Defending Democrats

Tex's favorite radical, Jordan B. Peterson, has co-authored a piece in today's Wall Street Journal. It argues that, actually, we should relax a bit about the apparently crazy things going on in the Democratic Party because most of the party doesn't support those things.
Yet many Americans remain worried that the Democrats are readying to Make America Unrecognizable, and the party shares some of the blame. They’ve hardly shouted themselves hoarse decrying socialism and have let it hinder the pragmatic idealists among them. If Democrats want the privilege of governing, they need to assert more effectively the values that center the party in every sense of the word.

There are encouraging signs. Take the realistic legislation proposed by the caucus since taking the majority. House Resolution 1 targets corruption, H.R. 2 focuses on infrastructure, and H.R. 3 aims to reduce prescription drug prices. The sole gun-control bill, H.R. 8, is a bipartisan initiative requiring violent-history checks for buyers, a policy supported by 92% of Americans and 69% of National Rifle Association members.
I can't agree that HR1 is encouraging. HR1 is mostly a wish-list of voting reform measures designed to hamper Republicans and help Democrats. It might be fairly said to "target corruption," but only in the sense that it is itself an attempt at corrupting the voting process in order to ensure preferred outcomes. One of the proposals, for example, is to eliminate the ability of states to cross-check voter registrations to ensure that someone isn't registered to vote twice. There can be no purpose for such a proposal except to enable people to be registered to vote twice, which strongly suggests an interest in getting people to vote twice.

It also includes the 'ensure felons can vote' proposal we were discussing yesterday. Getting more convicted criminals involved in our politics does not seem like the obvious way to avoid corruption in our politics. There are things to like about HR1 -- the paper ballot requirement, say -- but as a whole it's an unsupportable power grab.

HR8 may intend what they claim, but its method is to ban me from selling guns to you, or you to me. I could only transfer my firearms to someone licensed by the Federal government, who would then operate under whatever controls the Federal government saw fit in transferring them to you (or, more to the point, not transferring them).

Still, I'll grant that these early bills represent priorities, and that some of them are somewhat less radical than the stuff being talked about loudly on Twitter.

Supporting their argument somewhat is this collection of anecdotes from vulnerable swing-district Democratic representatives who went home to talk to their constituents.
“In the big spectrum of everything, people are still deeply concerned about prescription drug prices... about the opportunity to get their kids education. They’re wanting to see Washington focused on immigration reform.”...

And in another challenge for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her deputies, vulnerable members couldn’t escape questions on some of the key issues that have divided the new majority, such as “Medicare for All,” the “Green New Deal” and the party's response to Rep. Ilhan Omar’s criticism of Israel.... At Delgado’s event in Hoosick Falls, N.Y., a woman angrily complained about transgender rights while a man raised concerns about the anti-vax movement fueling a measles outbreak in the state....

[There is] “10 times the amount of interest” on issues like health care, immigration and student debt than on impeachment or investigations into Trump.... The true metric of success is whether or not we’re able to push infrastructure and health care.”...

Most of these swing district Democrats are reluctant to embrace impeachment. [Rep.] Van Drew flatly rejects it[.]
So maybe there is something to be said for the proposition that they're much less radical than they present, and that there's some potential for pragmatic solutions on things like infrastructure. Dr. Peterson may be right about that; anyway, he is once again being radical by trying to calm the temperature and convince people they can find ways to work things out. That's an interesting approach for a man as radical as he is said to be.

11 comments:

E Hines said...

...most of the party doesn't support those things.

Yeah, that would explain Party's silence, and the silence of Party membership on Tlaib's and Omar's blatant anti-Semitic bigotry and, as Karl Rove put it, Blame America First policy.

That would explain Party members' broad embrace of Green New Deal; increased taxes on those Americans and American businesses of whom they disapprove; policies to dictate what companies produce; what Americans will be permitted or required to buy, like Medicare for All and its predecessor Obamacare; policies to disarm us, including Stalwell's threat to nuke us if we con't surrender our arms meekly; policies to limit our speech, religion, even association.

That would explain Party members' blithe acceptance of Pelosi's proud Progressivism and Biden's brag that he's more Progressive than any of them.

Because Party doesn't support these things.

Peterson seems to be living in a different world.

Eric Hines

Dad29 said...

there's some potential for pragmatic solutions on things like infrastructure.

OK. Where? Seriously--the (D) Party has been donkey-stubborn on all major matters since Trump won. What makes you think they'll change? Hell, they can't even put out a budget.

ymarsakar said...

Relax, most Germans and Russians aren't Bolsheviks or Nazis. Nothing bad is gonna happen. Just sit down and buy more of Peterson's books.

Human idols with clay of feet.

Elise said...

I admire Dr. Peterson very much but I'm increasingly convinced he does not know a great deal about US politics. So I fault him for speaking about topics he does not understand - and wonder who he is relying on to explain things to him.

Dr. Peterson describes himself as being on (or of) the Left. While he believes both sides, Left and Right, are necessary for a healthy polity (see, for example, his video on 12 principles for a 21st century conservativism:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyw4rTywyY0)

I do think he inclines to be more supportive of the Left's policy agenda. I assume he is human enough to be subject to the same bias as others when it comes to evaluating his own side. He got beat up quite thoroughly for his idiotic take on Justice Kavanaugh and I imagine he will take heat for this op-ed.

To the larger issue (Peterson's, not Grim's), I don't think most Democrats support the more radical proposals of the Democratic leadership. I do think most Democrats don't actually realize what the Democratic leadership is saying, doing, and proposing. Life is full of things to pay attention to and normal people don't have time, energy, or interest to figure out what's really going on. It's easier to believe that HR1 is simple about targeting corruption and that HR8 is just about keeping MS-13 gang members from buying guns. It's easier to believe the soft-focus/window dressing for the policies Eric talks about - the GND is just a starting point; everyone should have medical care; of course we're for American, we just want to make it the best it can be. It's hard to let in facts that don't bolster ones existing worldview.

I have a pro-abortion friend who has no idea who Kermit Gosnell is - and has no interest in finding out. I have a Left-leaning friend who was aghast when I told him that there were those who objected to money being donated to rebuild Notre Dame instead of being used to fix social problems, saying that if it's my money, I can spend it how I want - and who looked blank when I quoted "you didn't build that" to him. One of Trump's good points is that he gets some of the less savory aspects of the Left more widely known; one of his weaknesses is that people like my two friends simply discount everything he says.

Dr. Peterson is a very smart and very interesting man. I don't think of him as radical; he himself said something like all he was doing was telling people things everyone used to know. Perhaps that's what he's doing - or thinks he's doing - in his op-ed, telling us to remember things we all used to know: that the center will hold, that there is a place for compromise. What's really interesting is that, if those on the Right who see a slide to totalitarianism on the Left are correct, Dr. Peterson is missing the onset of a phenomenon that has obsessed him for his entire adult life.

Texan99 said...

He's pretty smart about a lot of things. He's got a good handle on dangerous trends that lead to totalitarianism. Why he's not smarter about the Democrats I don't know. Like many people, he can't quite escape the idea that they're the nice ones who want to help people. Or at least, they want other people to help people, and not too tough a scrutiny into what helps and what doesn't.

He has good instincts about the illegitimate use of force and the primacy of personal responsibility, including sacrifice and duty.

Grim said...

I can easily run through the rest of the list of 'encouraging' legislation, and find similar flaws in it. My concern is whether I'm right to do so, or if my own suspicions are coloring my interpretation -- just another cognitive bias, as it were. Maybe he's right, and I'm wrong, and it's worth taking a look at it.

I do admire the peacemaker's instinct to draw back, and consider anew if I am being fair. Often in life that approach works well. It is often the case that I am my own best advocate to such a degree that, if I don't take this step, I can risk not recognizing the fair and just complaints of the other side.

That said, the slide to totalitarianism does look pretty solid among the young, urban, safe-D district Democrats. So the article showing swing-district Ds voicing very different concerns is interesting.

E Hines said...

Well, I'm always right, except when I'm not. The hard part is recognizing each of those.

Eric Hines

douglas said...

I think Elise is mostly correct, but also that Dr. Peterson is a classical liberal who tends toward optimism, and that leads to the positions he is willing to accept or consider. I admire that optimism, but I'm not entirely sure this is the time for it, at least in terms of politics in the United States.

Elise said...

One more point: It does not matter whether the rank and file of the Democratic Party supports the more extreme elements/positions if they continue to vote Democratic no matter what. There are a lot of people who would find it pretty much impossible to vote for a Republican. At best, they might not vote for anyone but my impression is that even that action is increasingly seen as allowing "evil" to win - or, perhaps worse, as revealing oneself to be déclassé. So we may be back to the era of the Yellow Dog Democrat: I'd vote for a yellow dog if it was a Democrat.

Elise said...

Oh, and what Eric said. Or:

Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man's task. ― Epictetus

ymarsakar said...

JP is funded by some Leftist/Jewish atheists, from what I heard. Meaning his job or promotions are somehow attached to an organization that leans in that direction.

There are certain issues he is off on or just can't/won't talk about.

JP also isn't that smart. Then again, members of the Prometheus Society and Mensa is only slightly above average to me. I guess that standard doesn't actually work for the normal curve of humanity.