Gerard Alexander: Why are liberals so condescending


Every political community includes some members who insist that their side has all the answers and that their adversaries are idiots. But American liberals, to a degree far surpassing conservatives, appear committed to the proposition that their views are correct, self-evident, and based on fact and reason, while conservative positions are not just wrong but illegitimate, ideological and unworthy of serious consideration. Indeed, all the appeals to bipartisanship notwithstanding, President Obama and other leading liberal voices have joined in a chorus of intellectual condescension.
It's an odd time for liberals to feel smug. But even with Democratic fortunes on the wane, leading liberals insist that they have almost nothing to learn from conservatives. Many Democrats describe their troubles simply as a PR challenge, a combination of conservative misinformation -- as when Obama charges that critics of health-care reform are peddling fake fears of a "Bolshevik plot" -- and the country's failure to grasp great liberal accomplishments. "We were so busy just getting stuff done . . . that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are," the president told ABC's George Stephanopoulos in a recent interview. The benighted public is either uncomprehending or deliberately misinformed (by conservatives).

This condescension is part of a liberal tradition that for generations has impoverished American debates over the economy, society and the functions of government -- and threatens to do so again today, when dialogue would be more valuable than ever.

Liberals have dismissed conservative thinking for decades, a tendency encapsulated by Lionel Trilling's 1950 remark that conservatives do not "express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas." During the 1950s and '60s, liberals trivialized the nascent conservative movement. Prominent studies and journalistic accounts of right-wing politics at the time stressed paranoia, intolerance and insecurity, rendering conservative thought more a psychiatric disorder than a rival. In 1962, Richard Hofstadter referred to "the Manichaean style of thought, the apocalyptic tendencies, the love of mystification, the intolerance of compromise that are observable in the right-wing mind."

This sense of liberal intellectual superiority dropped off during the economic woes of the 1970s and the Reagan boom of the 1980s. (Jimmy Carter's presidency, buffeted by economic and national security challenges, generated perhaps the clearest episode of liberal self-doubt.) But these days, liberal confidence and its companion disdain for conservative thinking are back with a vengeance, finding energetic expression in politicians' speeches, top-selling books, historical works and the blogosphere. This attitude comes in the form of four major narratives about who conservatives are and how they think and function.

The first is the "vast right-wing conspiracy," a narrative made famous by Hillary Rodham Clinton but hardly limited to her. This vision maintains that conservatives win elections and policy debates not because they triumph in the open battle of ideas but because they deploy brilliant and sinister campaign tactics. A dense network of professional political strategists such as Karl Rove, think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and industry groups allegedly manipulate information and mislead the public. Democratic strategist Rob Stein crafted a celebrated PowerPoint presentation during George W. Bush's presidency that traced conservative success to such organizational factors.

This liberal vision emphasizes the dissemination of ideologically driven views from sympathetic media such as the Fox News Channel. For example, Chris Mooney's book "The Republican War on Science" argues that policy debates in the scientific arena are distorted by conservatives who disregard evidence and reflect the biases of industry-backed Republican politicians or of evangelicals aimlessly shielding the world from modernity. In this interpretation, conservative arguments are invariably false and deployed only cynically. Evidence of the costs of cap-and-trade carbon rationing is waved away as corporate propaganda; arguments against health-care reform are written off as hype orchestrated by insurance companies.

This worldview was on display in the popular liberal reaction to the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Rather than engage in a discussion about the complexities of free speech in politics, liberals have largely argued that the decision will "open the floodgates for special interests" to influence American elections, as the president warned in his State of the Union address. In other words, it was all part of the conspiracy to support conservative candidates for their nefarious, self-serving ends.

It follows that the thinkers, politicians and citizens who advance conservative ideas must be dupes, quacks or hired guns selling stories they know to be a sham. In this spirit, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman regularly dismisses conservative arguments not simply as incorrect, but as lies. Writing last summer, Krugman pondered the duplicity he found evident in 35 years' worth of Wall Street Journal editorial writers: "What do these people really believe? I mean, they're not stupid -- life would be a lot easier if they were. So they know they're not telling the truth. But they obviously believe that their dishonesty serves a higher truth. . . . The question is, what is that higher truth?"

In Krugman's world, there is no need to take seriously the arguments of "these people" -- only to plumb the depths of their errors and imagine hidden motives.

But, if conservative leaders are crass manipulators, then the rank-and-file Americans who support them must be manipulated at best, or stupid at worst. This is the second variety of liberal condescension, exemplified in Thomas Frank's best-selling 2004 book, "What's the Matter With Kansas?" Frank argued that working-class voters were so distracted by issues such as abortion that they were induced into voting against their own economic interests. Then-Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, later chairman of the Democratic National Committee, echoed that theme in his 2004 presidential run, when he said Republicans had succeeded in getting Southern whites to focus on "guns, God and gays" instead of economic redistribution.

And speaking to a roomful of Democratic donors in 2008, then-presidential candidate Obama offered a similar (and infamous) analysis when he suggested that residents of Rust Belt towns "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations" about job losses. When his comments became public, Obama backed away from their tenor but insisted that "I said something that everybody knows is true."

Why are liberals so condescending? Part 2


In this view, we should pay attention to conservative voters' underlying problems but disregard the policy demands they voice; these are illusory, devoid of reason or evidence. This form of liberal condescension implies that conservative masses are in the grip of false consciousness. When they express their views at town hall meetings or "tea party" gatherings, it might be politically prudent for liberals to hear them out, but there is no reason to actually listen.

The third version of liberal condescension points to something more sinister. In his 2008 book, "Nixonland," progressive writer Rick Perlstein argued that Richard Nixon created an enduring Republican strategy of mobilizing the ethnic and other resentments of some Americans against others. Similarly, in their 1992 book, "Chain Reaction," Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary D. Edsall argued that Nixon and Reagan talked up crime control, low taxes and welfare reform to cloak racial animus and help make it mainstream. It is now an article of faith among many liberals that Republicans win elections because they tap into white prejudice against blacks and immigrants.

Race doubtless played a significant role in the shift of Deep South whites to the Republican Party during and after the 1960s. But the liberal narrative has gone essentially unchanged since then -- recall former president Carter's recent assertion that opposition to Obama reflects racism -- even though survey research has shown a dramatic decline in prejudiced attitudes among white Americans in the intervening decades. Moreover, the candidates and agendas of both parties demonstrate an unfortunate willingness to play on prejudices, whether based on race, region, class, income, or other factors.

Finally, liberals condescend to the rest of us when they say conservatives are driven purely by emotion and anxiety -- including fear of change -- whereas liberals have the harder task of appealing to evidence and logic. Former vice president Al Gore made this case in his 2007 book, "The Assault on Reason," in which he expressed fear that American politics was under siege from a coalition of religious fundamentalists, foreign policy extremists and industry groups opposed to "any reasoning process that threatens their economic goals." This right-wing politics involves a gradual "abandonment of concern for reason or evidence" and relies on propaganda to maintain public support, he wrote.

Prominent liberal academics also propagate these beliefs. George Lakoff, a linguist at the University of California at Berkeley and a consultant to Democratic candidates, says flatly that liberals, unlike conservatives, "still believe in Enlightenment reason," while Drew Westen, an Emory University psychologist and Democratic consultant, argues that the GOP has done a better job of mastering the emotional side of campaigns because Democrats, alas, are just too intellectual. "They like to read and think," Westen wrote. "They thrive on policy debates, arguments, statistics, and getting the facts right."

Markos Moulitsas, publisher of the influential progressive Web site Daily Kos, commissioned a poll, which he released this month, designed to show how many rank-and-file Republicans hold odd or conspiratorial beliefs -- including 23 percent who purportedly believe that their states should secede from the Union. Moulitsas concluded that Republicans are "divorced from reality" and that the results show why "it is impossible for elected Republicans to work with Democrats to improve our country." His condescension is superlative: Of the respondents who favored secession, he wonders, "Can we cram them all into the Texas Panhandle, create the state of Dumb-[expletive]-istan, and build a wall around them to keep them from coming into America illegally?"

I doubt it would take long to design a survey questionnaire that revealed strange, ill-informed and paranoid beliefs among average Democrats. Or does Moulitsas think Jay Leno talked only to conservatives for his "Jaywalking" interviews?

These four liberal narratives not only justify the dismissal of conservative thinking as biased or irrelevant -- they insist on it. By no means do all liberals adhere to them, but they are mainstream in left-of-center thinking. Indeed, when the president met with House Republicans in Baltimore recently, he assured them that he considers their ideas, but he then rejected their motives in virtually the same breath.

"There may be other ideas that you guys have," Obama said. "I am happy to look at them, and I'm happy to embrace them. . . . But the question I think we're going to have to ask ourselves is, as we move forward, are we going to be examining each of these issues based on what's good for the country, what the evidence tells us, or are we going to be trying to position ourselves so that come November, we're able to say, 'The other party, it's their fault'?"

Of course, plenty of conservatives are hardly above feeling superior. But the closest they come to portraying liberals as systematically mistaken in their worldview is when they try to identify ideological dogmatism in a narrow slice of the left (say, among Ivy League faculty members), in a particular moment (during the health-care debate, for instance) or in specific individuals (such as Obama or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom some conservatives accuse of being stealth ideologues). A few conservative voices may say that all liberals are always wrong, but these tend to be relatively marginal figures or media gadflies such as Glenn Beck.

In contrast, an extraordinary range of liberal writers, commentators and leaders -- from Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" to Obama's White House, with many stops in between -- have developed or articulated narratives that apply to virtually all conservatives at all times.

To many liberals, this worldview may be appealing, but it severely limits our national conversation on critical policy issues. Perhaps most painfully, liberal condescension has distorted debates over American poverty for nearly two generations.

Starting in the 1960s, the original neoconservative critics such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan expressed distress about the breakdown of inner-city families, only to be maligned as racist and ignored for decades -- until appalling statistics forced critics to recognize their views as relevant. Long-standing conservative concerns over the perils of long-term welfare dependency were similarly villainized as insincere and mean-spirited -- until public opinion insisted they be addressed by a Democratic president and a Republican Congress in the 1996 welfare reform law. But in the meantime, welfare policies that discouraged work, marriage and the development of skills remained in place, with devastating effects.

Ignoring conservative cautions and insights is no less costly today. Some observers have decried an anti-intellectual strain in contemporary conservatism, detected in George W. Bush's aw-shucks style, Sarah Palin's college-hopping and the occasional conservative campaigns against egghead intellectuals. But alongside that, the fact is that conservative-leaning scholars, economists, jurists and legal theorists have never produced as much detailed analysis and commentary on American life and policy as they do today.

Perhaps the most important conservative insight being depreciated is the durable warning from free-marketeers that government programs often fail to yield what their architects intend. Democrats have been busy expanding, enacting or proposing major state interventions in financial markets, energy and health care. Supporters of such efforts want to ensure that key decisions will be made in the public interest and be informed, for example, by sound science, the best new medical research or prudent standards of private-sector competition. But public-choice economists have long warned that when decisions are made in large, centralized government programs, political priorities almost always trump other goals.

Even liberals should think twice about the prospect of decisions on innovative surgeries, light bulbs and carbon quotas being directed by legislators grandstanding for the cameras. Of course, thinking twice would be easier if more of them were listening to conservatives at all.

Quoted Text

Why are liberals so condescending?

Because their defining characteristic is sanctimoniousness.  They believe that because they profess to care so deeply about everything and everyone under the sun, that this somehow confers a moral right to be in charge.  They also believe, that at their core, every disadvantaged, uneducated, and "financially challenged" person walking the earth would blossom into a liberal...just like them...if only we were to show them how to believe the "right" things.  Of course to complete this glorious transformation requires that we bestow upon these people...the "unwashed"...whom the Liberal actually pities (though they will never admit this), enough money, education, and things that cannot be quantified, like "opportunity".  That's why the whole entitlement culture exists...it breeds more liberals.  Entire institutions have been built on this premise...Berkeley, for one...along with most other major universities in the country.  Gotta hook 'em while they're young...just like Big Tobacco.

Winston Churchill said it best:

Quoted Text

"If you're 20 years old and not a Liberal, you have not a heart.  If you're 40 years old and not a conservative, you have not a brain."

Wow, another (insert Obama, Liberal, New York) sucks thread. Are you guys getting paid for posts?

How do these threads work to help/improve this country, as opposed to divide it further?

Quoted from BirdistheWord

Wow, another (insert Obama, Liberal, New York) sucks thread. Are you guys getting paid for posts?

How do these threads work to help/improve this country, as opposed to divide it further?

About as well as 3 sentences designed to chastise those whom you've decided have not been blessed with your wisdom.

Quoted from dv0042

About as well as 3 sentences designed to chastise those whom you've decided have not been blessed with your wisdom.

Considering there is a new thread like this once a day for months, and I posted one time, I am having a little trouble with the validity of your response.

But, if your looking for a suggestion from me, I have some ideas:
- Instead of lumping people into categories work with local/national political parties to make changes that help the country
- Less Name calling earns respect from parties on either side of ANY argument
- If you don't have anything nice to say and don't wan to to work to a solution, don't say anything at all

Personally, I am fiscally conservative but on some issues am left of center. But when I read just constant hating articles about the President, the Country, the state, anyone who ever said anything non-conservative in their life, its just like enough already...work to make it better or just cry to yourself.

Quoted from BirdistheWord

Wow, another (insert Obama, Liberal, New York) sucks thread. Are you guys getting paid for posts?

How do these threads work to help/improve this country, as opposed to divide it further?

In general, Dems/Libs are anti-gun and no friends to gun owners. I suspect you will see gun owners with more of an open mind towards them, once they stop the assault on our rights. Until then, I would expect to see posts like this continue. We are on a gun forum after all.

Un Sub, that logic follows 100%. But how many threads do we need saying how much (insert name here) sucks?

I mean it be one thing if everyone of these threads ends in "come to the local republican party chapter meeting to discuss how this injustice can end" but its just straight complaining. How does that help our 2A rights besides making us look like people who can't get past the present and work toward a better future?

Sorry, I am just in a poop mood today and it seems there is some Debbie Downer political thread every minute on here, positive or constructive seem few and far between.

Quoted from BirdistheWord

positive or constructive seem few and far between.

I wish there was more of this myself.

Thank you for making my original point for me.  You might want to try practicing a bit of what you preach.  Because you followed this:

Quoted Text

Wow, another (insert Obama, Liberal, New York) sucks thread. Are you guys getting paid for posts?

with this:

Quoted Text

If you don't have anything nice to say and don't wan to to work to a solution, don't say anything at all

Kindly point out the "constructive" part of the first one.

And if you've "had enough", as you say, then feel free to troll elsewhere.  No one is forcing you to read anything on this site.  But opening your mouth and dictating to others what we can /cannot, or  should / should not say, is obnoxious, and generally speaking is not received well.  Personally, I don't care which way you lean...left, right, whatever.  Don't attempt to silence me, and I won't attempt to silence you.

DV,

Come on man, so you think your the better person here and I am squashing your rights, man I suck! Personally, if you had a legitimate argument to my original post you would have said it by now, instead of "countering" with 'I am attacking your rights.' Everyone can see through that game.

You levied the claim against me saying I am not practicing what I preach, and that my threads about non-constructiveness are non-constructive them self. However, that is false. If my posts even caused a single person to stop complaining on here and work on real-life solutions, the lives of all Americans could be a little better with another person working to making it better instead of complaining it sucks. How is that not the very definition of constructiveness?

I NEVER said anyone should be silenced, I merely wondered if what is said will ever be constructive, or if we can just expect action-less complaining until the end of time. I then suggested that if the latter is the case, maybe we can just spare everyone the complaining in the first place, since no one is going to do anything about it anyway.

Quoted from BirdistheWord

DV,

Come on man, so you think your the better person here and I am squashing your rights, man I suck! Personally, if you had a legitimate argument to my original post you would have said it by now, instead of "countering" with 'I am attacking your rights.' Everyone can see through that game.

You levied the claim against me saying I am not practicing what I preach, and that my threads about non-constructiveness are non-constructive them self. However, that is false. If my posts even caused a single person to stop complaining on here and work on real-life solutions, the lives of all Americans could be a little better with another person working to making it better instead of complaining it sucks. How is that not the very definition of constructiveness?

I NEVER said anyone should be silenced, I merely wondered if what is said will ever be constructive, or if we can just expect action-less complaining until the end of time. I then suggested that if the latter is the case, maybe we can just spare everyone the complaining in the first place, since no one is going to do anything about it anyway.

And now we come to the revisionist history portion of the evening.  I never said you were squashing my rights.  You can't.  What I said was that your were flinging around one-line digs designed to elicit a particular response.  You figured you'd supply an epiphany or two so you could then go pat yourself on the back for making the world a better place.  Trouble is, that's not the response you got, and now you're stuck with trying to re-cast your original intent as something else.

However, statements like "go cry elsewhere" can only be interpreted so many ways.  Nothing that you said was a call to action or civility, or anything else.  You saw something you didn't like and you took a swat at it...the very same thing that you vilified myself and the OP for doing.  So go ahead, belittle me and make sure that everyone else here knows that you're the one taking the high road.  I hope it makes you feel better.  However, the truth is, you lashed out and weren't counting on anyone else lashing back.

For the sake of bringing an end to this, so that we don't have to go back and forth anymore, you win...congrats.

Shoot safe.

DV, however self righteous/hypocritical you find me, which honestly wasn't the intent, sorry,   can't we agree that constantly complaining about things only brings the country/state/forum down if we aren't going to try and make them better? I mean how many ____ sucks on the same topic do we need before, at least on the forum, it appears all we do is complain?

On a side note, not all firearm owners on Long Island are in lockstep with the entire conservative agenda. I know for me, while I love LIF, I can't say these repeated threads don't make me  think some potential members might just pass by when they see that's all we talk about.

For members don't like to see anti-President or anti-Obama's posts and don't want to discuss politics, I think the best way is just not to get involved.  Ignore the thread.  Although I admit that this is rather passive, active involvement tends to turn members against members, and posts become pretty ugly.  I am a newbie, and it didn't take long for me to discover that most of the "Active (those post frquently)" members here are against the current president of the United States (perhaps because some of of his superficial stance towards gun ban, then, again, perhaps not).  I almost want to suggest the opening of a "President Obama Room", where members who want to show their flags and fangs can have a designated playground.  However, perhaps this is not a good idea either.

For members don't like to see anti-President or anti-Obama's posts and don't want to discuss politics, I think the best way is just not to get involved.  Ignore the thread.  Although I admit that this is rather passive, active involvement tends to turn members against members, and posts become pretty ugly.  I am a newbie, and it didn't take long for me to discover that most of the "Active (those post frquently)" members here are against the current president of the United States (perhaps because some of of his superficial stance towards gun ban, then, again, perhaps not).  I almost want to suggest the opening of a "President Obama Room", where members who want to show their flags and fangs can have a designated playground.  However, perhaps this is not a good idea either.

not all gun owners are conservitive true , rosie , stern, yeah that lady from million mom march who shot some one. I have found in my travels that the non conservitives that posses guns believe they are smart enough to have , and the rest of us not. this is from my travels to work in the golden meca of manhatten.
so for the rest of my 4x4 driven, beer swiggin gun toten hicks out her on long island--I DO NOT LIKE THE POLICIES OF THE POTUS, AND WILL DO WHAT I CAN TO WORK TOWARDS A CONSERVITIVE -PRO GUN CONGRESS AND THEN THE PRESIDENT.  

and of course i will stop there since i have no interest in world domination

The question has been asked "Why are there so many anti Obama posts on this forum?" This is a very  simple but legitimate question. The answer is also simple but legitimate.  Never before in the history of this country has a president been so antithetical to what the founding fathers had envisioned for this country.  Combine this with a liberal majority in both houses of Congress, a liberal media who refuses to do its duty and be the watchdog of the people,  the extreme economic disaster that raising taxes will produce, a state department that treats enemies as friends and allies as the enemy, a justice department who treats prisoners of war as common criminals and a gaggle of close associates full of self professed communists, socialists and maoists, you can see why  "we the people" are afraid, very afraid.  It is from this fear that people are speaking out.  It is why we feel the need to post as many threads as possible to let as many people as possible know the truth about this administration.

Not sure how this turned into Obama, if that is my doing, I apologize. I was merely saying how I see 100 complaint threads and basically 0 "I am doing something about it" threads.

Continuing to complain about a problem is not solving it, nor is it educating people (at least when its the same rant over and over).

If its worth the energy to complain about in infinitim, isn't it worth the energy to do something about? Maybe there wouldn't be as much to complain about if we spent less time complaining and more time doing, just some thoughts.

Edit: I did want to note, if StevieB, Murtha, NorthFork, etc came into Political shout out and were like "damn the legal process is slow" or "NY really sucks for appeals courts for this 2A efforts I am pushing" that would be something I think we all could agree would be with merit.

But the same tired I hate NY/Obama/liberals rag is just getting old. No one on this board is anything but crystal clear on the same few posters feelings on those matters. I mean hate NY so much, show us the way we can make changes, bring to the forefront statistics on higher ownership means lower crime, positive things to unify on. Being unified on hating/complaining doesn't get us anywhere.

Difference Between Liberals and Conservatives:
If a Conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one. If a Liberal doesn't like guns, they believe no one should have one.