Oppose Dumbness!

John Halpin at The Liberal Patriot has had it! He's tired of all the dumb stuff that passes for political discussion in this country. We can do better!

"When was the last time you had an enjoyable and constructive conversation about American politics and society in the past 5 years, in-person or online? It’s painful. The buzzwords, the group think, the mangling of facts, the bad faith, the self-righteous posing, the sizing up of people to tear them down.

Politics used to be a field that was mildly interesting and engaging for experts and non-experts alike. You could bring up with a stranger or colleague some interesting tidbit gleaned from the daily paper or another periodical—maybe the new jobs figures, a public health stat, or some far away famine or military conflict—and learn something new about how others think and process information. Maybe you’d disagree, even vehemently. But perhaps by the end of that conversation, you’d also have a new angle on a subject and a desire to learn more about the facts and history behind an issue.

Now the thought of engaging with others—on any political topic, in any format—makes any sane person want to run for the hills. Too many people just regurgitate crap they read on Twitter or see on cable. They figure out the party line, the correct ideological position to take, or the right person to demonize and repeat it without any doubts. Few people ever challenge their own thinking in any fundamental manner. And you almost never learn anything new from high profile political debates featuring candidates, activists, media personalities, or parties. In fact, you’re likely to come away less informed from these public performance pieces than if you had just watched your morning bagel toast for a few minutes. You’re better off reading a book or catching a game or listening to music or praying or whatever it is that provides some true meaning and insight to you—delivered and experienced in a relatively calm manner.

This past week of idiotic and self-righteous statements from politicians and leaders about the Chauvin verdict exemplifies the sorry state of public debate in America. People couldn’t keep their mouths shut on the left or right for an even an hour and used the death of Floyd and conviction of Chauvin as another proof point in their ideological crusade...."

Read the rest at The Liberal Patriot!

THELIBERALPATRIOT.SUBSTACK.COM

America’s Political Debate Makes People Dumber

We need to build new models for political engagement and learning if

What Do Latinos Really Want on Immigration?

It's a facile--and inaccurate--assumption that Hispanic voters have uniformly liberal views on immigration. Yes, they want the Dreamers legalized and more generally a way for those illegal immigrants already here to have a way to stay here legally. But they are also quite concerned about border security.

Check out these new data from Pew from their National Survey of Latinos. And note that naturalized US citizens among Latinos are particularly concerned about border security issues--indeed these are their top immigration issues.

https://www.pewresearch.org/.../most-latinos-say-u-s.../

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Politics Should Not Be a Religion

Peter Juul has an important piece up on The Liberal Patriot, whose analysis I heartily endorse. It's time for people on the center-left to realize that turning a set of political beliefs into a new religion--and an intolerant one at that--is not the right way to do politics and create a society most of us would actually want to live in.

"If you’ve traveled through any moderately-sized metropolitan area in America lately, you’ll probably have noticed rainbow-hued statements of faith sprouting up on well-manicured lawns across the country. These lawn signs constitute the Nicene Creed and shahada of the new religion of progressive politics that’s burst into public consciousness over the past five or six years. It’s a faith that’s rapidly won converts at the highest levels of American politics and society – one that uncannily mirrors much of the thinking and many of the practices of its ancient predecessors, complete with its own dogmas, heresies, and rituals as well as apocalypses and forms of mysticism.

This observation is neither original nor novel. Other commentators like the linguist John McWhorter and the sociologist Musa al-Gharbi have made this case convincingly, especially when it comes to anti-racism. As central as anti-racism may be to the progressive catechism, however, it’s become increasingly clear that this new political religion cannot be reduced to this one core tenet. To better understand this emerging faith in all its facets, we need to take a wider field of view that goes beyond a singular if understandable focus on anti-racism....

[M]any believers derive their moral and ethical views from politics rather their moral and ethical commitments informing their politics. Viewing politics as a way of life and defining themselves by their political beliefs, they put far more weight on politics than it can possibly bear and invest it with far more significance that it can possibly give anyone. It’s a way of life that’s unmoored from the sort of moral and ethical commitments or wider worldview provided by philosophy or conventional religion – and helps explain the intolerance sometimes exhibited by the disciples of this new political faith.

The religion of progressive politics holds three articles of faith: anti-racism, climate apocalypticism, and gender identity. There’s no overriding rationale or underlying logic to this particular trinity of sacred beliefs, but they’ve coalesced over the past five or six years into nigh-unassailable dogma among progressive elites, activists, and funders. Other potential paths (like a brief flirtation with “democratic socialism”) were abandoned or forgone for seemingly arbitrary or accidental reasons, a process akin to the ways early Christianity resolved its down disputes as described by Diarmaid MacCulloch in his magisterial history of the religion....

It’s hard to deliberate on the nature of the common good and how best to advance it – something we dwell on here at The Liberal Patriot – when faced with the demands made by this new faith. When it takes on the the trappings of religion progressive politics risks calcifying into an unforgiving and inhumane set of dogmas. Presuming itself to be in sole possession of revealed truths about politics and society, the religion of progressive politics insists there’s a single correct way to think about the world and cannot tolerate even the slightest disagreement. It becomes impossible to accept that other people can, say, believe in racial equality or think that trans individuals deserve the same dignity and respect as every other human being without subscribing to the precise tenets of anti-racism or gender identity put forward by this new religion. Principled universalism of the kind we advocate at The Liberal Patriot presents a particular affront to these sacred beliefs and comes in for its own special form of opprobrium."

Read the whole thing at The Liberal Patriot! Strongly recommended.

THELIBERALPATRIOT.SUBSTACK.COM

Losing our religion

How politics became a matter of faith for many contemporary progre

The Sad Tale of Democratic Prospects in Florida

My latest at The Liberal Patriot:

"Barack Obama carried Florida twice, making Democrats optimistic that they could make real progress in a key state with rapidly changing demographics. But it didn’t work out that way.

On the Presidential level, they lost the state twice, actually losing by more in 2020 than 2016. While the country as a whole was moving 2+ points toward the Democrats, Florida was moving 2+ points away. They lost their lone Senate seat in 2018. They lost two additional House seats in 2020 so the House delegation became 16-11 against the Democrats (now 16-10 with the demise of Alcee Hastings in the 20th district). Also in 2020, the Republicans gained a state Senate seat and 7 state House seats, swelling their pre-existing majorities in both legislative bodies. Since 1999, with one minor exception, the Republicans have had unified control of state government (governor, state senate, state house).

Huh. How’d that happen?"

Read the rest at The Liberal Patriot. And subscribe, it's free!

THELIBERALPATRIOT.SUBSTACK.COM

How Democrats Lost the Sunshine State

It Once Seemed So Promising…..

Chauvin Guilty: Time to Move Forward on Police Reform

Excessive police violence in this country against both nonwhites and whites is a big problem. Let's use the Chauvin verdict as an opportunity to move forward on the unifying and immensely popular cause of police reform. David Leonhardt:

"Most Americans disagree with sweeping criticisms of the police, like the calls to abolish police departments. (Rashida Tlaib, a Democratic congresswoman from Michigan, wrote last week on Twitter: “No more policing, incarceration, and militarization. It can’t be reformed.”) Recent polls show that most Americans say they generally trust the police, and few if any mayors, governors, congressional leaders or top members of the Biden administration share Tlaib’s view.

But many politicians and most voters do favor changes to policing, like banning chokeholds and racial profiling or mandating police body cameras. “Americans — both Democrats and Republicans — want some sort of reform,” Alex Samuels of FiveThirtyEight wrote."

So, good things can happen here if Democrats don't get out over their skis. Defunding the police continues to be vastly unpopular as these new data from Morning Consult show. Even with very anodyne wording on whether respondents think police departments have too much, the right amount or not enough funding, only 19 percent think the police have too much funding.

In that regard it's truly astonishing to see claims like this from a Democratic strategist, a strong candidate for the worst political advice of the year award. Steve Phillips of Democracy in Color asserts:

"If Democrats want to hold onto control of the House and Senate in 2022, they should talk more about defunding the police, not less. The video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killing an unarmed George Floyd last May unleashed an international outcry against police brutality, a national racial reckoning about long-standing systemic racism in America, and a demand from the Black Lives Matter movement to “defund the police.”

Amazingly dumb. But this is the sort of thing Democrats need to resist. Do popular things. Improve voters' lives. This is not complicated.

https://www.nytimes.com/.../walter-mondale-vice-president...

How Much Has Gerrymandering Contributed to Polarization?

Less than you think. A treasure trove of data has just been released by Cook Political Report on the partisan lean of states and congressional districts, with a lot fantastic maps, tables and other graphics. Among their findings is the following:

"It's become fashionable to blame gerrymandering for polarization and Congress's ills. In truth, redistricting is only responsible for a fraction of the decimation of swing seats over the past few decades. The bigger factor? Voters' self-sorting.

In many minimally altered districts, the electorate has simply become much more homogeneous. For example, the boundaries of West Virginia’s 2nd CD have barely changed since 1997, but its PVI score has shifted from EVEN to R+20 as its voters have moved away from national Democrats. Likewise, Albuquerque’s migration to the left has bumped the PVI score of New Mexico’s 1st CD from R+1 to D+9.

The Cook PVI illustrates how voters’ natural geographical sorting from election to election, much more than redistricting and gerrymandering, has driven the polarization of districts over the last two decades. Our 12 unique sets of PVI scores over the past 25 years give us a powerful tool to isolate and quantify the impacts of sorting and redistricting on the makeup of House districts.

We've released new PVI scores in seven odd-numbered years following presidential elections: 1997, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2021. We've also recalculated scores in five even-numbered years following redistricting: 2002 (after the 2000 census), 2004 (after mid-decade redistricting in Texas), 2012 (after the 2010 census), 2016 (after new court-ordered maps in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia) and 2020 (after new court-ordered maps in North Carolina and Pennsylvania).

On balance, redistricting wasn’t as much of a factor in the House’s polarization as the most vocal opponents of gerrymandering might think. Of the net 86 “swing seats” that have vanished since 1997, 81 percent of the decline has resulted from areas trending redder or bluer from election to election, while only 19 percent of the decline has resulted from changes to district boundaries."

COOKPOLITICAL.COM

Introducing the 2021 Cook Political Report Partisan Voter Index