David French has a piece at the NYT about what a lot of progressives don’t get: That the appeal of Donald Trump is not just the rage, but the joy. It’s why Ron DeSantis — who mostly channels the rage and is unconvincing at the joy part — is trailing so badly in the polls.
I think that’s right, but this passage really caught my eye:
If you’re deemed to be one of those people who is trying to “destroy our country and our family,” then you don’t see joy, only fury.
Trump’s fans, by contrast, don’t understand the effects of that fury because they mainly experience the joy. For them, the MAGA community is kind and welcoming. For them, supporting Trump is fun. Moreover, the MAGA movement is heavily clustered in the South, and Southerners see themselves as the nicest people in America. It feels false to them to be called “mean” or “cruel.” Cruel? No chance. In their minds, they’re the same people they’ve always been — it’s just that they finally understand how bad you are. And by “you,” again, they often mean the caricatures of people they’ve never met.
Something fundamental about humanity, I think: We want others to judge us by our best intentions, but we we often treat others based on superficial knowledge (at best) of what they’re about.
Thanks to the “Big Sort,” it seems we’re increasingly clustered among folks who think the way we do and so we’re all in agreement about our best intentions — and also about the caricatures of our rivals, with whom we don’t live. And, I suspect, that’s probably pretty awful. It’ll probably only get worse.
I think this about this dynamic fairly often. I’m a liberal who writes an opinion column for the Kansas City Star and Wichita Eagle — papers that serve Kansas and Missouri, which are states that (as you might have heard) are fairly conservative.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the abortion pill. And I led off with a lot of throat-clearing.
Two things to know at the outset: This column is about abortion. And I hate writing about abortion.
Let me explain the second part first. I am pro-choice because I believe real issues of women’s freedom and health are at stake. The last year since the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade has furnished too many horror stories — about doctors refusing care to violently ill pregnant women, of a Texas man who sued his ex-wife’s friends for helping her obtain abortion pills — to believe otherwise.
So why the squeamishness?
Simple. I grew up in a small, conservative Kansas town — and attended a conservative, Christian college — among devoutly religious people who sincerely believe that life begins at conception and that abortion is a murderous act.
I still love those folks. It seems impossible that we’ll ever find a reasonable middle ground on the issue. But I know that despite our disagreement, a lot of them seem honorable, acting on their best understanding of right and wrong.
Now: I’m certain that passage set my pro-choice friends’ teeth on edge. Why spend so much of my precious few hundred words making this point? Two answers:
A) I absolutely believe all that stuff.
B) Again, I’m aiming my remarks at a readership that is probably more conservative than the audiences I’ve written for at national outlets. And I don’t want them to dismiss me without reading me — I’m trying to push them to think about one small aspect of the abortion topic differently, and I don’t think I have a chance at accomplishing that task if they think I simply hate them.
But also, to borrow French’s point: I know they’re not caricatures. I have met them. So it strikes me wrong to treat them otherwise.
When I started out in the opinion-writing business lo these 15 years ago, I naively believed that underneath a lot of the ugliness of our politics was a lot of commonality that could be revealed and make our interactions easier if we simply communicated more clearly. We wouldn’t necessarily agree on stuff, but we’d find better ways to disagree.
I don’t really believe that anymore. The differences are deeply felt. For good reason, in a lot of cases.
It strikes me, though, that we can’t really make democracy-as-we-have-known-it work unless we’re willing to do at least a little bit of the hard work of trying to understand our neighbors as they understand themselves instead of always treating them as two-dimensional villains. It’s an essential part of persuasion, which is the lifeblood of that democracy.
Now: That also means, hopefully, they’ll do the same for us. At this point, I’m not certain either side is really ready to put in the work1. And certainly there are folks — yes, Donald Trump — who are invested in discouraging that work. It’s easier and (as French says) more fun just to go to war. Which means I’m discouraged about our collective future.
Please don’t come at me about “bothsidesism.” If you’re reading me, you probably already know where my political sympathies lie. But sometimes it really is both sides.
The negative stereotype southerners pin on northerners is more about the Lost Cause than abortion. Northerners look at statues of Confederate generals as symbols of racism and treason. Southerners see heroes. So the joy, in a way, replaces the Lost Cause with the Trump Cause.
I’m glad you took this on. I thought French’s insights were spot on, and certainly ones many NYT readers might never be exposed to.