Kevin Vallier
at Bleeding Heart Libertarians comments on a post by Robert Krugman in which he
dehumanizes conservatives in order to justify his approach for ignoring
anything they say. The context of Krugman’s post is to explain why Republican
evangelicals can support Trump who doesn’t align with their conservative principles.
According to Krugman,
What
happened to conservative principles?
Actually,
nothing — because those alleged principles were never real. Conservative
religiosity, conservative faith in markets, were never about living a godly
life or letting the invisible hand promote entrepreneurship. Instead, it was
all as Corey Robin describes it: Conservatism is
a
reactionary movement, a defense of power and privilege against democratic
challenges from below, particularly in the private spheres of the family and
the workplace.
It’s
really about who’s boss, and making sure that the man in charge stays boss.
Trump is admired for putting women and workers in their place, and it doesn’t
matter if he covets his neighbor’s wife or demands trade wars.
As Vallier
says, “Krugman’s opponents aren’t just wrong: they oppose fundamental moral and
political values (equality) that any reasonable, decent person should accept.
How are Very Serious Progressives like Krugman to share a country such
individuals? Krugman’s answer is clear: support state power to crush
conservative policies and criticize their intelligence and character.”
I’ve been
harping recently on Arnold Kling’s e-book Three Languages of Politics but to me
Krugman provides a clear example of the preference that Kling has identified
for liberals to explain things in terms of the oppressed versus the oppressors.
Trump and conservatives don’t believe what they do (and who knows what Trump
really believes?) because they’re mistaken. Oh, no. It’s because they want to
maintain their oppressor status. So that absolves progressives of the need to fairly
answer positions taken by Republicans or conservatives. After all, these right
wingers are the enemy and sub-human and therefore don’t deserve to be treated fairly.
There are
several problems with this. First, this will continue the polarization that
almost everyone decries. Second, Krugman implicitly alleges to be able to read
the minds of everyone who claims to be a conservative. In other words, anyone
who espouses conservative principles by definition doesn’t really believe what
they’re saying. He can somehow divine that their real intent is to oppress
people. Not just some conservatives. All of them. Nice, huh? This in
turn leads to the third problem: intellectual laziness. Your principles are
protected behind the insular force field of demonizing the opposition. Essentially
this mind set boils down to: “Move on. Move on. There is nothing to hear folks.
This is just a crazy right (or left) winger ranting. Our ideas are so indisputably
and blindingly correct that anyone who challenges them just proves how subhuman
and despicable they are.”
