Tom Block is an author, playwright and artist, whose work spans more than two decades. In this blog post, Tom introduces us to his political antidote to our Machiavellian political sphere. Adapted from his book, Machiavelli in America, this piece is part of Tom’s greater exploration of how to bring spiritual and even mystical values to bear on contemporary society. His work is collected under a theory he calls “Prophetic Activism,” a model of using art, thought and other means to infiltrate (rather than simply oppose) the power centers of business and politics. For more information about Tom’s work, please visit his website.
Tom Block and his most recent book, Machiavelli in America
Nowadays, the Machiavellian notion that political arrangements may not be judged by any objective standards of right and wrong, that there is neither any natural or any divine law, but only the law of will, of success and failure, is almost unchallenged (p. xvi).
Many people are familiar with the controversial thinking of the Renaissance political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli (d. 1527). His influence has been so widespread that the word “Machiavellian” has been incorporated into our language as a pejorative, defining a person who is cunning, duplicitous and operates in bad faith.
What might be less well known is the profound influence that Machiavelli has on contemporary American politics. From state houses to the Presidency, Machiavelli’s ideas and motivations are central to building winning political campaigns and passing legislation, however un-democratic and antithetical to a healthy, pluralistic society. As Renaissance scholar Paul Grendler noted (p.149): “Today, Machiavelli’s influence on political policy may be greater than at any time since he served the Florentine government. Machiavelli has become American.”
The foundation of Machiavelli’s political ideology is straightforward: everyone in society is selfish, acting primarily for personal gain. And for a politician to succeed in mastering this world, she has to either manipulate or frighten people into believing that their interests ally most closely with her own.
Machiavelli’s program concentrates on subjugation and mastery. He does not concern himself with the common good, democracy or human rights. For Machiavelli, the concepts of moral philosophers from Moses to the Sufis and the religions within which they operate are certainly important. But only because these religious systems provide a fraudulent tool for the relentless, morally unhinged pursuit of power. In terms of their direct relation to political reality, however, he considers them as meaningless as music.
Machiavelli’s central tenet is that the truth of any matter must be overwhelmed by two stronger factors: fear and fraud. In terms of inspiring fear in the populace, it is the surest method of gaining control over them:
I come to the conclusion that, men loving according to their own will and fearing according to that of the prince, a wise prince should establish himself on that which is in his own control and not in that of others (p. 82).
He also noted that truth can be easily shunted aside, using fraudulent means to inspire fear, and then oneself offered as the palliative, inspiring a populace to follow the leader:
The great majority of humans is satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and is often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are (p. 182).
It is through inspiring fear in the citizenry, as well as using fraud as a tool to appear to be what the people want (i.e., safe, religious, moral, “like” them etc.) that political victory can most easily be won.
In terms of winning political office or legislative battles by immoral means? Not to worry. He noted: “When the act accuses, the result excuses” (p. 139). Whatever actions undertaken to attain political victory are excused if the actor is successful. Machiavelli absolved triumphant leaders of all blame or responsibility for any act necessary to attain and retain power:
A wise mind will never censure anyone for having employed any extraordinary means for the purpose of establishing a kingdom or constituting a republic . . . when the result is good, it will always absolve him from blame (p. 139).
Machiavellian inspiration is not hard to discern, either throughout American history or even in our most recent political season. A brief study of George W. Bush’s (43rd President of the United States) manner of attaining a very dubious electoral victory, and then his perverse political use of the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001 (on New York’s World Trade Center and other sites) would suffice. But for our purposes, it is important to mention that George W. Bush was acting in a time-honored American Machiavellian tradition.
Neo-Conservative thinker Michael Ledeen (b. 1941) noted the similarities between the beginnings of America and the Florentine’s ideals: “There is much in Machiavelli that sounds like the American Founding Fathers…Machiavelli’s notion of the good state calls to mind The Federalist Papers” (p. 109).
Ledeen continued on to reference specific Machiavellian influence on James Madison (fourth President of the United States), Alexander Hamilton (first United States Secretary of the Treasury) and Benjamin Franklin (Founding Father and so-called “First American”). The Florentine’s inspiration can also be found on the thinking of George Washington (first President of the United States); Thomas Jefferson, (principal author of the Declaration of Independence) and John Adams (America’s first Vice President, as well as the second President of the United States). All of this has been outlined in more depth in my book.
The reverberations of the long-ago Florentine political philosopher can clearly be ascertained in the most recent electoral campaigns, which often are based in fear, character assassination and moral fraud.
For instance, in this current electoral cycle in North Carolina, Republican challenger Thom Tillis is ratcheting up the fear by linking Senator Kay Hagan (D) to terrorist threats. A campaign advertisement of his notes: “Hagan and [President] Obama are to blame for the growing emergency linked to extremist groups like ISIS.” And in keeping with the Machiavellian dictate that another sure way to win a political campaign is to assassinate the opposition, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has undertaken a scorched-earth campaign against his challenger, Alison Grimes (D):
As many observers predicted, the McConnell strategy was to bring Grimes’ popularity down. She has been bombarded by negative attacks over the summer by McConnell’s campaign and super PACs.
The reality of American politics turns away from the moral intentions of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution and toward a power-driven oligarchy, ruled over by the most pernicious, negative and fraudulent.
It should be noted that this problem infects one side of the aisle far more than the other. Although the mainstream press would be loathe to appear anything but “objective” (defined as the midpoint between the two parties), it is the Republican Party, and even more so the right-wing “Tea Party” members of that party, who most clearly exhibit the influence of the medieval political philosopher. Renaissance scholar Paul Grendler noted that this linkage between America’s right wing and the Renaissance philosopher goes back to at least World War II:
Machiavelli has been a theme in American conservative political discussion since the 1940s. It is likely that the use of Machiavelli has contributed to the combative mentality that characterized American Cold War politics, the belligerency of American conservatism and the take-no-prisoners tactics and language employed against liberalism and the Democrats (p. 168).
In my book, I outline many specific manners in which Machiavelli not only influenced our Founding Fathers, but also can still be felt in the legislative, executive and even judicial branches of government, including the overwhelming power of money, the efficacy of character assassinations and the use of war-like language to the utilization of religious and moral fraud and war itself, all as immoral political tools.
Regardless of what we might wish, think or work for, it is the Machiavellian dictates of power politics which are accepted as “politics as usual,” while all other potential moral methods of political interaction are simply shunted to the side as the strategy of losers. And time and again, the results of political elections confirm the view that Machiavelli is for winners.
Although this dynamic is well known and even remarked upon, we (as a society) haven’t developed effective responses to Machiavelli, specific manners of combatting this pernicious dynamic. What I offer in my book, and will summarize here, is one manner of attempting to combat this social cancer. And one which takes into account our zeitgeist, from the deeply religious nature of so much of America’s public life, to the unwillingness of American journalists to base their reporting on the truth, opting instead for some mushy middle between the positions of the two major parties, which they define as “objective.” This lack of moral clarity in the press corps only allows fraudulent political actors more leeway in creating their own alternate reality, a vile combination of fraud, character assassination and amoral pandering.
Though at least one administrator of this blog might disagree with me, I feel strongly that God and religion must be taken into account when considering a palliative to the shared social illness exhibited in our public square. Activist responses to social illnesses must take into account the reality of that society; and offer familiar (i.e., religiously-based for Americans) manners of infiltrating and changing it – instead of simply standing outside of the metaphorical walls to the city and lobbing well-meaning and ineffectual ideas toward a population that couldn’t care less.
A Response to Machiavelli: The Moral Ombudsman
Conservative columnist Cal Thomas put forward an interesting proposal concerning the insertion of truth into politics:
Before an election, have candidates take a lie detector test. Put it on TV and/or the Internet. A panel of reporters or other experts could ask the questions, just like they do in presidential debates. In fact, this could be a five-minute segment at the end of the debates. “And now, to the lie detectors…”
Ha, ha, ha! The political participants on both sides of the aisle would never accept common sense remedies such as this one. It would too easily and clearly unmask the whole pernicious system. Lie detector tests are for criminals! Not for politicians, they would assure.
And we certainly can’t rely on the press to offer us a reportage of current politics and events based on truth (instead of some bizarre combination of “objectivity,” generally held opinion and polling data – which itself only represents the desires of the most powerful propagandistic machine).
The unwillingness to base journalism in truth is well-noted, by the way. As the Los Angeles Times noted in an editorial: “the canons of the profession [journalism] prevent most journalists from saying outright: These charges are false.” And as Washington Post journalist Melinda Henneberger said, concerning her profession’s (lack of) attachment to truth in reporting: “Newspapers hardly ever haul off and say a public figure lied, and I like that about us.”
So it falls to us, we the people, to devise our own method of inserting truth into the Machiavellian world of American politics, and what follows is one such proposal. I have devised an idea that can be implemented within our political system, offering a muscular response to the ingathering of power and money by the top one percent of American citizens. As Machiavelli noted (p.211): “So enormous is the ambition of the grandi that it soon brings that city to ruin if it is not beaten down by various ways and various modes.”
This response to Machiavelli offers one manner to “beat them down.”
Honest discourse and unimpeded knowledge is virtually impossible to come by in the American political panorama. For this reason, I propose that clearly stated information itself represents the greatest potential tool supporting genuine democracy. In a country where voter suppression, lying, cheating, stealing and all manner of fraud are accepted as “politics as usual,” the ability to come by clear and concise information on any issue is virtually impossible.
The Moral Ombudsman would operate within the parameters of 21st-century Washington D.C., acknowledging the manner in which power is won and imposed. Specifically, this is the call for the creation of a non-profit organization of the same name: “The Moral Ombudsman,” to develop and insert a moral lodestar into politics.
The Moral Ombudsman would bring together a board of recognized religious and social leaders to form a non-governmental organization to provide moral oversight of our lawmakers, as well as the laws that they make. This collective would be constituted of leaders from the following religious and spiritual groups, representing the breadth of faith and secular communities in the United States: Christianity (two each from Baptist, Pentecostal, Lutheran, Presbyterians, Methodist, Anglican, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox); Judaism (one each from Reformed, Conservative and Orthodox); Muslim (one each from Sunni, Shi’a and Sufi); Buddhism, Sikhism, Hindu, Mormon; Unitarian, Secular Humanist and Atheist.
Other potential board members might include an academic leader, an agreed upon politician (preferably at the end of his public career, and not at the beginning), a social theorist or perhaps lay leader who would add perspective to the conversation. The final constitution of the board would represent the vast majority of American citizens. It would also acknowledge the Christian heritage of our nation by weighting the board in that direction.
The board would first be charged with developing a social and political moral code that would be agreed upon by all members of the board. Although at first blush, this step clearly seems to present a potentially insurmountable obstacle, it is not as difficult as it might appear. At the core, virtually all religions are in accord. There are moral values shared by all creeds, which inform the hearts of every sacred path.
In this response to Machiavelli, the common good will take into account such things as the obligation of those who have the means to aid those who do not; the right to adequate health care access to for every citizen (hardly revolutionary, as thirty-two of the thirty-three developed nations have universal health care, with the United States being the lone exception); adequate shelter, a necessary amount of nutritious food, free education, freedom of religion and association and freedom from racist or ethnically deleterious laws and treatment.
Social issues such as the following would be discussed and agreed upon, becoming the bedrock formulation for the Moral Ombudsman. These positions would help define the manner in which politicians, their actions and their laws, would be viewed:
- Obligation of the rich to help the poor
- Human right to health care
- Human right to adequate, nutritious food
- Human right to satisfactory housing
- Forgiveness, restitution and rehabilitation as bases for the prison system
- Minority rights
- Women’s rights
- Freedom of association
- Freedom of worship
- Freedom from racism
- Freedom from hate speech
- Foreign policy based in respect and commonality
- Truth as the basis for news reporting
- Truth as the basis for political language and ideas
- Truth as the basis for political campaigns
Each religion’s scriptures provides many different readings, from the suppression and slaughter of the “other;” veiling of women; polygamous and tribal laws to readings that emphasize peace, respect and open-mindedness. Put bluntly, George W. Bush could find plenty in the Scriptures to justify his views, as could Martin Luther King Jr.
Leaders from the various religious creeds would be sought who believed in the opening and loving aspects of their creeds, not the close-minded, “us” vs. “them” manner of politicizing religion. They would conceive of theirs as a valid path, and not the single road to spiritual grace. They would be leaders whose views shared much with the contemporary zeitgeist in respecting the plurality of ethnic, social and cultural diversity and the worth of individuals (instead of holding that the religious system is more important than the rights of its constituent members).
The Moral Ombudsman would reach beyond social, economic and political barriers, speaking in the best interests of all Americans, all the time. The Moral Ombudsman would be immune to fluctuations in the stock market, monetary reward, poll numbers or television ratings.
Issuing its decisions in policy papers, op-ed articles, newsletters, scorecards on the votes of members of congress, governors and the president and other like manners, this non-profit watchdog group would finally offer a true moral center from which to judge the legislation and actions of our elected princes.
Once the moral structure was set into place with the creation of a specific set of political virtues, the work of the organization would be to judge both legislators and legislation by its precepts. Each law coming up for a vote in Congress would be compared to the moral principles agreed upon by the Board. A grade would be issued, with a zero representing a completely immoral law (such as raising taxes on the poor so that the rich might have a lower tax burden), to a 100% (universal health care, for instance). There would be a written release issued, as well as a rating.
Each legislator would have his votes analyzed, and would receive a sum-total number score for his moral centeredness. This method is modeled on the scores issued by NGO groups from the National Rifle Association to the Nature Conservancy.
Additionally, the Executive Branch, military, State Department and actions of members from other governmental arms would be so judged. Pilotless Drone attacks on other people’s soil? Nope. No matter how much verbiage there is about terrorism, eliciting the fear response of the population, this cannot be morally justified. Secret Ops work in Latin America? Presidential pandering, military posturing, and State Department dithering? No, no and no. The Moral Ombudsman’s job would not be to garner votes or make friends with the higher ups. It’s job would be to begin the vital but nearly impossible work of centering American politics in a moral schema, instead of allowing it to continue to founder in the media created world of “objective reality.”
In the end, difficult though it might be, a moral middle would be carved out of the amorphous and amoral public and political square. Finally, some manner of shared values would emerge that each of us, in our heart of hearts, might agree upon.
Is this solution easy? Absolutely not. Is it fraught with potential problems?
Yes. Oh, yes.
But we are left with no choice but to try.
Guest Authors
Ben Spielberg
Darius Liddell
Jon Zaid
Run It Black Podcast
Pro-Clinton Writers Make Illiberal Arguments and Then Complain When They’re Called Out On It
A nontrivial portion of online comments are going to be unconstructive and/or offensive. Especially when a columnist writes something provocative, a lot of people are going to be unhappy about it, and many of them, bolstered by the relative anonymity and psychological distance the Internet affords, will respond with vitriol. That said, there are actually a lot of thoughtful readers out there, and even angry responses can sometimes contain good points. Authors who take the time to consider the feedback they receive – to parse the constructive commentary from the trash – can improve their arguments and demonstrate that they’ve really thought through the fairness and implications of what they’ve written.
Unfortunately, many authors don’t do that. And during this election cycle, this failure in self-reflection has been particularly prevalent among prominent Hillary Clinton supporters.
To illustrate what I mean, I’m going to focus on two columnists, Paul Krugman and Michael Tomasky, who share a few characteristics:
If Krugman really believes that “[g]ood ideas don’t have to be sold with fairy dust” and that “getting real is or ought to be a core progressive value,” he isn’t currently putting his money where his mouth is. And Tomasky’s insistence that he’s “open to hearing a smart argument against [his] position” would be a lot more believable if he hadn’t thus far ignored those that have been offered. If Krugman and Tomasky are serious about “getting real,” they will begin to acknowledge and address the following points:
The “Bernie Bro” narrative is “a Cheap Campaign Tactic Masquerading as Journalism.”
Everyone who has made this point recognizes that some Bernie Sanders supporters make sexist, racist, and/or otherwise offensive comments. We condemn those comments. We also request that Clinton supporters stop using a sexist label themselves, one that, when it isn’t being applied to women or people who don’t even support Bernie Sanders, is marginalizing the millions of women (and people of color; the “Bernie Bro” is often cast as an angry White guy) who are staunch proponents of the Sanders campaign (Sanders is actually way more popular than Clinton among young women and, increasingly, among younger Black and Latino voters). As a recent study confirmed about sexism, Internet harassment is a major issue but is mostly not from “the left in general or Sanders supporters in particular.”
There are numerous examples of Hillary Clinton supporters who make sexist, racist, and homophobic comments as well. Whether you’re subject to such comments is both a function of which candidate you support and how much privilege you have (women and people of color who support any candidate are much more likely to be harassed than White men like Krugman and Tomasky or half-Indian men who are perceived to be White like me, for instance). So let’s not go around calling people “Hillary Elites” or “Hillary Straights” or “Bernie Bros.” Instead, let’s condemn harassment without opportunistically twisting the truth about it and focus our energy on substantive debates about issues.
The Sanders campaign’s critiques of Clinton’s record and platform have been significantly fairer than the Clinton campaign’s misleading and/or untrue attacks on Sanders.
The only specific “attack” on Clinton that Tomasky actually attributes to Sanders is his call for Clinton to release the transcripts of three speeches Goldman Sachs paid her $225,000 (each) to make during the past few years. But Sanders’ critique here is completely fair (as is what Tomasky calls Sanders’ “anti-Rahm Emanuel tincture”). Clinton has repeatedly claimed that the money she receives from Wall Street doesn’t influence her; the American people have a right to know how her remarks to bankers comport with her professed commitment to regulate them (though how her comments could possibly look as bad as her continued refusal to share them is anyone’s guess).
To be fair, the precise definition of “attack” is open for debate, but despite Krugman’s assertions to the contrary, the fact that Clinton’s campaign has been much more insidious isn’t. Throughout the primary, the Clinton campaign has repeatedly distorted the truth. Clinton has disingenuously accused Sanders of sexism and racism, made false statements about his health care plan and history of health care advocacy, and misled the public about his record on the auto industry, immigration, Wall Street, and a variety of other issues. Her team has also engaged in red-baiting, trashed taxes Democrats are supposed to support, and co-opted the language of intersectionality to inaccurately paint Sanders – a rare politician who recognizes the connections between social and economic issues and is advancing a comprehensive social justice agenda – as a single-issue candidate. Clinton’s campaign might not embody “the most negative campaign of any Democratic presidential candidate…in a presidential primary season” label that her staffers have tried to apply to the Sanders campaign, but the Clinton team’s tactics have been – by far – the most negative in this year’s race.
Sanders has a very strong track record as a legislator and executive.
Tomasky incorrectly argues that Sanders is an ineffective legislator, citing a lack of cosponsors on his bills as evidence that he doesn’t work well with Congress. Tomasky omits, however, that Sanders recently negotiated a bipartisan bill “to expand veterans’ access to health care” with John McCain, a bill which is widely viewed as a huge success. Sanders’ Republican colleagues, despite their disagreements with him, liked working with Sanders and praised him for his integrity and work ethic, while Democratic Senators said that, without Sanders, they “don’t think [they] would have gotten [the bill] done.”
Tomasky also fails to mention that Sanders has mastered the art of adding power-balancing amendments to larger bills; his accomplishments include (but are not limited to) securing funding for community health centers in the Affordable Care Act, blocking imports made with child labor, and increasing transparency about one-time government officials’ subsequent employment opportunities.
Sanders’ record as mayor of Burlington also shows that he’s an excellent executive. He has a history of setting big goals, fighting for them, and eventually working out the best deal he believes he can. The citizens of Vermont love Sanders for a reason – they know his record a lot better than Krugman and Tomasky do, and it’s a damn good one.
If anything, I’d prefer Sanders were much less into what Krugman calls “hardheaded realism” than he actually is. That’s because Krugman is wrong about how to make change; we are served best not by “accepting half loaves as being better than none,” but by reframing issues and forcing policymakers’ hands. As climate expert Bill McKibben explains, major accomplishments like gay marriage and civil rights legislation weren’t driven by leaders all too willing to compromise; they were driven by “big, impassioned movement[s] that cleverly changed the zeitgeist.” Sanders gets this dynamic more than any major presidential candidate in recent memory, and that’s why his “political revolution” carries so much potential to change this country’s politics.
All the evidence suggests Sanders is a more “electable” general election candidate than Clinton.
Both Krugman and Tomasky write off the head-to-head polling that has consistently shown Sanders to outperform Clinton in hypothetical general election matchups with Republicans. Tomasky argues that “a billion-dollar onslaught” from the GOP, targeted at the “tax increases he’s proposing,” would tank Sanders. Yet as I’ve explained before, the GOP would also mercilessly attack Clinton, and the idea that those attacks would work better against Sanders is entirely inconsistent with other polling trends. As shown below, Clinton’s favorability ratings have been steadily declining, while Sanders’ have continued to rise as voters have become more familiar with him.
As I’ve also explained before and the graphs below show, Sanders does significantly better than Clinton among two demographic groups key to winning a general election: young people and Independents.
Voters in these groups – unlike voters in Clinton’s key constituencies – may very well abandon the Democrats if Clinton is the party’s nominee. I wouldn’t personally recommend basing your vote on perceived electability, but if that’s what you’re planning to do, the evidence indicates that you should vote for Sanders.
There are substantial, important differences between Sanders and Clinton. These differences are in some respects much larger than the differences between Clinton and various Republicans.
Krugman argues that the differences between Sanders and Clinton “are trivial compared with the yawning gulf with Republicans.” Ironically, the context for those comments – an article about financial policy and donations – provides a compelling counterexample: Wall Street does not like Sanders, but the industry seems to like Clinton more than many of the Republican candidates, as the graph below shows. And though many of them likely agree with Krugman that the differences between Clinton and the Republicans are larger than those between Sanders and Clinton, numerous smart people and policy experts whose existence Krugman ignores believe both that Sanders’ Wall Street plans are much better than Clinton’s and that Sanders is far more likely than Clinton to surround himself with a staff that will execute a power-balancing policy vision.
For an even better example, consider foreign policy. Clinton has embraced an incredibly hawkish position on Israel, used the same foreign policy consulting firm as Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz (among other politicians), and supported a coup in Honduras in 2009; in fact, she has earned the support of many neoconservatives for her long history of supporting civil liberties violations and aggressive interventions that have resulted in the mistreatment and/or deaths of millions of innocent people. Tomasky is right to point out that Sanders’ doesn’t get particularly high marks on foreign policy from “actual leftists,” but there’s a reason Congresswoman and Iraq War veteran Tulsi Gabbard resigned from the Democratic National Committee to endorse Sanders at the end of February (see video below): he’s much less imperialistic than the typical major party candidate.
Then there’s the death penalty: Sanders opposes it, but Clinton, like the Republicans, is okay with it. There’s also the subject of immigrants’ rights: Clinton’s professed outrage over Donald Trump’s proposal to build a wall along the Mexican border is hard to reconcile with her repeated support for a border barrier in the past, support she touted as recently as November 2015. Her newfound commitment not to deport children fleeing violence is also hard to believe given her defense of such deportations a mere seven months ago. In contrast, Sanders has consistently opposed both a border fence and deportations.
From Clinton’s support for the escalation of the War on Drugs and move to more draconian welfare policy to her longtime opposition to gay marriage to her promotion of “free trade” deals that have prioritized the interests of multinational corporations over those of the bulk of the world’s citizens, Clinton’s history is closer to many Republicans’ than to Sanders’, who has a very good (albeit imperfect) record on racial justice issues, anti-poverty work, LGBT issues, and opposing bad trade deals. To be sure, there are some causes on which Sanders has found Republican allies, but those causes have generally been ones – like opposition to corporate welfare – that Tomasky’s “actual leftists” support.
In light of all these facts, Tomasky’s argument that Democrats should refrain from criticizing Hillary Clinton (who he thinks will be the Democratic nominee), like a similar argument from Markos Moulitsas at Daily Kos, is a hell of a lot scarier to people like me than a Donald Trump presidency. This undemocratic idea elevates party tribalism over good policymaking and “winning” over holding politicians accountable. It presents a major obstacle to the change the world’s most disadvantaged populations desperately need, change which perpetual endorsements of lesser-of-two-evilsism will never deliver. Such a misguided notion of “political pragmatism undermines progressive goals,” as I’ve argued before.
Sanders still has a legitimate shot to win the Democratic primary.
Half the country still hasn’t cast their ballots and Bernie Sanders isn’t all that far away from the pledged delegate targets he’d need to win the nomination; Tomasky is wrong to assert that “Sanders can’t win the delegate race now.” Yes, winning will be difficult, but there’s still a clear path for him to do so, and as Sanders’ historic upset win in Michigan shows, an election isn’t over until the voters actually cast their ballots. Krugman thinks an extended primary isn’t “good for the Democratic party;” I, on the other hand, think the Clinton coronation he and the Democratic party Establishment have been pushing is a whole lot worse, as it flies in the face of a lot of what the party is supposed to stand for.
All of that said, Krugman and Tomasky are right about one thing: Sanders supporters should avoid the reflexive attribution “of foul and malevolent motives” to Clinton supporters.
I know a lot of awesome Clinton supporters who do great work. People support presidential candidates for a variety of reasons, and instead of jumping to conclusions about the character of those who disagree with us, we should listen to those reasons and evaluate them on their merits. In fact, I’d urge everyone to extend the same courtesy to Bernie Sanders supporters, to Jill Stein supporters, to those who refuse to vote, and yes, even to people who plan to vote for one of the Republican candidates. We should consider the possibility that others have thought through their electoral choices and have entirely legitimate reasons for making them.
At the same time, ethics and evidence matter, and it’s perfectly fine – in fact, it’s essential – to hold voters accountable for attending to them. If you say your top priority is raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, for example, you can’t possibly defend a vote for a Republican this year. You also can’t really explain a vote for Clinton, which is why Sanders supporters were justifiably furious when the Service Employees International Union endorsed Clinton in November.
I suspect that Krugman and Tomasky don’t share all of my values and priorities. We agree on a lot – I enjoy their writing outside of election season and appreciate much of what they advocate for – but they seem much more comfortable with the policy status quo than I am. I reject the idea that public policy must inevitably leave millions of people behind; they very well may not. In Tomasky’s words: “Fine. I can appreciate that.” If more voters share Krugman and Tomasky’s values than share mine, so be it.
The problem, however, is that Krugman and Tomasky haven’t been writing about value disagreements. Instead, rather than acknowledging and responding to the evidence and logical arguments that contradict their claims, they’ve continued to pen inaccurate and/or highly misleading articles for popular media outlets. Is it any wonder that, in response to such widely read misinformation, they’ve received angry responses from Sanders supporters?
My best guess is that Krugman and Tomasky are suffering from a severe case of confirmation bias: they’re convinced that Clinton is the best option and have developed tunnel vision to avoid the cognitive dissonance that actually considering feedback might bring about. But that doesn’t make what they’re doing okay. And given how often they assign “foul and malevolent motives” to Republicans who write fallacious things, they’d do well to reflect on why it is that their readers have recently been doing the same thing to them.
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Filed under 2016 Presidential Election, US Political System
Tagged as Bernie Sanders, Berniebro, electability, evidence, Hillary Clinton, journalism, Krugman, online comments, political pragmatism, Republicans, Tomasky