Understanding the Republican Base - Studying the Foley Reaction

No one is surprised that Foley's actions have led to the usual scandal-battle, and I'm not really writing about Foley. Rather one strain of the Republican defense is very interesting for the way it highlights how conservatives motivate their base:

PART I: Evidence of Strange Thinking

Newt Gingrich, attempting damage control, declared that many of the Republican leadership in Congress were unwilling to risk being "accused of gay bashing" from politically correct gays if they stood up to Foley’s strange sexual advances on teenagers.

Liberals tend to look at this statement and be flabbergasted and see it as a lie, so obviously a lie that it barely deserves words to refute. It was said on Fox, and doesn't seem aimed at liberals, it’s aimed at rallying the conservative base... what does it tell us about how that base sees the world?

What are conservatives hearing, how does this message make them keep rallying for the Republicans?

Mr Gingrich said in effect that Congress is full of a large number of Republicans who, one after another, are unwilling to stand up for teenagers under threat of a sexual predator, because they are afraid of being accused of gay bashing.... that political correctness has gone so extreme that Republican leaders are completely infected, that it is somehow the fault of political correctness that Republican congressman are craven.

For liberals, put aside your first impulse to call it a lie, and imagine if it was true: have you ever said anything this nasty about Republicans, implying as much corruption and cowardice of the Republican Party as Mr. Gingrich has?

Something strange is going on here, when you can support and mobilize your own side by saying something this insulting about your own side.

[Just to be clear: my point is not that I or Mr. Gingrich really think that these Republican Congressmen wouldn't stand up happily if they were broadsided by organizations promoting man-teen affairs, I don't think he made this statement intending it to be believed. My point is that Mr. Gingrich intentionally made this statement for the consumption of his base, that he himself thinks that this statement will rally his side, and thus that we can learn about the motivations of their base from it.]

I think that when liberals understand this neurosis in the current conservative movement - and more importantly, when sane and honest conservatives understand this neurosis - we'll be in a position to move our country forward again. I welcome other attempts to explain why blame-statements like this one are effective, why Republicans would say this about themselves. I'd especially like comments from conservatives who hear Gingrich's statement and hear something that makes sense to explain what you hear, start a dialog.


PART II. My First Hypothesis: Blame-Deflection and Group-Creation

[This is a good time to stop reading and figure out your own answer as to why Gingrich's attack would help mobilize his base, put in in the comments, then read mine...]

I don't believe that Newt Gingrich's statement was an accident, I think that this is a long-understood method of rallying conservatives based on fear and blame being focused on an outside class. (I'm not claiming that the liberal play-book doesn't have weird things in it, but I think this particular method of blame-building is a dysfunction distinct to some right-wing mobilizations.)

With apologies to all the great dead white male writers of literary history, and to all politically-correct replacement choices being pushed at English 101 students, "Batman" says it best. There is a certain neurotic state where your own identity is dependent on your opponent: Batman knows he's Batman because he fights The Joker / The Joker knows he's The Joker because he's after Batman. Your enemy must be strong and insidious, his actions make you you, you can't really defeat him and move on.

The Nazis of course provide the strongest examples: Nazis said Jews were both inferior and running everything, at the same time. "A worldwide conspiracy coordinated by a small group of mentally and physically inferior people." Not just a lie, but a ridiculous one. Germans were said to be both superior and brought to their knees throughout history by this tiny minority. Jews were a scapegoat and rallying cry: a way to funnel all blame as well as a way to create a sense of community based not on shared values but on shared anger. The trickier and stranger and "other" that Jews could be described (the bigger and more ridiculous the lie), AND the more shame that average Germans felt, the stronger the Nazi party. If Jews disappeared in 1933, Hitler would have had to find a new enemy, the Nazis could not have defined themselves without an enemy. The "therapeutic" goal of the Nazis was to break down their listeners with feelings of inadequacy and shame, then build them up by finding a target to move the shame onto.

If the Joker has mind-control games and gets Batman to do something wrong, Batman is still the good guy and better fight all the harder. The story wouldn't be interesting if there were no superheroes and supervillains, just ordinary people bumbling through their days and doing their best or making human-scale mistakes. No, it's "us" and "them" in the ultimate battle of good and evil... we know something is wrong because life is threatening, so we better find someone to blame it on.

For the people who react in a positive manner to Mr. Gingrich's statement about the stunning cowardice of their own leadership, it's all about which side you're on. You can say things as terrible as you like about your own side, catch individuals in as many scandals as imaginable, and it won't change a thing among people caught up in this story: the more mistakes, the more personal failures among "our" side, the worse the feelings of insecurity among the base. That insecurity is the fuel, then the leaders can focus the blame.



PART III: Intervention

If today's bumbling Democrats were transported to pre-Nazi Germany to argue against the "Jewish-conspiracy", they would attempt to poke holes in the logic, or simply be stumped at how to point out the holes in a Big Lie that makes so little sense you can't find the fabric to point out the holes. They'd fail to make a dent at converting angry, scared Germans away from the Big Lies. Opponents of politicians using insecurity blame need to take a very different approach than "bash the other side," which up to a point just fuels the insecurity.

Conservative movements *DO NOT* consistently use the method of generating fear and shame in order to lead the blame. American leaders have rarely done this. During the Reagan years, our enemy was the Soviet Union, opponents aiming nuclear weapons at us, and Reagan pushed us to stand strong and defeat them. It was a very different set of arguments, Republicans were trying to create a different mind-set and motivation-set in their own base: be strong, be independent, be responsible, stop whining and stand up. Under Reagan, we were men, standing strong against an enemy (an enemy that really was aiming weapons at us, not Americans who desired to be accepted into the mainstream) that would be defeated. Reagan's rhetoric called for strong conservatives: to generate pride and strength and lead from there, not to generate shame among conservatives then redirect that shame. Shame-powered conservatism (at least on a wide scale) is new in America.

My advice:

Liberals who want to undo blame-politics should attempt to make contact with conservatives, reducing their ability to split America into "us" and "them." I'd recommend a mix of (1) less constant squabbling and negativism and scandal-mongering (constantly feeding the us-them, trying to fight fire with fire, rather than hate/insecurity/fear with love/hope), and (2) stand up for conservative values (without letting go of your own). Attack less often, more strongly, more on shared values, and less on scandal when you do go on the offensive: compare the failed effort to tar Bush with a scandal around his military record, with what could have happened if people understood what everyone pretty much admits to regarding both Bush and Cheney's military records. Rumors of scandal were easy to deny, rather than talking about values.

It's much like good parenting or teaching: don't make rules you can't enforce, don't give in to whining, make your message clear, save punishment for when it's really unarguable.

We also need to point out the internal conflicts of their values from their rhetoric: it's not important to point out the shame of Foley's actions in order to generate more feelings of shame, it is important to reach out to conservative's sense of honor and challenge them to live up to it. Fear, shame and destruction of hope keep liberals away from the polls, but just energize hate based politics. Remind conservatives that they believe in something!

For this specific case, it would be a good idea to repeat the Big Lie that Newt is playing with, agree with him till he has to back down. What I would say is "Democrats have been willing to learn from conservative values, to see both compassion and strength as American values, while conservative politicians betray their own base. If our leaders were willing to look the other way for a pedophile for political reasons, we'd dump him, I sure hope we'd dump him, I personally give you my word that I'm ready to do so. It's time for the Republican to be good conservatives, and demand accountability and responsibility. If what Newt said is true, political correctness has gone too far, here is where I draw the line..."

Don't: Overly focus on personal/sexual weaknesses, he-said-she-said stuff, especially at the national level. (Ok, the Republicans have screwed up enough that the economy+defense+ethics collapse will probably defeat them badly at the polls, but this is the Republicans losing, not the Democrats winning, and it is dangerously feeble and mandate-free.)
Do: Repeat what Gingrich said and the other strange statements that won't stand the light of day. Publicly believe him. Talk about what we need to do to prevent this from happening again. Let Democrats create the national consensus around sexual responsibility that much of the country can handle, one based on personal responsibility - including not blaming someone in San Francisco for marital problems in Ohio.

Conservatives who want the conservative ethic to survive in America had better get off their butts and scream loud, a few more years of this corruption and the base is going to splinter, the idealists are going to burn out, if it's not already too late. Do you really want to be associated with politicians who claim to be afraid to stand up to [supposed] gay organizations that support adult-teen relationships? Are you really willing to support them for short term gain? The conservative movement is setting itself up to fall far harder than the arrogant liberals of the 60's.



I welcome comments & apologize if I've stepped on toes I didn't mean to in this controversial subject. I'm very interested in getting some people from across the political spectrum to start talking with each other, finding the ways in which both parties are failing and could succeed better, finding vibrant and strong ideas to replace the mush coming out of Washington. A balancing conversation starter: What is the best specific thing that conservatives are pushing in DC that liberals should get behind if they believed in their own progressive values?