They're Shittier Than We Imagined. What About Us?

Since the election of DJ Trump to the presidency most of us have seen the American people in a different light. The US is no longer the land of Ozzie & Harriet, of Ward and June, Wally and Beaver Cleaver. It was as though the "wholesome goodness" had evaporated, displaced by Trump's "base" with its seemingly unlimited capacity to tolerate his increasingly cruel buffoonery.

NYT columnist, Thomas Edsall, writes that even his country's seasoned political analysts are surprised by the transformation of American society. The glue that once held the country together may be failing.

The election of Trump and his first three years in office have revealed a nation deeply ambivalent about immigration, race, equality, fairness — even about the ground rules of democracy itself. 

What if the belief systems used to justify anti-immigrant policies and to justify race prejudice, for that matter — hostility to outsiders, insularity, high sensitivity to external threat — are as deeply ingrained in the American body politic as belief systems sympathetic to immigration and to racial equality — openness, receptivity to new experiences, trust? 

Karen Stenner, a political psychologist and behavioral economist best known for “predicting the rise of Trump-like figures under the kinds of conditions we now confront,” responded to my emailed inquiries by noting the conflicting pressures at play:

"I don’t think I would agree that Trumpian conservative stands on immigration, race and homelessness are a more “natural” or “default” position. Communities with a good balance of people who seek out diversity, complexity, novelty, new and exciting experiences etc., and those who are disgusted by and averse to such things, avoid them, and tell others to do likewise, tend to thrive and prosper in human evolution." 

Finding the right balance, Stenner said, “is vital to both societal cohesion and human flourishing.” But, she warned, “we may have tipped the balance too far in favor of unconstrained diversity and complexity,” pushing the boundary beyond “many people’s capacity to tolerate it.”

Abraham Lincoln, falling back on scripture, warned that "a house divided against itself (over slavery) could not stand." Today America has succumbed to a degree of tribalism that, to me, at times seems to resemble a Lord of the Flies animus.

Many have observed that the American Left appears hapless, unable to push back against the radical right ascendancy.  Edsall offers an explanation:

Linda J. Skitka, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and four colleagues conducted an intriguing set of tests to determine the durability and strength of liberal and conservative beliefs on poverty in a 2002 paper, “Dispositions, Scripts, or Motivated Correction? Understanding Ideological Differences in Explanations for Social Problems.” 

They found that in troubled times, when competition for limited goods intensifies, liberals move to the right: 

"It is much easier to get a liberal to behave like a conservative than it is to get a conservative to behave like a liberal. Liberals act like conservatives when resources are scarce, cognitive load is high, and aid serves secondary rather than primary needs. Conservatives only act like liberals when they are asked to consider helping a person with internally controllable causes of need who has convincingly reformed."

Skitka and her fellow authors received strong support for their argument in a 2012 paper, “Low-Effort Thought Promotes Political Conservatism,” by Scott Eidelman, a professor of psychology at the University of Arkansas, and three co-authors. 

Skitka and her colleagues conducted a series of tests comparing the answers of two groups to ideologically revealing questions. The first faced time pressure or were forced to answer with distracting background noises, in environments “taxing, limiting or otherwise disengaging effortful, deliberative thought.” The second group was asked the same questions with plenty of time to think and without noise or other distractions. 

In each case, those tested under favorable circumstances provided more liberal answers than those tested under more hostile conditions. The adverse conditions forced those participants to perform what the authors called “low-effort thinking,” and the results showed that “low-effort thinking promotes political conservatism.”

Then they added alcohol to the mix:

In one of their four experiments, the authors went to an unidentified bar in New England and persuaded 85 drinkers to take the test and have their alcohol levels measured. The results:

"Bar patrons reported more conservative attitudes as their level of alcohol intoxication increased. Because alcohol limits cognitive capacity and disrupts controlled responding, while leaving automatic thinking largely intact, these data are consistent with our claim that low-effort thinking promotes political conservatism."

...Why does all this matter? What difference does it make if liberals and Democrats are more ambivalent than conservatives and Republicans? 

For one thing, it means that in elections that are increasingly negative, ambivalent partisans — Democrats in this case — will be more vulnerable to attacks designed to generate conflict, to weaken enthusiasm and to increase the likelihood of nonvoting. President Trump and the proponents of the Republican Party he dominates are certain to do all they can to capitalize on this vulnerability. 

Most importantly, Democratic ambivalence, in a year when high turnout is mandatory, reflects the larger problem facing a political party that is now focused on its shared animosity to Trump. That animosity may or may not be enough to propel its presidential candidate to victory, but the inherent tension between different sectors of the center-left coalition over ideological, economic and social issues — not to mention glaring levels of intraparty income inequality — calls into question exactly what common ground holds the Democratic coalition together. How common is it?