An Hypothesis on the Secular Vote in 2016

by Gary Berg-Cross


Bill Scher, the Online Campaign Manager at Campaign for America's Future, (and the executive editor of LiberalOasis.com), often blogs about the problems that the Republican Party & Conservative Pols face. Recent ones include "Why Republicans Can’t Stop The Iran Deal (And Shouldn’t Want To) and "Republicans On Track To Lose The Latino Vote, And The Election, Again." But the most recent one (JULY 20, 2015) to catch my eye was, "Republicans Can’t Win Without Solving Their ‘Secular Problem. ’

The idea is simple, the highly religious and fundamentalist vote is maxed out.  The less religious and nones are growing and up, like the Latino vote, for being grabbed.

Scher points out some trends starting with an 2006 exit poll data that showed that:

'Democrats crushed Republican among voters who went to church “a few times a year” (60-38 percent) and “never” (67-30 percent), while the Republican margin among those who attended church “weekly” was slashed from 16 points in the previous midterm to seven."

The trend contnued in 2008, and Sher argues that the Republican secular problem was magnified:

'…In 2008, Sen. John McCain received 39 percent support of voters who seldom attend religious services, and 30 percent from those who never go. Both numbers represent a 6-point drop from what Bush received in 2004…

…Obama received 43 percent of the vote from voters who attend religious services weekly or more than weekly. For Kerry, those numbers were 41 percent and 35 percent…'

The idea here, which jives with the type of things we see among the current crop of GOP candidates  is that conservatives are aiming at keeping their Evangelical base.  The battle is for the more casual religious.

Scher reports that in 2012 an openly religious Obama did no better than Kerry among the  42 percent of voters who said they were regular worshipers. (The secular vote is also about 42%) Although a very religious Mitt did worse than Bush's 2004 results among the 57 percent who "never went to services or who went irregularly."

President Obama carried Religiously Unaffiliated voters 70% to Mitt Romney’s 26% according to a report from The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life exit poll data of the 2012 election. Although the President’s percentage was lower than in 2008, it still continued a trend of the nones supporting the Democratic candidates. The exit poll numbers were larger than a similar election poll in September when the President held a 65 to 27 lead on Romney. (from  President Obama Wins A Landslide From The Religiously Unaffiliated)

So 2016 shapes up in this view to having a new swing vote group he call the Secular. Candidates need to speak to them on secular topics. Renouncing “religious freedom” laws

that would permit discrimination is one he sites along with women's freedom to choose. Supporting equal rights for the LGBT community is obviously one that appeals to young seculars in particular based on their experience.  Even if they are not persuaded by a liberal candidate they find offense in how a socially conservative candidate  panders to the Conservative base on these and other Judeo-Christian inspired topics that do not respect the separation of Church and State. 

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Leaders' Images, Words and Policies

By Gary Berg-Cross
 

News often arranges things such that common themes come to mind. An example is the image of leaders and the superficial aspect of their image &  words vs. the hidden policy beliefs.

This happened to me today as the election of a new pope, Mitt Romney’s updates on his “47 percent” remarks and a new PR course was launched by the new leadership in China.

Mitt Romney and the upcoming CPAC have reasons to reflecting “mistakes” in the last election and what to do going forward, Romney understands that he was hurt by his “47 percent” remarks, but argues it was a bit of messaging problem, as opposed to some important policy different.  This ‘it’s just a matter of semantics” seems to me really dishonest and a problem of our age.  Romney also said his remark that "47 percent" of Americans believed they were "victims" and expected government to provide for them was an “unfortunate statement.”

“It's not what I meant.  I didn't express myself as I wished I would have. You know, when you speak in private, uh, you don't spend as much time thinking about how something could be twisted and distorted and -- and it could come out wrong and be used,” he went on to say. 

I don’t buy this just as I didn't buy many of the empty messaging of past conservative like George Bush (see Pict above for a 47% like truth slipping out).  There is perception versus reality issue here.  Supporters & the funding class pay $50K or so for a meal and expect an idea of policy.  Romney is papering over real differences about what is likely intended policy and you can see some of this in the Ryan budget where the funding class’s taxes are not raised but programs for the 47% are and account for about 60% of Ryan’s budget savings.

I had a similar feeling of perception and policy reality differences when listening to the coverage of the new Pope Francis, aka Jorge Mario Bergoglio. He’s describes as a Jesuit known for simplicity and his very humble lifestyle, emphasis there, but also and conservatism.  He’s described as flashback to an older view of Catholic clerics as humble leaders.  And yes he did rode the bus because he gave up a cardinal’s chauffeured limo.

This simplicity has an undeniable appeal and I like a “Prince of the Church” who cooked his own meals  & chose to live in a simple apartment rather than the archbishop’s palace.  I like his activism for the poor.  But a deeper look shows his conservative stance on some really key issues including contraception, marriage, the role of women and Liberation Theology (too much a mix of Jesus’s message and a socialist one).

When the Argentinian government considered making same-sex marriage legal he was reported as saying:

 "Let's not be naive, we're not talking about a simple political battle; it is a destructive pretension against the plan of God. We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God."

It’s enough to generate other views of the new pope - A pope so retro as to seem oddly new (Anthony Faiola ). That’s a view of the conservative substance living under a kinder, gentler veneer. 

I had a similar feeling reading the WaPo article:China’s Xi Jinping charts a new PR course

As noted there new leader Xi and his top advisers have introduced:

 “something previously unseen among the higher echelons of Chinese government: a retail politician…

The tactics familiar seem familiar (ala Romney or Francis) — getting control of the message and image with a simple narrative -  attacking problems in general terms (government waste) and casting the new leader as a plainspoken, unadorned man of the people.

The approach reflects a new reality confronting not just China’s leaders in the modern age.   As noted by many innovations like social media and cellphones weaken central control over the narrative. This week CPAC isn’t he only PR campaign boosting leader’s image  as the pope and China’s Xi ease into the ceremonial roles and  struggle with the various with public discontent, disillusionment & even tea party level rage over failed policies and hierarchical/oligarchic blocks of  power.

Images

George Bush’s Litmus test for Judges- policy & message: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x11212

Pope: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/pope-francis-visits-ancient-basilica-in-rome/2013/03/14/f4e6446c-8c85-11e2-9f54-f3fdd70acad2_story.html

Romney 47%: http://blogs.denverpost.com/opinion/2012/09/19/cartoons-day-mitt-romneys-47-percent-comments/25544/

Xi: WaPo artice cited

 

A Meaning Too Far: Macaca and Holocaust Moments

By Gary Berg-Cross

Words are used as surrogates to look into what people are thinking about candidates. Below is a partial list of unweighted word counts that people apply to President Obama. These are emotional words and part of sentiment analysis (which was pioneered to see what people thought of car and brand names):

Good/good man/good job 38
Trying/Tried/Tries 30
President 27
Failed/Failure 25
Incompetent 24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpewpoll_20120903.html

As you can see it is a mixed list of good and bad, but the good polarity sentiments outnumber the bad.

That’s analysis of what people think. Analysis going the other way looks at how speeches are crafted to make people think a certain way about a candidate or topic. There was a bit of a word storm of analysis after the recent political conventions. Commentators made much of the fact that Romney ignored the Afghan war and hadn’t said the word. But beyond that papers such as the NY Times did detailed analysis on which words were actually used and what we might surmise was the “message” being thrown out.

The graphic below is from the Times and shows that Barack Obama used the word “Health” or the phrase “Middle Class” much more than Romney who used God and Business much more. You can also see a chart of the words used by just Romney and other speakers from the NY Times. Words associated with foreign policy accounted for a small part – but the recent events in Libya have turned that around a bit. Pundits have always discussed campaign wars of words and the stories they tell, but text analysis has gotten incrementally more sophisticated to get closer to understanding the meanings that speech writers try to evoke and the images they cast. Words & phrases like “American Exceptionalism” used this way may have an uncertain alignment with history and external reality.

It has all to do with evoking powerful concepts a person already believes in. The skill is often in getting that fine tuning of moving people just a little way from where they are to where you want them to be. Use a phrase like “American Exceptionalism” often enough and it becomes a tool. You can then wrap your statements in this familiar language with just a hint of evidence (I created jobs) and hope your audience makes the connection you want. You might suggest that Entrepreneurs are part of “American Exceptionalism”. Tell that story and imply that community organizers are less a part of this. They don’t create jobs and are not “Exceptional”– look at the trouble they make.

Of course the story may go wrong if you deviate too widely and seem unfair.

Language requires massive amount of  commonsense knowledge, knowledge

 that a 5 year old has based on experience, but a computer problem doesn’t have. Connecting certain words makes sense and conveys an meaning in normal circumstance. So we may talk about picking up a “blue toy”, but not “burning a blue virtue”. Older kids may even understand a proposition such as “ the far table needs some more soda” even thought tables don’t drink.  We understand that the table includes people who do drink. We buy into the idea being communicated with an interpretation.

But political language can stretch our comprehension system a bit beyond its comfort zone and into interpretations we may find aesthetically disturbing. I’m thinking of the language of politicians like George Allen, Virginia’s 67th Governor, who had a "Macaca” Moment caught on camera. It seemed extreme and racist to label a citizen with an oblique monkey reference this way. It’s a triangle of meaning as I've blogged on before, with words too far from the concepts most of us have. Of course Allen just thought he had chosen the wrong word, but people judged a meaning in the word and perhaps too cheap a political trick to stir the crowd's emotions. More recently Republican Rep. Roscoe Bartlett a 10-term incumbent from Frederick County MD,  had a difficult moment. Bartlett is battling Democratic challenger John Delaney, a financier from Montgomery County in a redrawn district. He was asked during a town hall meeting in Cumberland MD if he favored government-issued student loans. Bartlett replied that such loans are unconstitutional - bad sentiment there. He thought that ignoring the Constitution to do something good (helping students has a good sentiment) can be “a very slippery slope.” What was he trying to connect government loans to? What was the path he saw? He cited the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews during World War II as an example of something bad that could happen if we support the federal government’s role in subsidized student loans. Here’s what he said about that slipper slope:

“The Holocaust that occurred in Germany -- how in the heck could that happen? And when you start down the wrong road, it can be a very slippery slope."

He’s apologizing vigorously for this poor choices of words and may be on a slippery slope himself, but what about his concepts? He finds no evidence in the U.S. Constitution that the federal government should be involved with education or that student loans were “a good idea.” This seems so 18th century and what, I guess, some call strict constructionism. Well at least people in parts of MD will have a chance to think about what a simple term like "student loans", "federal government" and "slippery slope" mean to people like Bartlett. The truth is that we often need more than commonsense to interpret political talk which is full of gaps and jumps and historical and cultural reference. There' s a plethora of things not spelled out in the constitution such as privacy rights that slick talk may make seem easy issues, but they are not since they involve more than some obvious meaning in a phrase like "student load" and who is responsible for what as part of that commitment. It's important to inquire into what is really being argued in these seemingly simple statements.

Image Crdits

Sentiment Analysis: http://googlewatch.eweek.com/content/google_search/google_gamed_by_cyber_bullies_needs_sentiment_analysis.html
George Allen: http://www.answers.com/topic/macaca-slur

Being “Smart” Doesn’t Mean There Aren’t Blind Spots

by Gary Berg-Cross

Smart vs. dumb seems like a simple dichotomy. No one likes to thought of as dumb, let along being called dumb publically. It’s generally a good thing to be considered intelligent and informed and able to think rationally. Of course we have models or absent minded professors and deep thinkers that are socially clueless and inept at ordinary tasks. But we have a general sense that knowledge is power and that intelligence (along with a dose of skepticism and a good method) can expose the truth and the truth is better than falsehood and critical investigation is a better long-term strategy than uncritical acceptance.

We are stunned to hear uniformed opinions and willful ignorance expressed as facts as in ““keep your government hands off MY Medicare” But Cornell political scientist Suzanne Mettler has shown that a large % of recipients of government benefits somehow don’t believe they’ve received any benefits.

Wild generalizations like “corporations are people my friend… of course they are…Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people.” can also rankle, since there are so many counterarguments to hidden, common sense assumptions. Willard Romney said this in August 2011 while attempting to counter an argument that taxes should be raised on corporations as part of balancing the budget. Romney is smart all right and Harvard trained, so why the blind spot about how his thinking comes across as false, but yet appeals to so many? Seems like a bit of a paradox, which you may have experienced in talking about such things with seemingly intelligent supporters of such policies. But it is wider and gain you may have experienced this when talking to elite professionals on topics that are outside their training.  Little is funnier than having a lawyer or economist ask you not to use too many technical terms or speak in simple sentences on scientific topics. One may be trainied and intelligent and still yearn for simple answers when they may not be so available.

Simple, contemporary political statements like corporations are people ring hollow since we can ask if corporations have to follow the same rules as we humans and be responsible in the same way. This is clearly not what it means nor is the idea that all the benefits wind up in “the people’s” hands. Some of the people’s wealth seems to be missing.

These type of seemingly smart vs. dumb dichotomy abounds in freethinkers’ vs. religious arguments over evolution and the verbal barbs thrown such as :

I love how the atheists on blogs like to act like they're a part of an elite squad who are masters of logic and reason.

It is true that simple logic can expose some silly arguments justifying religion which seems in part defended by an element of willful disbelief. Such styles are part of larger factors than reasonability that produces a spectrum that is not just elite smartness or general dumbness. Some people seem to dislike atheists and freethinkers just because they ask difficult question which challenge others to answer about open ended topics like morality. And most of us like to think we are on the right side of moral issues. I show my bona fides and the case is closed. I don’t have to exhaust my self in a long change of reasoning supported by evidence.The point here is that our supposed intelligence is often blinded by competing cognitive and social factors.

 In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Nobel prize Daniel Kahneman (subject earlier blogs on knowing) points out how such slow, carefully thinking is often the poor minority of reasoning. Research is such areas helps understand some of the blind spots and disputed implied above. It’s because reasoning is part of a pretty complex system evolved over time and engaged in particular ways by culture and cultural elites (e.g lawyers, economists & clergy).

There are fast associations that we make when a topic comes up and thus questioning suitable religious (or political) authority which has status in culture. Attacking religion seems anti-social and unpatriotic to those who value social cohesiveness. After all won’t such things lead to socialism or communism?

Into this discussion we now throw the idea of cognitive biases and intuitive thinking. It is the humbling realization (as reported recently) that bright people can be especially prone to stupid mistakes. After all the work on human, cognitive bias shows that we are subject to systematic cognitive errors. It is just that different people have different degrees for particular types. If we have good memories we make react to a Pol flip flopping on his/her position. If we associate government with bad things we may accept some statement with little support since it is consistent with our beliefs. But it turns out that a general intelligence doesn’t really protect us from holding and defending stupid positions. Indeed a simple higher intelligence (as measured by S.A.T. scores) can make things worse. This is the understanding of research (by West & friends) that looked at awareness of faulty reasoning or a blind spot. West and his colleagues began by giving 482 undergraduates a questionnaire featuring a variety of classic bias problems. Here’s a example so you can judge the problem:

In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?

An intuitive, short cut response is to divide the 48 in half. That gives an answer of twenty-four days. Sorry that’s wrong. The correct solution is forty-seven days. After all it doubles every day!!!

The wrong answer seems easy to get to that somewhat intelligence people fall prey to it, but think it right and defend the answer since after all, I am smarter than the average and therefore must be right. A humbling thought is what seems to be an ever increasingly American meritocracy that with Pols like Romney represents more of a de facto oligarchy. It is perhaps a bit of an insight into why there seem so wild thinking, but smugly confident politicians in America. 

For more see Jonah Lehrer's article in the New Yorker and Blind Spots: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things

Social Darwinism 3.2

by Gary Berg-Cross

President Obama recently assailed the Ryan Republican budget plan as ‘social Darwinism. It makes sense that he is setting the stage for a budget values debate that is likely to define the fall election. To kickoff the debate he has appealed to the idea of Social Darwinism and he’s labeled the Republican budgets, drafted by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), as part of a slippery and "a prescription for decline" because it would gut such essential programs as Medicare and education. A central part of this “radical vision” is

“Disguised as deficit-reduction plan, it’s really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. It’s nothing but thinly veiled Social Darwinism. It’s antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everyone who’s willing to work for it — a place where prosperity doesn’t trickle down from the top, but grows outward from the heart of the middle class. And by gutting the very things we need to grow an economy that’s built to last — education and training; research and development — it’s a prescription for decline.” 

Not everyone may understand the reference to “social Darwinism” beyond an implied argument that a society's strongest members will and should flourish and that it is a mistake to help society’s “weaker members survive and reproduce. Translated to policy, it pits the poor against the wealthy in some struggle for survival. People may vaguely know that Libertarians or Randians adhere to a form of “conservative Darwinism” stressing laissez-faire markets that allow the strongest to emerge and flourish.

We should be more literate about Social Darwinism. Like the difference between chemistry and alchemy it's one of those scientific cultural things that everybody should know a bit about. In The Age of American Unreason Susan Jacoby describes Social Darwinism as one of the pseudoscience encouraging an American social environment of unreason and ignorance (see my blog Critical Thinking in a Time of Political Truthiness. Since unreasonable arguments are likely to be thrown about during the Presidential campaigns it might be useful to understand the history of Social Darwinism, who has favored it and how it has been critiqued. This will allow us to be more reasoned in the debate.

The phrase "survival of the fittest" is central to the concept and was coined by Herbert Spencer, British philosopher, in 1851. (His picture is above sitting next to Paul Ryan) The original form of Social Darwinism (call it Social Darwinism I in the current vernacular of versioning) appeared pretty rapidly after the Origins publication and was recognizable by the late 1860s as suggesting broader implications of evolution. The actual term appeared later in 1877 for the idea that the struggle for survival seen in animal species also applies to humans. Fair enough, but is this a hypothesis or a scientific theory that gets refined by evidence over time.  If so one would expect that people like Evolutionary Biologists would be increasingly in the forefront of the discussions.  Instead we find politicians, clergy, fringe philosophers and lassez faire corporatists and their mouthpieces in the forefront of the efforts over time making arguments that appeal to people who know little of the science. 

The simple fact is that cooperation also applies to intelligent species. Darwin, himself felt that "social instincts" such as "sympathy" and "moral sentiments" were central to human life and may have also evolved through natural selection. Darwin speculated that social concerns actually strengthening the human cultures in which Anthropologists see them wrote about it this way in his later book Descent of Man:

The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable- namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man. For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them

It's pretty clear that we can make plausible arguments for natural selection working on human tribes. Some tribal members will possessing in a high degree social sentiments we might think of as patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy. If they are socially conscious and ready to aid each another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, there is a good chance they will be victorious over most other tribes. If these social sentiments are able to be passed on they could be selected for.‎ That’s a big IF but no more than the selfish struggle or each against the other.  And such better angels sentiments aren’t what Social Darwinists were talking about. Ideas like sympathy for others is not what they see as being selected.

Unlike Darwin popularizes of Social Darwinism I ignored the complexity of human descent and inheritability issues and tuned out of the eventual surge of comparative data from Anthropology. They focused on socially deleterious traits, like "pauperism" and mental illness. Like Andrew Carnegie hey had a simple approach to fitness via competition:

"The law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, [but] it is best for the race , because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department."
Andrew Carnegie, "The Gospel of Wealth, (1889)

The simple idea is that competition produces winners - some type of success within a culture. In the class stratified England on the 19^th century you can imagine who was seen as fit – the aristocracy and noveau rich. In such society’s with big wealth gaps, material success can easily be interpreted as evolution’s considered moral and progressive judgment. Wealth success was the proxy for fitness as the dominance of the white race could be interpreted as evolutionarily superior to other races. Likewise colonial success of countries like Britain made them superior to other nations. In American the general social theory became a practiced justification for laissez faire capitalism during the Gilded Age.

This superiority included cultural-political institutions and Religion, with some special reasoning to make conclusions come out right. Christianity is championed as better than all the rest and has out competed them. Well it fought Islam to a draw, but then perhaps we can rationalize this because Islam flourishes in inferior cultures. It is intellectually interesting that an oversimplified application of an agnostic theory like Darwinian evolution should have been picked up by 19th-century Christian ministers like Henry Ward Beecher, as an attempt to reconcile Christianity with evolution, although to be fair they did not call it Social Darwinism. To Beecher and others the Science of Evolution proved God's will in making certain that 'the poor will be with you always.' Indeed, economic success is evidence of the working of God's will through some biological imperative of natural selection set up by God for this purpose. Given this double authority in the natural order, only fools attempt to ameliorate economic inequality.Thinking like this leads to a Prosperity Gospel rather than a compassionate one.

The whole Social Darwin agrument strikes some as an inhumane, weakly formed and flawed philosophy. Like Intelligent Design or Freudian Psychology it can be used elastically to justify whatever its supporters want to justify. As previously discussed it is appealing as a racial argument. To be sure it was welcomed by the ultra-rich in 19^th century America to justify their status and world view. And it justified Gilded Age comfort while removing moral responsibility for poor immigrants floundering in Dickensian poverty and misery.

Social Darwinisn II was a later version, again popular in the post WW-I Roaring 20s with its banking wealth. One impetus was a mix of the rise of the eugenics movement which grew out of the coupled with massive immigration that threaten some with a dilution of the Caucasian and Northern European races. Eugenics had roots in Social Darwinism I with its primitive notions of fitness and that biology was destiny. Interestingly, the word "eugenics" was coined in 1883 by Darwin cousin scientist Francis Galton. Galton wanted to promote the ideal of perfecting the human race by, as it is often put, weeding out "undesirables" while promoting "desirables." This may have seen simpler in Galton's day before we knew the mechanics of genetics, although there were efforts to study identical twins to see how much intelligence is inhereted. If you take an Intro Psych course today you might learn about how the early English studies actually fabricated data. We know a lot more today about the essentially interactive nature of intelligence emerging in the environment.

Which brings us to a 3^rd phase of Social Darwinism which started a while ago (so I call the current version 3.2) as part of a conservative movement that features things like trickle down economics and shrinking safety nets. This version has its dog whistle appeal points. One focuses on poor (aka inferior) people who should not be pampered - pregnant immigrants, the poor, elderly and disabled. These are trotted out like Reagan’s welfare queens as implied 'parasites.' This phase is again associated with our rising wealth inequality and a new brand of wealth elites. The current wealth gap, like that of the 1920 and 30s, is justified as due to some type of personal fitness. You can see this embedded in Mitt Romney’s messages. (See my blog on Behind the Prosperity Message of Happy Warriors.) He is obviously fit to lead because he is wealthy and a “job creator.” This ignores the fact that he didn’t create jobs or that many have become wealthy through a fitness for influencing tax laws and getting special exemptions.Ignoring facts is again one sign of a pseudo-science and in this case it is even lighter than that and is just social fiction driven by  powerful political and their media voices.

The press of arguments justifying austere budgets and programs probably will fuel a new round of discussion with some embedded Social Darwin issues - things like 'class envy' & 'class warfare,' social compassion, what is a fair and productive society and whether preventive measures as simple as vaccination are justified. When blame is being allocated for things like the national deficit these are some of the factors focused on as opposed to specific decisions taken in the Bush years that produced the large deficits we see.

The current launch area is the “smoke and mirrors” Ryan budget which by one estimate adds something like 4 trillion dollars to the deficit, but includes $4.3 trillion in tax cuts which would again benefit those fittest among us like Mitt.

The list of possible cuts in Ryan’s budget includes Medicare, Social Security, college aid, early education, the Federal Aviation Administration, and even the weather service. As Ezra Klein identified there is real hypocrisy in Ryan's arguments arguments for deficit reduction and minimal impact :

The cuts to Medicaid and other health programs for the poor are twice the size of those to Medicare. The cuts to education, to food stamps, to transportation infrastructure and to pretty much everything else besides defense are draconian. As for the tax reform component, it cuts taxes on millionaires by more than $250,000, but it doesn’t name a single loophole or tax break that Ryan and the Republicans would close.

 Even among conservatives there are debates on such draconian approaches. Former Bush speechwriter, Mike Gerson is uncomfortable the Tea Party ‘sink or swim’ attitude that seems at odds with some older aspects of conservatism (or at least compassionate conservatism):

“It is at odds with Abraham Lincoln’s inclusive tone and his conviction that government policies could empower individuals. It is inconsistent with religious teaching on government’s responsibility to seek the common good and to care for the weak. It does not reflect a Burkean suspicion of radical social change.”

This new round of Social Darwinism discussion would be improved by a healthy degree of skepticism and by a respect for data, such as cited on the Ryan budget in contrast to its claims. Wisdom on policy resides at least partly in understanding the consequences of policy action. And for all the social philosophizing one wonders if the voices of experts will be hears are and whether they will be listed to. If claims about human nature and the society are at issue, we want experts in these areas to advise us. As a culture we are, unfortunately, increasingly less interested in hearing such deep analysis and are rather captured by slogans and hot button coverage.

Behind the Prosperity Message of Happy Warriors

By Gary Berg-Cross
It’s great to have a positive attitude, especially if it’s realistically based. But when I consider some well-positioned contemporary figures, such as Bob McDonald and Donald Trump, I get a sense that their bonhomie is more superficial and synthetic than deeply held. Pol Marco Rubio has that happy warrior charm and youthful vigor that makes him seem a popular and attractive figure. His nicknames is McDreamy. But what is behind this projected charm? In part it seems to me part of a conscious tactic to do what Norman Vincent Peale called winning friends and influencing people as part of positive thinking. (Peale published “The Power of Positive Thinking” in 1952). My working hypothesis of the classic, happy attitude and seeming brightness of people like George W. Bush is that it is reflexive strategy implemented as a habit and not necessarily a deep seated trait. As a persona strategy it sometimes combines an ego trip of self-delusion with an ideological certainty of how the world ought to be with an unconscious, habitual need to influence people. This mix can lead to some seemingly paradoxical and awkward behavior when reality and delusional certainty collide.

Willard Mitt Romney seems to be in this mold of an artificially upbeat character. His persona seems to produce moments of false bravado and good, old boy cheer that seemed forced, synthetic and sometimes just weird, "ya'll". His efforts at a common touch strike me and many others as programmed in. Because of this he’s been described as a robotic cheerleader type. Alternately he’s labeled as a Richie Rich (aka Richee Mitt) character that is devoid of “real” emotions. His wealth and privilege seem to prevent him from getting in touch with the common man. He seems ill at ease campaigning in front of various groups around the country. One wonders what world view or vision they reflect. It seems a bit hypocritical as I posted in Becoming what we Hate. Whatever the reason the vision seems to be something that most of us can’t relate to. It produces friendly, global demeanors but at times these seem per-programmed and not quite appropriate to the situation. I posit that these awkward behaviors have roots in both his religious-culture experience, the prosperity gospel, and as a “motivational” corporate leader in late 20^th century American. Both exhort believers to be positive, very positive not matter what.

The religious connection apparently started during his over seas Mormon mission work. While there he read Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich on the recommendation of a Mormon church leader in Utah. First published in 1937 and eventually selling 60 million copies, Think and Grow Rich is probably the most widely read book teaching what is called a gospel of positive thinking as a means to financial or business success. In Mitt Romney’s Mormonism Robert M. Bowman Jr. describes Hill’s book as:

“a thinly veiled version of the New Thought prosperity doctrine, according to which the universe is suffused with “Infinite Intelligence” into which one can tap by thinking and thereby achieve whatever one sets out to do.”

This aspect of a prosperity gospel is well described in Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-Sided which explores the “Dark Side of Positive Thinking” in both the religious and corporate world. Ehrenreich, who is beyond wonderful in all her writing, charts the path of the positivity messages such as “When life hands out lemons, squeeze out a smile”. In religion the surprising story is how a positive philosophy has pressed on and partially displaced the older, gloomy message of Calvinism. Its positive message has found a place in religious niches as diverse as Mormon and evangelical mega-churches. There pastors have been celebrities as robed motivational speakers selling a stitched-together faith called “prosperity gospel. Essentially the message of this gospel is that God rewards positive thinking with material riches. God WANTS the faithful to be rich. All that believers have to do is have the right attitude and keep working. It’s a powerful message to blue collar workers. One also sees a message of hope projected by bright aura politicians like Herman Cain, a former motivational speaker. 

And the positive, prosperity message has a resonance in Corporate American, from which Mitt Romney comes. Enhrereich wrote pitch perfectly about this sunny, guru world of CEOs long before Mitt's 2011-12 campaign. The older Corporate American included pragmatic professionals such as Mitt’s father George, which mixed technical ability, leadership and liberal values. His son Mitt is more of a country club member and celebrity CEO who is proud to say he knows the elite owners of this and that. This connection to the prosperous works in the board room which, aside from the Mormon church, is Romney's natural playing ground. He is probably at home inspiring (or firing) employees.  It's a strength and as a motivational speaker he probably expects to pump up an audience of true believers with a few good lines about conservative staples like lower taxes. After all isn’t money - and Mitt has money ranking in the 0.006 percent of Americans - next to godliness? His formula to win people over is a mix of “tribal stories” of hope set in a positive message in which poverty is the fault of the poor for not being better people. Need to stir the emotions? Just a few dog whistles about the “enemy” and evil will do that. Although Rick Santorum seems better than Mitt at that, after all he's brought the devil issue into the campaign. To Rick most things seem to simplify down to a battle of good against evil, which I've blogged on earlier as part of Binary Thinking.

But Mitt expects to win since he is Chosen, and after all he is a proven corporate success with a winning smile. He's a turn around artist that generated wealth for him and his Bain fellows. Turing around the country might just mean acquiring a few governmental things and firing people and, well making a few rich people richer.Perhaps what he is thinking is that what resonates in the Corporate Board room should work as an empowering message to with the mass congregation that is the electorate. Or perhaps the idea is that as a preacher of the positive message he can convert all of us to the prosperity gospel and its implications. It's not clear which it is and when people ask such questions we get what seems disingenuous answers.  He seems to not know what answers would be perceived positively by an audience.   As a take over artist he has to sell some vision, but  as in many take overs, it will all be different when the new management team takes control.  They get to dismantle the pieces as a turn around artist.

But converting the populace isn't so easy in an economy that has brought more layoffs and financial turbulence to the middle class. People are skeptical ,as they should be of happy warrior pols whose plans to help seem, upon closer analysis, might be geared to helping the already prosperous. The father, George Romney’s message would probably play better than Mitt's thin veneer of positive thinking. People want to know where’s the beef of these motivational speaker and smiling cobra corporate types. People know that corporate elites have fought for government subsidies, tax benefits and tax havens. And they perhaps wonder if the Richie Rich and famous CEO types are the new emperor who have neither clothing for the masses or beef.