western Civilization, political theory, theology or psychology classes. He was one of the first authors in the western tradition to look deeply inward. He was already knowledgeable about several religions and highly skilled as a teacher of rhetoric before his conversion to Christianity. He was a seeker, a searcher, ambitious, advancing, proving, learning, and enjoying. He was successful, but he felt a void, a gap, something missing.
Looking inward, he found brokenness, crooked timber, original sin, a self which was unmanageable and inconsistent. He knew what was right, but he did otherwise. Repeatedly, passionately, with self-awareness. His self-awareness and emotional depth made this contradiction a big problem. He tried to ignore it, but once he was aware of this gap it continued to grow. He tried to delay confronting it, but as a “seeker of truth”, he had to consider its meaning.
He also found that the void in his core pointed towards the infinite, the eternal, to God. He was unable to find the “answers” in himself, in his daily activities and success, even in his seeking. The base of life had to be in God, not in his self.
Augustine contrasted the shortcomings of the dualistic, good and evil, Manicheans with the Christians who also had idealistic principles, but who focused more on the individual person or soul, who worshipped this “son of man” and “son of God”. The Christian faith both pointed towards the awesome God and to the individual man, made in the image of God. As part of the Judeo-Christian tradition, this religion emphasized personal responsibility and wrestled with man on earth and man in spirit. It provided a richer tapestry for faith.
Augustine focused on the concept of Grace, the forgiveness of sins and embrace of man by God solely due to God’s choice, not earned by man. This would later play a key role in Luther’s thinking. For Augustine it provided a way to undercut the deeply felt desire of a seeker of wisdom, truth, control and pleasure to manage his own life. The individual by himself was unable to make true progress in life. Without a framework, order, principle, crutch, lever or basis, he was condemned to flail, to dig his hole deeper with every action. With this intuitively felt God, expressed in the historical story of Jesus on earth, an individual could start with a reliable context of meaning and spirit. Most importantly, it meant giving up control of the journey, method, way or approach.
The individual needed to surrender to the graciously given Love of God, the embrace of God, the acceptance from God in order to turn away from selfishness. The goals, passions, methods, and failures of the self could be replaced by a simpler way. The failures of achievement could be replaced with responsive service. The individual was not then made perfect, but the gnawing disappointment and anxiety of striving could be calmed. The balance between the ineffective self and the most effective God could slowly but consistently improve.
Some of this path is closely tied to Augustinian Christianity. Brooks argues that the broader journey and components are more universally applicable. Connecting with a philosophy or community that is broader than yourself. Managing selfishness. Wrestling with pride. Honestly observing human behavior. Honestly looking at your own psychology, habits, tensions, motivations and shortcomings. Considering the full effects of your behavior, habits, goals, passions, and priorities. There are no “easy” solutions. The journey remains a journey with suffering, hope, happiness and thanksgiving.
Brooks emphasizes the paradoxical nature of Augustine’s journey. Seeking builds skills, talents, knowledge, experience and desires. Roadblocks inevitably fill the path. Progress is made in some places but not in others. The pain of unfulfilled progress drives courageous self-assessment. Augustine uses his best skills to find a “compromise” solution. “Make me chaste, but not yet”. Like Rene Descartes, Augustine searches for what he “cannot doubt”. He identifies his own imperfection and the mysterious call of God. He wrestles with these maxims and everything else he “knows”. He seeks help. His friend, God or the spirit point him to a Bible passage. This verse helps Augustine to more clearly see the human predicament. His personal striving is inadequate, no matter how hard he tries to find an answer. The solution is to “let go and let God”, to accept grace, to listen, and to hush. This diminishing of the human mind allows the self to be connected with God and then confidently embrace a path chosen by God. This path does not lead to earthly achievement but does provide a way for life today and for eternity.
The meek shall inherit the earth. Paradox is an appropriate response to man’s condition.
9. Self-Examination: Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson was born in 1709 in a small England town to undistinguished parents. At age 37 he contracted to write an English dictionary, which he completed in 8 years, defining 42,000 words and documenting 116,000 appropriate quotations. He wrote scientific and legal texts for others. He wrote a book of 52 biographies. He created the purported words of speakers in parliament for two years based upon an informer’s summary. He wrote thousands of essays on diverse subjects. He was a leading figure in British letters, a noted conversationalist and friend to dozens in all classes.
Johnson suffered from early medical issues that made him partially blind, deaf and lame. From an early age he recognized that his handicaps constrained him and made others interact with him in various ways. He chose to actively engage in the battle to live his life. Johnson had diverse interests and a short attention span. He learned from his solid primary and secondary classical educations. He took advantage of his father’s books and read widely. He was basically self-taught. He attended Oxford for one year without learning much due to his attitude and the more conventional approach to learning which it required. He did show glimpses of outstanding work and learned that he could function at the highest level.
Johnson left the university after one year. He tried teaching but failed. He continued to learn on his own. He married a woman 20 years his senior. He started a school which failed. His health deteriorated further, developing behavioral tics and fighting depression. He continued to engage with life and people and devour his food and live “hand to mouth”. At 28 he departed for London and supported himself as a freelance writer on the edge of poverty.
His career and life began to blossom when he started crafting his imagined versions of parliamentary speeches at age 29. Johnson built upon his talents. He leaned into his problems and “managed” his suffering. He interacted and engaged broadly even though others mostly rejected him. He developed his craft of reading, discussing, observing and writing. He remained a generalist at a time when specialists were starting to prevail. He was pragmatic, skeptical and determined. He was a social person despite his rejection by most. He decided to be proud and to leverage his pride as a way to combat his feelings of envy. He had an outstanding memory for details and an ability to link memories to context. He was comfortable with details and particulars, aware of general theories but more comfortable drawing smaller lessons. He chose to see the world as a moral place and was motivated to engage and make the world better. He saw the world as it was and was intellectually honest about himself, his acquaintances and men in general.
Johnson had great gifts and major handicaps. He was motivated to engage and improve despite the many headwinds he faced in his first 30 years of life. He was temperamentally a fighter. He was persistent and displayed grit or what the Finns call sisu. He had the ability to digest mountains of material, observe people and synthesize any situation into a summary that included the essence of the situation and some broader implications, including moral implications. He could clearly express his thoughts, integrating his broad learning into his expression. He benefitted from his interactions with people of all walks of life and some of the greatest thinkers of his time.
In addition to suffering, pride and envy, he emphasized charity and mercy in his writings. He disdained pity for handicapped individuals and sufferers, but he empathized with the human condition and believed that individuals were worthy of care and support. As an essayist, he addressed “despair, pride, hunger for novelty, boredom, gluttony, guilt and vanity”. In his breadth of important topics addressed, he compares with Shakespeare.
Brooks argues that Johnson was able to assemble a consistent view of man and morality even though he naturally remained interested in so many different topics and was skeptical of general theories and philosophies. He was a keen observer of himself and others. He was self-critical. He created and tested his ideas about life and morality. He became fearless in addressing difficult situations. He knew his own experience interacting with a difficult world and many different people. He was able to combine this breadth and depth into a practical set of mini generalizations. He was noted for his many insightful maxims about human behavior. Based on his struggles he gradually grew more confident in his ability to manage any situation.
Once again, Brooks encourages the reader to walk away impressed by the subject’s conflicting (dual) attributes. Johnson’s insights were driven by his suffering and his capacity for sympathy. He could see deeply, and he could express what he saw. He combined thinking and feeling. He moved between details and generalizations. He quotes a biographer saying that Johnson was “a mass of contradictions: lazy and energetic, aggressive and tender, melancholic and humorous, commonsensical and irrational, comforted yet tormented by religion”.
10. The Big Me
Brooks contrasts quarterbacks Johnny Unitas and Broadway Joe Namath in 1969 to illustrate the commonly held view that “the revolution” in American culture took place after the “swinging sixties” replaced the self-effacing Greatest Generation with the narcissistic Baby Boomers. Brooks argues that the loss of “moral realism” as the predominant worldview began after WW II when society simply couldn’t handle a future of “dead serious” compliance with strict rules of behavior after 16 years of economic and existential challenges.
Brooks defines “moral realism” as emphasizing “how little we can know, how hard it is to know ourselves, and how hard we have to work on the long road to virtue” … “limited view of our individual powers of reason … suspicious of abstract thinking and pride … limitations in our individual natures”.
He considers romanticism to be the main alternative. Romantics trust the self and distrust the conventions of the world rather than vice versa. Man is inherently good, distorted by social pressures. The individual needs to find himself and develop that self. Nature, the individual, sincerity and identity matter most.
A flurry of positive thinking, self-help, parenting and positive psychology works were embraced after WW II. Be positive, nice, kind, especially to yourself. Break free from the constraints. Carl Rogers urged people to be “positive, forward moving, constructive, realistic and trustworthy”. Pursue self-actualization. “Self-love, self-praise, and self-acceptance are the paths to happiness”. This singularly positive, idealistic and individualistic perspective has shaped schools, curriculums and human resources training. Brooks accepts that this countercultural movement helped to unlock large groups of constrained people (women, minorities, the poor) from socially imposed limitations on life, morality, career and vocation..
Brooks argues that these changes have gone too far. A simplistic romanticism has been turbocharged by faster and more frequent communications, options to personalize each individual’s media consumption and a social media environment that promotes “brand me”. An increasingly meritocratic work world has also pushed individuals to devote more time, talent and effort into competition for apparently limited rewards of money, power, goods and status. Work success has replaced vocation, profession or craft. Work has pushed aside the competing eulogy virtues of Adam II. A tendency to frame all decisions in utilitarian, cost-benefit frameworks has devalued the whole idea of character, sin, ethics, virtues, vices, love, poetry, God, idealism, grace, wisdom and a moral journey. Busyness, status based social invitations and social media status fill the remaining time as a pseudo road to character.
As in his earlier “Bobos in Paradise”, Brooks levies his sharpest criticism upon the upper middle class professional parents who “ought to know better”. Their children are more materialistic. They have unreasonable expectations. Their time is carefully organized by helicopter parents to deliver additional success status to the parents, undercutting the true unconditional love of good parents. Surveys show that we have fewer friends and less intimacy, that we show less empathy. The frequency of use of character terms has declined drastically. Individuals rarely frame decisions in moral terms. Since they rely upon their inner feelings rather than some received or constructed moral framework, they are moral relativists and choose to not judge the character or character journeys of others. A downward spiral continues.
Brooks asks those who believe in moral realism and the overreach of simplistic romanticism to push back. He is not perfectly clear in this final chapter, but the rest of the book emphasizes the notion of pairs of values held in tension. A moral world view is not just positive and idealistic or negative and skeptical. It is a method to consider these conflicting perspectives. We have lost the skills, experience, language and frameworks to consider moral choices and to purposely develop character as a meaningful way of life.
Brooks offers 15 solutions. Live for holiness. Fight selfishness. Use your heroic capacity to struggle against external and internal challenges. Humility is the first virtue. Pride is the central vice. Struggle against sin and for virtue. Purposely build character skills, habits, experiences and preferences. Focus on the long-term, permanent attributes of life. Seek help in building character. Recognize the U-shaped pattern of falling, evaluating, feeling and accepting grace and recovering. Quiet the self enough to listen and defeat weaknesses and temptations. Aim for a practical wisdom built upon experience and history rather than a perfect ideology, theology or philosophy. Organize work around a “vocation” and do your best. Define leadership as finding “a just balance between competing values and competing goals”. Embrace the path of becoming better in your vocation and better as a person. That is the opportunity we are given.
45 presidents. 36 great biographies. Just 20 presidents qualify. 9 presidents hog 24 of the 36 places with multiple entries. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, FDR, LBJ, Nixon, Reagan and Clinton won multiple spots in my ranking. Grant, Adams, JQA, Jackson, Wilson, Hoover, Kennedy, Ike, Truman, Bush, Bush and Carter claimed a single entry each.
As Americans, we demand and deserve the very best. We must demand this level of greatness now and in the future. We have 330 million fellow citizens. The “1%” is 3.3 million residents! So may qualified and experienced people. The Fortune 500 has 500 CEOs, 500 presidents, 500 CFO’s, 500 CIO’s, 500 CMO’s. 50 governors. 3,000 university presidents. 500 hospital system presidents. 100 national law firm managing partners. 50 national CPA managing partners. 100 large national NFP presidents. 1,000 large privately held firms. 100 big city mayors. 500 medium sized city mayors. 50 religious organization leaders. 100 media firm leaders. 100 generals. 1,000 college and pro head coaches. 100 major think tank leaders. 100 investment bankers. 100 venture capitalists. 100 community organizers. 100 ambassadors. 500 Nobel prize winners. 100 senators and 365 congress persons. 500 large school superintendents. 1,000 award winning performing artists. 500 elite athletes.
We live in a meritocratic society. There are 10 to 100,000 people clearly qualified to be the American president. We should never, ever settle for anything less.
The alliance of 13 independent states to become the United States of America enshrined the notion of “minority representation” in the US constitution. North versus South. Different religious majorities. Rural versus urban. Domestic versus international leaning. Free versus Slave.
We should embrace that principle but fine-tune the mechanism. Two senators per state when the population was just 3 million was a practical compromise. The US population reached 300 million in 2006; 100 times larger. The numerical and proportional differences today are simply too large to ignore. Louisiana and Kentucky at 4.6 million people are the median states. The average state population is 6.6 million today. 5 states, SD, ND, AL, VT and WY have less than 1 million citizens. They get 5 to 7 times more representation than the “typical” state. I recommend that we accept this difference as a way to preserve “minority representation” and the legitimacy of our democratic system.
On the top side, four states stand out. California (39M), Texas (30M), Florida (22M) and New York (20M) have populations 5-8 times the median and 3-6 times the average population. [For perspective, note that California’s population today is 13 times as large as the whole country in 1780.]I recommend that these four states be given 2 extra Senators since they have more than 4 times the median state population. Seven states have populations more than twice as large as the median 9M: PA, IL, OH, GA, NC, MI and NJ. I recommend they each get an additional Senator.[California (19x), Texas (15x), Florida (11x) and New York (10x) after these changes are still less represented than the dozen states with populations of just one million, rounded; just not so disproportionately.]
This change would add 15 Senators. It would dilute the “minority representation” of the other 39 states by 15%.
Fortunately, the political impact of this change would be modest, so both parties can support this improvement in political legitimacy. CA and NY are Democratic locks, while Texas and Florida are Republican locks. Illinois and New Jersey are Democratic locks, while Ohio is a Republican lock. Pennsylvania and Michigan lean left, while Georgia and North Carolina lean right. Net, net this change adds one Democratic Senator out of the new 115 seats, an immaterial number.
The Senate is a very important part of our government. It acts as a check on the more representative and responsive House. It approves treaties, constitutional amendments, judges and presidential appointments. The number of Senators drives the size of the electoral college. Changes should not be made without due consideration.
My Republican colleagues might reject this “out of hand” because it costs them a Senate seat today and it reduces the future leverage of less populated states. I think that the legitimacy of our government, to prevent populist winners and civil war is reason enough to “fine tune” our system. Republican oriented Texas and Florida are growing faster than California and New York, so their citizens are the most “disenfranchised” by the current system in the future. A revision might block the pressure to admit DC and PR as states. Four of the five next least populous states are likely Democratic states in the future: DE, RI, ME, NH versus MT, which has some Democratic voting potential. The next, Hawaii, is a Democratic lock. In the next five, KS, NE and WV are safe Republican seats, but Idaho and New Mexico could follow Colorado and Nevada into the other party’s column.
It’s time for all Americans to step out of their partisan comfort zones and think about what is best for the country in the long-term. This is a reasonable change that everyone should support.
Was Trump’s 2016 victory extraordinary? Hillary Clinton, Democrats, never-Trumpers and most journalists and analysts said “of course”. Many competing explanations were offered. Political data analyst Larry Bartels disagrees. Comparing the results of the 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 campaigns, Trump’s percentage vote results are normal for a Republican presidential candidate when disaggregated by gender, race, religion, popular vote and historical Republican voter percentage support. Even though 61% of exit poll respondents said Trump was unqualified to be president and “principled” conservatives and his primary opponents painted him in the most unfavorable light initially, Trump was able to attract the normal Republican share of voters, mostly from the usual demographic groups.
Non college graduate white voters moved to Trump in significant numbers in 2016, especially in swing states, delivering his narrow electoral college win but other voter slices remained “normal”. Given Trump’s many headwinds, the more important question is “how was he even competitive”? Klein’s answer is that American politics, especially at the national level, is highly polarized based upon a binary split of political identities. Voters on both sides voted for their traditional “home team”, their political party, in spite of the wrinkles provided by Trump’s extraordinary campaign, voting against “the other guy” even more than “for” their heroes.
Klein claims that our political system, not the individual participants, no matter how interesting to follow, has evolved to become a self-reinforcing system that builds ever more polarization. He notes that most political issues have been studied by well-meaning academics, advocates and politicians resulting in compromise proposals that could address the basic challenge while meeting some of the desires of the political parties and not triggering rejection from the majority of either party. But when such proposals are made from either team or from blue ribbon panels, the political logic then focuses on the differences and makes real-world political adoption impossible. When “push comes to shove”, politicians decide that they are personally better positioned to fight “the other guys” than to be part of a compromise solution, aka a “defeat”.
The term “identity politics” has been used by Republicans to criticize and undermine parts of the Democratic coalition: blacks, Hispanics, Asians, women, LGBTQ, etc. However, the term is essential because almost all politics is “identity politics”. Individuals support parties, proposals and candidates that match one of their various identities, whether demographic, geographic or based on values. Politics is about defining brands that can be assembled in a coalition to drive political wins by parties, candidates and interest groups. Everyone has personal and political identities and winning political actors cater to them. Klein asserts that today we are more focused on political identities than on specific policies or issues. Further, he notes that our many identities increasingly overlap with the political identity of Red versus Blue, right versus left, conservative versus liberal, Republican versus Democrat. Partisan identities have merged with racial, religious, geographic, ideological and cultural identities. This simplification and streamlining have led political actors to be laser focused on this single dimension helping to further grow its dominant “share of mind”.
1. How Democrats Became Liberals and Republicans Became Conservatives
In 1950 a committee of the American Political Science Association concluded that the two parties were too similar and were doing voters a disservice by not providing them with clearly different choices. Political parties exist in representative democracies to give voters shortcuts. Voters can’t or don’t wish to become familiar with hundreds of policy choices, so they delegate this mission to representatives and political parties. Voters choose to support parties and candidates that roughly align with their values and preferences, especially on the few largest issues or general positions. The problem in 1950 was that the Democratic Party combined moderate to liberal to populist northerners with southerners of various views united by the preservation of their state racial policies. This was a “marriage of convenience” that provided the Democrats with national power and southern Democrats with state control at home. The liberal versus conservative scale had great overlaps in the two parties with many liberal Republicans far to the left of conservative Democrats. Many practicing politicians saw no problem with this system, noting that it helped to unify the country.
In 1959 a Republican Party committee decided that building its platform based mainly on ideological values was unwise. Barry Goldwater’s promise to offer “a choice, not an echo” in 1964 was diametrically opposed to this viewpoint. Goldwater and the Republican Party across the country lost badly in 1964 trying out this new approach. Most politicians doubled down on “moderation” after this result which was later reinforced by George McGovern’s similar loss in 1972. In the 1976 election 30% of Americans saw “no” ideological difference between the parties and only 54% agreed that the Republican Party was more conservative.
Ticket splitting between state and presidential candidates was commonplace into the 1970’s but had nearly disappeared by 2018. Using a “feeling thermometer” with a 1-100 degree scale, voters’ views of their own party cooled between 1980 and 2016 from 72 to 65 degrees, in line with more negative polling results about all kinds of institutions. Yet feelings for the “other” party plummeted from 45 degrees to a very chilly 29 degrees. Negative partisanship changed dramatically during this period. Other research showed that independents in 2000-4 were more consistent in supporting their favored party than were “strong partisans” in 1972-76. Self-described “independents” had grown from 20% to 37% of the electorate, but they were more politically consistent than self-proclaimed party stalwarts of the earlier era. Researchers say that independents vote against one of the parties consistently even though they do not align with the other party. We like “our” party less, but we dislike the “other” party much more.
The US has a long history of claiming that we prefer moderates, centrists and independents, going all the way back to George Washington. We dislike parties, factions and partisans because they highlight “conflict”. Historically, we prefer to be seen as “independent”, individualistic, thoughtful, reasoned, flexible, etc. We don’t want to be seen as inflexible or extremist, unwilling to compromise. But as the parties have become more clearly and reliably conservative versus liberal, they have crafted their messages and attracted candidates to match and we, the citizens, have moved along becoming more partisan and less apologetic about it. Survey questions on race, immigration, poverty programs and other issues show growing gaps between the opinions of Republicans and Democrats with the average gap growing from 15 points in 1994 (Clinton era) to 36 points recently. Voters better align with party positions today. Positions between the two parties are further apart. Party supporters increasingly see the “other” party as not just disagreeing, but disagreeable, a growing threat to many policies and values the hold dearly.
Klein provides examples on taxes, international trade, health care and abortion to show that presidents and parties in the 1970’s to 1990’s were still able to embrace compromise solutions on high visibility issues. We all know that has been impossible for the last 25 years. The parties have clarified and aligned their positions on a left to right scale and moved further apart. In this simpler world, voters find it easier to match their views with one party. As voters focus on this single, clear identity and reinforce it for years they find it nearly impossible to break with their self-identity and vote for the “other” party. In 2016, 45% of Republicans and 41% of Democrats saw their opponents as “a threat to the nation’s well-being”.
Challenge: Klein’s overall framework and evidence are compelling for me. However, in many places he seems to overstate his case. This makes the prospects of reform or change difficult to even imagine. In this case, keep in mind that the country is roughly split into thirds between the red, blue and purple. 45% of one-third is 15%. 41% of one-third is 13%. In the hotly contested 2016 election 28% of the population was really concerned about the “other side”. That is a big number, a true weakness in our democracy, but it is a minority position. These positions may be weakly held and subject to “cooling off” with different candidates, issues and party platforms in the future.
2. The Dixiecrat Dilemma
Southern Democrats were termed Dixiecrats in the post WW II era. The 11 states of the Confederacy had founded stable one-party authoritarian states in the 1890’s and maintained them for the next 70 years in alliance with the national Democratic party. Robert Mickey is quoted as saying “these rulers curtailed electorates, harassed and repressed opposition parties, and created and regulated racially separate – and significantly unfree – civic spheres. State-sponsored violence enforced these elements in a system that ensured cheap agricultural labor and white supremacy”. As with other one-party authoritarian regimes, staying in power was always the primary objective. Democrats held 90% of elected offices and less than 10% of Blacks were registered to vote.
The Dixiecrats’ regional domination translated into national power within the Democratic party. In the first third of the twentieth century, they comprised two-thirds of the house caucus. They maintained at least 40% of the caucus seats for the next two decades. Based on the seniority system and lack of candidate turnover, southern Democrats ran almost all committees of congress, holding veto power over all legislation at both the committee and party levels. Modern readers are often surprised to see the anti-civil rights positions, or lack of action taken by FDR, Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy, but practical politics played a critical role at that time.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed with the support of 80% of House Republicans and 60% of House Democrats. President Johnson led the arm-twisting, breaking the Dixiecrat-Democrat link forever. Republican presidential nominee Goldwater voted against the bill. Suddenly the Republican party’s small government and state’s rights position became more appealing to southern politicians that were in no hurry to overhaul their local societies.
A little detour. Polarization is not extremism, but it is sorting. Polarization occurs when almost everyone choses one of two options with nearly no one left undecided or in the middle. 50/0/50 for example. 45/10/45 for example. Many political scientists would say 40/20/40 isn’t polarized, just sorted. Klein views “extremism” as how far towards the extreme end of the political spectrum a party’s choice is on an issue. The two parties can completely disagree, but one or both can hold relatively moderate positions when gauged against history or experience in other nations. He also criticizes the idea of a “moderate majority” because most individuals with “moderate” politics scores actually have a combination of left and right views on particular issues, with some being very extreme. He calls this group of people “internally unsorted”. The author is trying to distinguish between polarization and extremism. We clearly have polarization today: less ideological overlap, fewer people in the middle and more tension at the poles. Party positions are not automatically more “extreme” than they were historically.
Challenge: It appears that Republicans after Newt Gingrich have chosen to take extreme, yes/no positions on taxes, budgets, fiscal policy, guns, education, abortion, etc. in order to align voters with the “conservative” axis, to change the terms of debate with Democrats and to improve the effectiveness of their messaging. This appears to have been a very successful strategy.
Between 1955 and 2015, the Republican Party increased its share of non-White voters from 2% to 10%. The Democrats increased their share from 6% to 43%. The electorate became more racially diverse overall, with Democrats capturing nearly all of the change.
In 2014 evangelical Protestants were the largest religious group in the Republican Party while “nones” were the largest in the Democratic Party.
Geographical patterns are becoming more fixed and divided by party. County level results between McGovern in 1972 and Carter in 1976 were largely uncorrelated. Landslide counties with 60% or higher presidential support increased from 39% in 1992 to 61% in 2016. The urban/rural divide is greater and more consistent today. Bill Clinton carried 1,500 of 3,100 US counties in 1992, Al Gore won 700 in 2000 and Hillary Clinton won fewer than 500 counties in 2016, nearly all urban.
A 2017 poll revealed that 65% of Republicans prefer to live in large homes, farther apart, away from schools and shopping versus 61% of Democrats who prefer the complement of smaller houses within walking distance of schools and shopping.
Each of these changes means that political identities are becoming more important as they overlap with other identities and reinforce the political identities. Living with more people with a shared political identity does the same thing.
Klein proposes that a single personality trait sometimes underlies the main differences between liberals and conservatives. One scholar focuses on “openness – a general dimension of personality tapping tolerance for threat and uncertainty in one’s environment”. Another pair say to focus on “your perception of how dangerous the world is. Fear is perhaps our most primal instinct”. A third pair highlight “fluid” versus “fixed” approaches to managing threats and dangers. Liberals hold a basic optimism because they are open to experience while conservatives are closed to such risks, favoring conscientiousness, order and tradition that buffer change. People high in “openness” experiment with food, travel, options and politics. More “conscientious” people are more organized, faithful and loyal. Hence corporate store planners drop Whole Foods stores into Democratic locations and Cracker Barrels into Republican locations.
Challenge: the “entrepreneurial” wing of the Republican Party might disagree. A single conservative versus liberal axis combines a variety of views on economics, religion, race, class, opportunity, justice, fairness, immigration, freedom, international politics and economics which may not be perfectly compatible.
The author is not saying that personality strictly determines political views, but that this general difference in world views is correlated with political positions, so it is likely that personality drives politics at least as much as rational arguments. Liberal political views supporting changes, difference and diversity “fit” with a predisposition to “openness”. Political conservatives naturally overlap with preferences for predictable life in a smaller town, near family, based in faith, frequenting familiar stores.
Other research shows that the alignment between these measures of “openness” and “fluidity” are effective predictors of political views of those who are highly engaged in politics. Individuals work hard to achieve internal consistency. They manage their self-identity. Less politically engaged individuals don’t feel the need to align their votes with themselves. They tend to vote on a more transactional basis, looking for policies that might deliver personal benefits. “When we participate in politics to solve a problem, we’re participating transactionally. But when we participate in politics to express who we are, that’s a signal that politics has become an identity. And that’s when our relationship to politics, and to each other, changes”.
3. Your Brain on Groups
Research demonstrates that “discrimination” is a universal phenomenon. The targets and intensity vary by time and culture. The mental steps and rationalizations are the same everywhere. We have a deep mental capability to classify groups as “we” and “they”. We discriminate against “the other” even if there is no real basis or advantage. This conflicts with the “rational” view that posits that we perceive slights or threats from others and therefore work against them. Experiments showed that it took almost no time or effort to get individuals to adopt a group identity and then to discriminate between their group and another group even when there was no advantage to the home group or even if there were opportunities to increase the total take from the experiment by making more equal choices. Winning, rather than maximizing income, seemed to be the biggest driver of group behavior.
Sports team exemplify this kind of irrational attachment. Sports riots are common in North America, Europe and around the world. “Groupness” appears to be an evolutionary advantage. To be part of a group and make it win increased the odds of survival. To be exiled or see your group beaten by rivals could mean death. Some research links these real experiences of loss to psychological conditions such as social isolation. Some authors note that we have evolved to excel in small scale groups but have also managed to adapt these skills to succeed in much larger social environments. These large-scale associations; nations, religions, corporations, military divisions, universities, research parks, co-operatives, political parties, etc. can deliver positive results OR hatred and violence.
A 2015 paper reports “The behavior of partisans resembles that of sports team members acting to preserve the status of their teams rather than thoughtful citizens participating in the political process for the common good”. Research showed that policy ideas and ideology have moderate effects on feelings, and the strength of partisan identity was a much stronger motivator. “Us versus them” comparisons focused attention on potential “losses”, driving rivalry and anger. Partisan identity was also the strongest factor predicting actual voting. The foot soldiers in political campaigns are driven more by identity and group rivalry than by policy and ideology. Winning becomes the “only thing”. The same results occurred for making donations, but here negative feelings toward the opposition were much stronger than positive feelings toward the home party in driving donations. The most engaged people in politics are strongly driven by their political group identity. Politicians need resources from the most engaged, so they highlight group identity and rivalry rather than issues, ideologies or solutions.
Klein tells the story of Beto O’Rourke nearly defeating Ted Cruz with massive support only to be a mere footnote in the presidential primary when he could not capitalize on negative partisanship. Inspiration remains a tool in politics, but it is increasingly bypassed to promote fear of the “other guys”.
The Obama story. Polarization is something that is done to voters and candidates by political hacks, consultants and donors. It is possible to not be divided. Red and Blue states have much in common. Red and Blue voters overlap in every state. Obama doubted polarization and saw his experience as a counterexample. Obama sought to lead, educate, posture and negotiate to engage different groups and perspectives. He was unable to do so. Political identities are not our only or primary identities. We can certainly connect in other ways. Some identities have more influence on our thoughts, feelings and actions. Different experiences trigger different reactions. Individuals can choose to work around the usual flow of messages and message channels to not be polarized. Klein decides Obama was simply too optimistic.
Lilliana Mason argues that our partisan identity has become our mega-identity, subsuming all other identities. Religion, race, class, geography and culture are aligning with politics. When these identities are combined, individuals become even more sensitive to any threats to their mega-identity. We now have feedback loops “all the way down”. Political actors take advantage of these combined identities to trigger positive and negative partisan responses using the most sensitive dimensions of the mega-identity. Repeated experience of this messaging further reinforces the strength of the inter-identity associations.
Challenge: The data does show that the overlaps on various dimensions with political views are more common than before. But this shows that on a population basis there is overlap, not that the mental individual identities are truly fused. Marketers do use tricks to influence people, but their tricks are only grossly effective. The claims of Vance Packard and the Hidden Persuaders from the 1960’s have been repeated ever since, but not shown to be nearly as powerful on society, groups or individuals as claimed. They are effective, or advertisers would stop spending money, but they are not omnipotent.
Klein shares the story of Colin Kaepernick’s protests, the NFL’s responses and Nike’s response to highlight the linking of politics to other identities. He says that politics as the mega-identity is encompassing all others, depriving them of their independence.
Klein highlights the surprising claim that having many strong identities can lead to more cooperative politics as individuals can find some strong links to political actors. Yet if only “Red versus Blue” matters and other identities are submerged, we run the risk of true “winner take all” politics. It becomes “dead serious”. Cross-country research shows that civil wars are LESS likely when nations have multiple significant dimensions of differences. Detailed analysis of voters’ policy views showed that individuals with policy preferences that matched the other party still rated their party much higher. The correlation between policy preferences and identity are weak. Most individuals don’t have detailed policy preferences, but they do know that their identity is the “right one”. So … “The crisis emerges when partisan identities fall into alignment with other social identities, stoking our intolerance of each other to levels that are unsupported by our degrees of political disagreement”.
In 1960 5 percent or fewer Democrats or Republicans reported they would be upset if their children entered into a cross-party marriage. Race and religion mattered much more at the time. In 2010, 49% of Republicans and 33% of Democrats expressed concern. A resume evaluation experiment showed that political affiliation was a greater source of bias than race in recommending candidates for a scholarship. Researchers noted that political identity is fair game for discrimination or even hatred, while race is not. Cable TV news and opinion options confirm this view.
This research suggests that party politics has taken on a life of its own. It can trump objective facts, science and reason. Policy differences and identity conflict can become self-reinforcing; yet another feedback loop. When my team has more immigrants, we’ll adapt policies to be more immigrant friendly, attracting more immigrants and demonizing those who do not support our members and our policies. “Identity doesn’t just shape how we treat each other. It shapes how we understand the world”.
Challenge: Merging all identities and political dimensions into a single scale or two buckets of red versus blue is not as easy or permanent as described. Most democracies have 4-12 parties in order to accommodate these differences. Our two-party system encourages but does not require this consolidation. Third party candidates have not won, but they have influenced American politics. In a two-party system, parties try to align/merge interest groups and prioritize issues that benefit the party. Possible political dimensions are numerous: region, prosperity, urban/rural, industry, domestic/international, race, ethnicity, religion, ideology, class, profession, social policies, economic policies, immigration, international trade, defense, international relations, history, tradition, character, nature, global issues, generations, safety, crime, opportunity, fairness, justice, the list has no end.
President Reagan was a “once in a century” political talent who was able to consolidate various strands into a simple conservative versus liberal/socialist/radical framework. Big business, main street, libertarian, fundamentalist, neoconservative hawks, traditionalists, patriots, ideological conservatives and others were consolidated in opposition to the perceived radical/anarchist/revolutionary/socialist threat of the countercultural and antiwar 1960’s attached to McGovern’s 1972 campaign and the breakdown and ineffectiveness of professional elites in war and economics reflected in Carter’s 1976 presidency. Americans were motivated to vote against what they perceived as both prongs of the Democratic Party. Reagan cleverly linked this to an “American city on the hill”, tradition and a time without political conflict.
Newt Gingrich was not satisfied with presidential power alone and together with groups like the “Club for Growth” encouraged Republican candidates to take “extreme” positions on social issues in order to win congress. No taxes. Taxation is theft. Government is bad. Abortion is murder. No regulations. Minimum criminal sentences. No active fiscal or monetary policy. Drill, baby drill. Bomb, baby, bomb. Terrorism is an existential threat. Oppose everything from Obama. Welfare queens. Willie Horton. Tear down that wall. Greed is good. Free market. This helped to clearly define the Republican Party in opposition to the Democratic Party.
This extreme positioning helped the Republican Party to attract and retain those who agreed with the various “conservative” positions. It also helped the party to paint the opposition party as being clearly against each home position. But it does not reconcile the inherent differences between the different wings of the party. Libertarians and fundamentalist Christians. Big business and populist workers. Dynamic entrepreneurs and Main Street traditionalists. Globalist elites and corporations versus protectionists. Business support for immigration versus worker opposition. Social security and Medicare entitlements versus lower taxes. America first versus economic growth. Truck drivers versus investment bankers. Unconstrained capitalism versus “traditional values”. Free market versus unsustainable health care costs. Democrats face similar challenges in aligning policies with varied group interests. As Klein notes, Blacks, Asians and Hispanics are not inherently or universally liberal; socially, economically or internationally. It may be that the two parties are living in a “one time” period where a single dimension aligns most voters.
4. The Press Secretary in Your Mind
Mr. Klein begins the chapter by sharing a detailed history of the origins of Obamacare based on “individual provision” as a conservative, Republican solution to America’s health care system challenges, including initial Republican support and Romney’s use of the model in Massachusetts. However, by December 2009 every Senate Republican, including those who had sponsored a similar bill in 2007, now rejected it wholesale. When it was time to vote, all Republicans opposed Obamacare and the “individual mandate” component. “Cap and trade” was proposed by some Republicans in 2007 as a carbon emissions solution but then rejected wholesale as support for Climate Change beliefs. Klein rejects simple charges of hypocrisy and lying to explain these, and other changes of opinion made by political leaders.
He proposes a much larger explanation summarized by philosopher Joseph Heath, “The central flaw in the concept of reason that animated the eighteenth-century Enlightenment is that it is entirely ‘individualistic. … reason is both decentralized and dispersed across multiple individuals. It is not possible to be rational all by yourself; rationality is inherently a collective project”. Klein argues that group reasoning is also an evolutionary adaption that is more effective than individual reasoning. Hence, even informed individuals change their “minds” to adapt to the group’s decisions.
Various psychology experiments have shown that many individuals will report different conclusions to mildly ambiguous problems based upon peer pressure. They will comply with other individuals or the group as a whole even if they personally believe in a different solution. Experiments about political policy choices by political partisans reported that party policies quite easily overcame other evidence in selecting preferred policy choices. Reference group information overrode that of policy content. Political parties are a rational response to making many choices. We rationally outsource the detailed research and choice. But parties are not scientists or philosophers searching for truth, they are organizations with their own goals, associated with multiple ideologies and personal and group histories and goals.
Klein rejects the theory that “smart” or “knowledgeable” people are different. More information, better decision-making, awareness of context, etc. are all rejected as relatively minor players in explaining why individuals conform to group norms, especially political positions taken by a party that are “obviously” or “objectively” illogical. One study concluded that individuals are motivated more by improving their group standing by embracing group norms than by “pursuing the truth”. This experiment showed that better math/science skills were helpful in applying data that supported a preconceived position but worse in applying facts that opposed their preferences. Better math skills reduced the ability to solve a problem when it conflicted with previously held policy choices. Partisans exhibited this “blind spot”, while those with mild political views showed smaller self-deceit.
“True believers” on both sides are very adept at constructing such frameworks of logic, data, argument and counterargument to support their policy choices. These arguments are quite unconvincing to scientists or “neutral” parties, but persuasive to political supporters. Even the definition of “expert” is subject to political bias for partisans. Experiments also show that individuals who are most “politically informed” are most subject to such biases. Tests of “historical facts” showed that Democrats would deny positive results to Republican presidents and vice versa, even if they were supposedly “well informed”. So … the logic flows from party and group loyalties to political preferences, judgments and actions. Parties shape beliefs of members. Even these researchers say that for many decisions people are convinced by evidence, but individuals are willing to “rationalize” or “choose” to match the group’s views when a contrary view would threaten the group or our standing in the group. “Groupness” is the trump card, especially for individuals with strong attachment to the group.
Proponents of this view, including Dan Kahan, term this “identity-protective cognition”. Mildly guiding and shaping our views to align with a preferred group is more rational than relentlessly “seeking the truth”. Everyone lives in a social world and values their social standing. That value can outweigh “truth” in many situations. Klein says that this is especially true in the politically charged and socially driven climate of Washington, DC. This drive for belonging can blind the “rational mind” from fighting with the preferred logic.
Klein provides the Supreme Court testimony against the constitutionality of the “individual mandate” as evidence of how motivated partisans are able to create “evidence” to support any pre-existing conclusion, even if the bulk of scientific, professional, mainstream opinion has contrasting evidence and rejects the new claims. This counterevidence appears to have little impact on “true believers”. Klein refers to Johnathan Haidt’s conclusion in “The Righteous Mind” that the “press secretary” is required to defend any policy, history or situation and will do so. Such “motivated reasoning” is common and often pragmatically effective.
Historically, Americans have believed that the Supreme Court, in some sense, was an objective body, subject to political influence, but nonetheless capable of largely finding the “truth” with respect to the “constitutionality” of executive, legislative or judicial decisions. The increased politicization of the Court is leading many to doubt this fundamental pillar of the American political system or to consider changes in its structure to “shore up” this component.
5. Demographic Threat
Change and threats motivate political feelings and actions. In 2013, the majority of US newborns were nonwhite. By 2045, non-Hispanic whites will no longer be an absolute, 51% majority. Hispanic and Asian populations are forecast to double and mixed-race populations to triple by 2060, while the non-Hispanic white population falls from 200 to 180 million. The foreign-born population is expected to increase from 14% to 17% of the nation, a record high, triple the 1970 level of 5%. Women hold more power in society based on their greater educational results. Traditional religious belief and activity are falling. The dominant culture, white and Christian, is losing power. 70% of seniors are white Christians, but only 30% of young adults are white Christians. “Intersectionality” applies to the former majority just as it applies to minorities of minorities.
Data matters, but perceptions are most important. Race is a social construct and whiteness may someday include Hispanics, Asians or mixed-race individuals. Americans tend to overestimate the nonwhite share of the population. Political and media activity matter. It is the “feeling” or “perception” that a political group or identity is threatened which counts.
Research studies show that awareness of such change makes individuals more “conservative” when making political choices. They are primed or triggered to be more aware of potential threats and to respond to the threats. Given the demographic and policy choices of American Republicans and Democrats, this demographic change pushes more Americans to sympathetically consider the “whiter” party.
Klein highlights the “post-racial myth”. Race was a lesser political factor in the 2000’s prior to Obama’s winning candidacy. But this high visibility event resulted in greater sorting of political views by race, despite Obama’s relatively quiet advocacy for specific positions advocated by the Black Caucus. American media provided significantly more minority characters, ads and shows in the 2000’s. Strong minority support was essential for any national Democratic presidential candidate in the twenty-first century. Professors like Amy Chua noted that a very dominant racial/religious group (WASP) could “afford” to be enlightened or “liberal” and provide increased opportunity to minority groups in the 1960’s and 1970’s when their power was assured, but that it was not so easy more recently. While political power lags demography due to voting participation rates, cultural power “leads” because advertisers rationally attempt to develop brand allegiance in unsettled young adults, highlighting the demographic and cultural milieu in which they live. Hence, multicultural news, advertising, music, entertainment and university views get disproportionate attention.
“The left feels a cultural and demographic power that it can only occasionally translate into political power, and the Right wields political power but feels increasingly dismissed and offended culturally”.
Trump was the one Republican who rejected the national party’s 2012 presidential loss post-mortem advice to be “more inclusive” because of the inevitable impact of demographic trends. Trump clearly differentiated himself from the other candidates, doubling down on the majority’s historical cultural, political and demographic identity. Right-wing talk shows in the 21st century routinely adopted “extremist” cultural views that demonized the opponents. And these opponents were linked by political, racial, national, immigrant, gender, cultural, consumption, regional, educational, professional and other identities into a bipolar, Manichean “us versus them” world. These extremist voices were often dismissed by the mainstream media, academicians, scholars, analysts, critics and many “moderate”, “Main Street”, “corporate” or “establishment” Republican leaders. However, they highlighted the increased role that cultural views would have above economic, ideological or international political views in shaping parties and elections.
A 2016 poll reported that 57% of whites thought that discrimination against whites was as big a problem as discrimination against minorities. 48% of millennials agreed, showing that this was not just a Boomer issue. Klein agrees with Seth Trende in validating Trump’s 2016 strategy to focus on motivating the base of 7 million missing white voters in 2012 rather than catering to the vanishing “swing voter” or undecided voter. “White Identity Politics”, once unspeakable, became a clear part of Trump’s winning message and strategy. “Jardina repeatedly finds that much of the strengthening of white political identity is a defense of white political privilege without an attendant rise in racist attitudes”. One-third of the white population feels a sense of racial solidarity. Most of this subset does so without an increase in racial hostility. Hence, a wise marketer like Trump is careful to appeal to both groups of potential supporters.
“The simplest way to activate someone’s identity is to threaten it, to tell them that they don’t deserve what they have, to make them consider that it might be taken away. The experience of losing status – and being told that your loss of status is part of society’s march to justice – is itself radicalizing.
Klein does not go here, but I think some of the tremendous emotional and political reaction to Obama’s 2012 claim that “you didn’t build that” is related to this construct of human perception and thought.
Klein argues that the post-2016 analysis of Trump’s victory shows that racial resentment activated economic anxiety.
Before Obama racial perceptions were uncorrelated with perceptions of the economy. After Obama, racial resentment was a strong predictor of views on the economy. Trump’s election led to an 80% jump in Republicans confidence about the economy and a 37% fall among Democrats. Klein cites the centrality of anti-immigrant positions in all “far-right” parties around the world as further evidence for the primacy of racial/ethnic views above economic views. He also notes that only right-wing populist parties have grown in recent years following the economic challenges of the Great Recession and the pandemic, not left-wing populist parties who might be expected to capitalize on economic anxiety.
Challenge: This is not very convincing to me. Working- and middle-class whites with economic anxiety have been moving from the union supporting Democrats to the union opposing Republicans since the times of George Wallace in 1968. This accelerated with the Great Recession 40 years later. The coincidence with demographic changes and Trump’s choice to highlight conservative social values above traditional mainstream corporate economic Republican economic choices on trade, immigration and social security do not “prove” that race is the dominant factor. Nativist populist parties have always used social issues: race, ethnicity, religion and nation to drive participation and emotion.
Detour regarding “political correctness” by Klein. The emphasis on the demon “political correctness” by Fox and Republicans is a long-standing political strategy to undercut the opposition, but its increasing use and greater emotional impact is new. This is a “culture war” about what is and who defines “acceptable discourse”.
Demographic change impacts political party positions. Democrats in 1992 presented “balanced” immigration platforms. In 2016 they were decidedly pro-immigrant groups. Klein quotes Michael Tesler, “In the post-civil rights era, Democrats needed to maintain their nonwhite base without alienating white voters. Republicans needed to win over white voters without appearing racist. So their incentive was to speak about race in code. The shifts have made it so Democrats’ incentive is to make explicitly pro-racial equality appeals and Republicans now have an incentive to make more explicit anti-minority appeals”. Democrats and Republicans have increasingly different views on the role of discrimination in explaining why “black people can’t get ahead”. In 1994, a few more Democrats agreed, 39% versus 26%. In 2017, a chasm of 64% versus 14% divided the parties. Klein argues that the merging of racial identity with party identity will continue to drive party choices in the future. As political demography changes, so do political identities.
Klein argues that the loss of white Christian primacy in politics has led to the emphasis on “identity politics” as the Democratic Party has increasingly embraced the preferences of racial and ethnic minorities. He warns that this inevitably leads into greater conflict between the parties. He notes that some talented politicians focus on actions rather than rhetoric to advance their policies to undercut this situation. He also notes that it would be wiser for Democratic politicians to downplay demographic changes by highlighting different terms, definitions and that many states and communities have become demographically diverse successfully. He notes that strong politicians like Obama can combine diverse groups using inspirational speech to bridge demographic gaps, but the demographic changes also call for populists and demagogues to take advantage of the inherent tensions.
6. The Media Divide beyond Left-Right
The political media is biased toward … loud, outrageous, colorful, inspirational and confrontational.
Klein considers other political journalists and media as collaborators fighting to build political attention of people who can choose to pay attention to anything else. No one must follow politics. Most consider it a hobby. Competition for political media attention is greater today because the political and non-political options have exploded. As much political news and commentary is available as anyone could hope for. Access to history is also ubiquitous, while in the past it mostly disappeared within a week.
Many political science models focused on access to information as a key constraint limiting effective democracies. The modern information age has eliminated this constraint, but democracies did not flourish. Political scientists have moved on to make interest in political information the new limit to effectiveness. Prior to the cable and internet revolutions, 3 TV networks and a handful of local and national newspapers served up political news as part of the general news. Some skipped the headlines and opinion pages, but many consumed at least some political news each day. Today, those less interested in politics consume less and those more interested consume more.
Political media is for the politically invested. Producers of political media have adapted to the new consumers. They provide more content. They include opinions. They select news of interest to politicos. They emphasize political identity, conflict and celebrity. Yet another feedback loop. This deepens political identity, hardens polarization and increases the political stakes.
Despite the large overlaps of demography and miscellaneous identities between the red and the blue, modern media has not helped partisans to understand the identity of members of the opposing party. Partisans tend to overexaggerate the distinctive demographics, characteristics and views of the opposition. The media emphasizes party differences – and colorful and opinionated newsmakers. Consumers normalize this input and exaggerate actual differences.
The new political media knows its audience, demographics, preferences, identities, hot buttons, etc. It has real-time feedback on audience followers, clicks and forwards. Klein recounts that Buzzfeed first defined, measured and used the power of identity to build followers, clicks and shares. This source demonstrated that interests could be translated into communities and identities that were powerful in building and deepening audiences. The media did not have to take communities and demographics “as is” but could construct and grow identity-based communities. This didn’t require outstanding insight or journalistic skill, just the willingness to define and feed a group that worked and abandon groups that failed to work. Other social media platforms have followed using the same techniques. Of course, focusing on enemies is a shortcut that is used here. As identities have been defined and fed compatible information, they are stronger today, less able to be changed.
Klein destroys another historical wish. If individuals only read the opposition they would better understand, tone down their rhetoric and views and seek compromise. Research provides no evidence for this view. If anything, individuals required to consume opposing views become more certain about their pre-existing positions. Some political media is designed to persuade and can have some effectiveness in gaining attention or moderating views, but few political media outlets invest in this.
Journalists who perform in a polarized political and media arena produce more polarizing output and become more polarized themselves, by and large.
Historically, the mainstream media promoted objectivity and balance, claiming that it was “above the fray”. With limited competition the main outlets all trended towards the middle and reinforced this informal norm. Today we have returned to the pre-mass media era when most media outlets adopted a political view and made no apologies. Some remain in the middle today, but the growth has been on the polarized ends. Trump capitalized on this world attracting one-half to three-quarters of news coverage during the 2016 campaign. News outlets are free to determine what is “newsworthy” and Trump understood that new, outrageous, conflict-oriented, secret, interesting, shocking, offensive, threatening and celebrity were far stronger than relevant, important, supported, normal, wise, presidential, balanced, consistent, inspirational and objective. In a competitive business, the “race to the bottom” was quick and largely universal.
Challenge: the main-stream media has revised its coverage to reduce the share of “sensational” coverage. It has improved its ability to call out extreme claims and not rely on formulaic “balanced” coverage. Some organizations continue to provide “neutral” news coverage and separate this from their commentary. Individuals who wish to follow this more traditional approach can find it.
The rising share of self-defined “independents” among American voters obscures the fact that “true independents”, those without a tendency to consistently support one party or the other had fallen from 22% to just 7% of the electorate by 2000. Bush and Gore ran against each other as “Tweedledum and Tweedle-dee”, a fiscally conservative New Democrat versus a “compassionate conservative”, both competing for the persuadable swing voter. By 2004, politicos had digested the loss of the “middle” voter, the suburban soccer mom, and re-engineered their campaigns to register, message, and energize their base to vote. Messages were sharpened to differentiate between the two parties and to demonize the opposition. Republicans won in 2004 and both parties adopted this strategy going forward. With the parties adopting polarizing strategies, voters learned to pick one or the other and the share of persuadable voters declined even further. The contrasts between Bush, Sr and Bush, Jr or Bill and Hillary Clinton tell the story. Compromise is out. One side is right and the other is wrong.
Political parties expected to benefit from this polarization but have become weaker. They are placeholding labels, fundraisers, messaging coordinators, sources of analysts and advisors but they are not as politically powerful. They don’t choose candidates, define and enforce platforms or influence behavior of elected officials as they once did when they had real power.
Trump conducted a hostile takeover of the Republican Party. He had limited history with the party and had transactionally invested in candidates from both parties. His ideology was undefined, he waffled on many issues, so did not match the views of any existing Republican group. He adopted a mishmash of policies, casually discarding core Republican policies on economics, trade and international relations. He ignored the eleventh commandment to not speak ill of a fellow Republican. He criticized everyone: candidates, war heroes, Senators, military leaders, business leaders and political leaders in terms that were simply “off limits” historically. His character and religious past made no friends. Yet, when he won the primary, almost everyone except for a relatively small group of “never Trumpers” lined up to support his campaign and his actions from 2016 until today. None of this could have occurred when political parties were effective forces.
Republicans who opposed Trump in the primaries in apocalyptical terms decided that a choice between Trump and Hillary or Bernie or Elizabeth Warren or mayor Pete or AOC or even “sleepy” Joe Biden was very easy to make. The Democrats opposed every “core” Republican belief. Trump would deliver on taxes, regulations and judges. He would not allow any Democratic initiatives. Bill Clinton had removed “character” as a requirement for holding higher office. There was no political downside to supporting Trump. The “Republicans in Name Only” (RINOs) were not going to run opposing primary candidates. In the post-Reagan/Thatcher era, politicians were expected to look out for their personal interests, not those of their communities, states, party or nation and they delivered on that promise.
Political parties lost power beginning with the move to direct election political primaries and caucuses in the 1970’s. Insiders – governors, long-term Senators, fundraisers, mayors, political bosses, large state delegate leaders, favorite sons, Wall Street and Silicon Valley community leaders, lobbyist and law firms, the largest corporations, major unions – lost power to whoever could win the most votes. Democrats held on to a small share of “superdelegates” but dropped even this after Bernie’s supporters objected. The McCain-Feingold Act restricted pure party fundraising. The transaction costs of campaigns dropped, allowing individual candidates to compete with their own staff and on-line fundraising from small donors. Parties still play an important role, but they are unable to shape primary and general election campaigns to match the interests of the party, per se.
This matters, because “the party”, the small group of individuals who are able to wield power on behalf of the party (or themselves), has different objectives than the candidates or the party’s voters, donors, volunteers or partisans. Political scientists argue that parties want to maximize their own power. They want to manage the other actors as required in order to use the party’s power. They want to get candidates elected. They want to define deliverable platforms. They want to deliver on the platform promises. They want to raise even more money for the party. They want to constrain the actions of “rogue” congressmen and women. They want activities to fit within the brand and messaging strategies of the party. They want to allocate funds and resources to the races with the best chance of winning for the party. They are OK with “horse-trading” and earmarks and “log rolling” as required to achieve political goals, even at the expense of ideological impurity. The party caucuses in the House and Senate have retained much of this central power, but the “national” parties have not.
This matters because political parties can act as a moderating agent. They identify, select and promote moderate candidates with the highest chance of winning in the general elections. They act as a governor on the pure ideologues, the motivated volunteers and activists and the most extreme candidates. Their downfall has contributed to the polarization of political races. Political scientists observe these forces at the national and state levels. Klein does not cover this topic, but it appears that the ability of more states to earn a trifecta of house, senate and governor rule (and judicial appointments) has radicalized this historical approach, with gerrymandered districts ensuring 60% safe, 10% competitive and 30% safe opponent districts which reduces the need/incentive to select moderate/electable candidates.
The reduction in the role of state and national parties in funding local candidate has changed the priorities for congressional candidates. In order to raise their own money, they need to gather attention from small donors, big donors and the party. To do so, they need to manage public attention by standing out. This encourages more extreme positions, messaging, allies and campaigns. Loud, extreme, controversial. Negative campaigning is up. Attention grabbing events are up. Purist ideological positions and platforms are up. Time devoted to fundraising is up. Winning the primary is most important since most districts are already “safe seats” and most primary opponents’ supporters will “fall in line”.
Klein contrasts large and small donors as pragmatists and purists, corrupt and polarized, details and big issues. Both are required, but wise candidates focus public messaging to attract and serve the small donors while taking time to work with large donors to understand and quietly deliver on their transactional needs. At the presidential level, small dollar contributors increased TEN-fold from 55,000 in 2000 to 566,000 in 2016. The “special interest” groups demonstrated that this could be done, and the political consultants and modern technology have made this a reality.
Politics is increasingly about “national” positions and issues. Donations to state and local candidates have fallen from two-thirds to one-third of the total between 1990 and 2012. With identity more important, individuals invest in those who reflect their party identity, not individual candidates, policies or character. Even at the state and local level, candidates “free ride” on national party identity politics to raise funds and attract voters, rather than invest in differentiating themselves based on local issues or personal attributes like competence or character.
Klein worries that the current environment opens the door for demagogues, populists, showmen and talented extremists and communicators to be nominated and secure power, risking democracy to authoritarians who could become dictators.
8. When Bipartisanship Becomes Irrational
Or, the system is simply broken.
The Supreme Court traditionally acted as a conservative break on the “progress” of the nation based on politics. Justices were nominated by politicians but made decisions based upon their own views. Like the divide between the president and the legislature, or between the House and the Senate, the judiciary provided one last place to buffer rapid changes in a representative democracy. The Warren Court made decisions more liberal than the American public, a historical outlier. The Burger Cort also provided relatively liberal results. Conservatives worked hard to ensure that Republican appointees would no longer “vote their conscience” or their profession but be reliably conservative. Justices like Antonio Scalia developed an “originalist” view which opposed the expansionist view of the Warren Court in defining “rights”.
In 2014 Obama nominated moderate Merrick Garland to succeed Scalia. Senate leader Mitch McConnell refused to consider the nomination, despite 103 comparable cases, because he could. With Trump’s 2016 victory a Republican nominee was appointed to the court. Democrats howled, but Republicans simply disregarded the informal norms. This could undermine the independent, non-political role of the judiciary, but this potential consequence was disregarded.
Klein turns to Juan Linz’s 1990 critique of the American political system. The multiply divided system is designed to prevent hasty progress, yet it has endured for two centuries. No other country has adopted this system. The US did not recommend it to Germany or Japan after WW II. Most democracies have a parliamentary system where the winning party or coalition has the combined legislative and executive power to get things done. The electorate will then judge the results.
Klein raises the big issue of political legitimacy. He accepts that McConnell’s tactics were legitimate and expects that future Senates may oppose all nominees of the other party, because they can. He then points to a world in which the Democrats routinely win the popular vote but lose the presidency due to the electoral college. Or that Democrats win 60% of the popular vote, but less than 50% of the Senate seats. Or that Democrats win 55% of the popular vote, but less than 50% of the House seats. Or that Democrats win 70% of GDP, but less than 50% of the House seats. In a polarized world with geographical advantages favoring one party, what happens in the long run?
Historically, national politics was both national and local. Senators and congressman took care of their constituents in a transactional manner, winning special rules for local interests, military bases and highway projects. Earmarks were used to deliver goods to local representatives who could set aside their political preferences. Voters have increasingly chosen to focus on national issues. Local representatives have increasingly chosen to oppose national policies even if they benefit local constituents.
Klein notes that 2-party politics are quite different when one party is dominant, as was the case from 1865-1965. In this situation, the minority party strives to have some influence. Demonizing the opposition is illogical. Working with the dominant party to limit the impact of its policies is rational. Cooperating makes sense. Once the two parties are relatively competitive, the rules are quite different. Winning is everything. Obstruct when in opposition. Cooperation is for losers. This was the Newt Gingrich moment for the newly competitive Republican Party.
Klein recalls the history of the Senate filibuster. It was accidentally created and mostly used by Southern Democrats to protect their modern version of the “peculiar institution” of racial domination. In recent years Republicans have used the required 60 vote majority as an effective weapon. In similar fashion, Republicans have used the approval of an increase in the “debt ceiling” to fund previously approved spending as another negotiating tool, despite the potential consequences.
“The problem is that we have a political system where the rules create irresolvable conflict, gridlock, and even global financial crises”.
9. The Difference between Democrats and Republicans
The author begins this chapter quoting Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein in their 2012 book “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks”. These respected authors from opposing think tanks had worked together for many years and established a reputation for objectivity and nonpartisanship. By 2012 they concluded that the Republican Party had become ideologically extreme, contemptuous of traditional policy platforms, scornful of compromise, immune to facts and science, dismissive of the opposition’s legitimacy and opposed to the government which they sought to lead. They weren’t saying the Democrats were saints, but Democrats did largely play by the historical rules of politics, were more centrist ideologically, endorsed core government roles, were open to incremental policy changes and bargaining and less eager to pursue large win/lose situations. Their view was welcomed by Democrats, but controversial amongst independents, journalists and analysts. Trump unapologetically moved the party even further towards the edges, confirming their views.
Mann and Ornstein saw Trump as a logical next step for a party that had taken more extreme and emotional positions and relied upon angry social conservatives and tea partiers who felt that the opposition, the elites and the system conspired to prevent them from living as they wished. As the Republican congress was pushed to adopt more extreme positions and support more extreme politicians, the rest of the political actors at the national, state and local levels adjusted. The establishment, business, suburban, RINO, New England wing of the party lost its remaining power and influence. The conservative media welcomed this alignment of the party and politicians with their own message of rage, confrontation, disruption and revolution.
Klein notes that congressional Republicans have moved further right than Democrats have moved to the left. He also points to the fights between the “true believers” and House speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan where no position or positioning was radical enough. He believes that Republican willingness to risk financial catastrophe with debt ceiling votes reflects this extreme mindset.
Klein says that the Democrats have not responded to the same polarizing pressures in the same way because the diversity of their coalition prevents it. Party activists have called for stronger measures, but the political leaders have mostly chosen to “waffle” and present policies and actions that appeal to both the progressive-left and the center-left wings of the party. Democrats rely on a coalition of liberal whites, African Americans, Hispanics and Asians. The three minority groups contain conservatives, moderates and liberals. Democrats span many religions and beliefs. Primary election winners must appeal to many groups. In the general election, Democrats face an audience that is quite individualistic, socially conservative and economically conservative compared with European nations. The American political system and the clustering of Democrats in urban areas provide Republicans with a 3-5% built-in advantage in many races. Hence, Democratic political winners must present policies that appeal to both the center and the left in most districts and states.
In 2019 35% of Americans identified as conservatives while only 26% identified as liberals. Liberals cannot support a winning party by themselves. Since only 30% of Americans vote in primary elections and the most partisan people are likeliest to vote, extreme candidates can be elected in Democratic as well as Republican primaries but face a stiffer challenge in the general elections. Three-quarters of Republicans identify as conservative while only half of Democrats identify as liberals. A recent survey reported that 57% of Republicans want their party to become more conservative while 54% of Democrats prefer their party to become more moderate. Democratic activists, partisans and candidates might wish to adopt “Bernie Sanders” positions, but the Democratic winners appeal to moderates as well.
Political scientists describe the Democrats as a coalition of interest groups and the Republicans as a collection of similar ideologies, connected by freedom, liberty and individual rights. Democrats rely upon policies and transactional politics more than Republicans. Klein promotes his view that the Republican party is held together more by identity than by any one purely consistent ideology. One research project was able to demonstrate that Trump’s position (sometimes left or right) was more influential than a voter’s self-expressed ideology in making political choices.
Partisan Democrats also consume a diverse media diet of mainstream media, left-leaning sources and select center-right options. Partisan Republicans consume right-leaning sources alone. This difference also supports Democrats defining and promoting more moderate political positions. Klein notes that the Republican Party has actively opposed the mainstream media and universities for decades, narrowing its news sources, while the Democrats continue to consume from these sources. He argues that conservatives did not create a parallel “neutral” and “objective” media because the existing mainstream media already filled the role well enough.
Klein ends this chapter by focusing on the depth of feeling held by many Republican voters. They see an urgency in winning, in defeating the enemy. They fear that these are the last elections in which their view can be supported in a democracy. He quotes former Bush, Sr and Trump Attorney General William Barr extensively. Barr sees a cosmic competition between secularists and religious people. He believes that the “secularists” will use any means to reach their goal of achieving a secular society where religion is outlawed. He sees religion as “under attack” and society threatened by the “moral relativism” of the secular world view. He points to the combined power of the media, popular culture, entertainment industry and universities to outlaw religious views, sidestepping the political processes and allowing a small unelected minority to impose their view. Many social conservatives share this apocalyptic view and are highly motivated to win this ultimate war.
10. Managing Polarization – and Ourselves
Klein reiterates that polarization, per se, is not a problem. Polarization causes issues to be raised and addressed even if they are not resolved. The absence of polarization can be suppression when real political issues are hidden or ignored. Unfortunately, our current polarization does not lead to problems being resolved but to greater political theatrics and a threat to democracy. The underlying factors described in the book don’t seem to be changing, so structural changes are needed to avoid the disaster scenarios.
Klein reiterates his support for the “rough and tumble” of the legislative process and the validity of representatives wrestling to a conclusion. But he argues that some decisions and situations are so essential that the full political arsenal should be stored in the armory. The debt ceiling threats should be eliminated by including debt authorization with the budget. The budget process itself should be revised to make longer term commitments to programs. Automatic stabilizers should be defined to ensure that counter cyclical economic support is available in recessions and not subject to blackmail from the minority party.
The legitimacy of our democracy must be increased. The electoral college cannot be easily changed but the National Interstate Popular Vote Compact could be used to increase the influence of the popular vote and reduce the disproportionate influence of rural, low population states. Independent commissions or other changes could reduce gerrymandering. Innovations like multiple member districts and ranked choice voting could help voters to see that their vote matters. The filibuster should be eliminated. Washington, DC and Puerto Rico should have congressional representation. Klein believes that improved voter representation would force the Republican party to serve/rebuild its moderate wing and define positions that would appeal to 60% of Americans rather than 40%.
His third principle is “balancing”. The American political system aimed to balance between the competing forces of democratic and elite rule, large and small states, federal and state power, etc. Today we compete between red and blue, liberal and conservative identities. The system does not address this dimension. Perhaps a multiparty system would be better. Perhaps a 15-person Supreme Court with 5 nominees from each party and the last 5 decided by the 10 justices. Consider reform of congressional rules that give the speaker absolute power to determine what bills are considered.
Klein urges us to become more aware or mindful of the role of identities, especially the mega-identity of politics. We have multiple identities and they all matter. We can choose to not immediately react to stimuli that touch our political identity. Practice maintaining the gap between stimulus and response. Be aware that political actors and advertisers and bloggers do want to use identity to influence and persuade us. Proactively define our information sources. Diversify them. Evaluate their bias and quality. Fight against the nationalization of views. Invest time in state and local politics where the issues are more concrete, the players are closer, and the impact is greater.
11. Afterword
The January 6 insurrection and the support for Trump’s claims of electoral theft should not surprise anyone who accepts the identity model of politics. Once an identify is chosen and closely held, almost nothing can pry it away. The Democrats chose Joe Biden and adopted relatively moderate policies in order to win. The Republican geographical advantage was clear again, with a 7 million vote margin barely winning the electoral college. The legitimacy of the president, senators and the Supreme Court is challenged by both parties. The overlap of race and politics lessened a bit with Trump winning 8% more Hispanics and Biden winning 7% more college educated whites. Klein doubles down on his challenge to the Republican Party to throw away its narrowly targeted white, religious, rural, extreme approach and redefine the party to appeal to a broader set of Americans. He argues that the Democrats’ voting reforms bill, HR1, could start the nation towards rebuilding its democratic foundation.
Today we look back at the depression, the war and its aftermath as largely irrelevant to modern society, economics, trade, politics and character. Au contraire. There is much to learn from the experiences of key figures from the mid-thirties through the mid-sixties.
mainly took 38 votes from Glynn. Rider’s single winning district was a near tie with Finkam, taking a total of 92 votes from Glynn.
Good News 