Drive drive drive

There are people that get energy and rejuvenation from long car trips.

I am not one of those people. I'm driving back from Oklahoma to Baton Rouge, pausing here in Shreveport (in the incomparable Rhino Coffee) to blog a bit and recharge my caffeine banks before making the final trek. I have about five hours to go, depending on traffic.

Had I more energy now, I'd probably start sketching out an entry into the paper I'm writing. It's about "Changing scenes of political belief"--how, although religion per se is increasingly taking a back seat in USAmerican political and cultural life, (1) it ain't gone yet, and (2) lots of other strong belief structures operate very much like religion.

I think of Eugene Peterson's quote from his intro to Amos, "Religion," he writes "is the most dangerous energy source known to humankind. The moment a person (or government or religion or organization) is convinced that God is either ordering or sanctioning a cause or project, anything goes."

I'm fascinated by that "anything goes" switch. I keep running into it in news and research about partisanship. For example, I scanned my usual red-leaning sites today for conservative reaction to Pres. Trump's racist, xenophobic tweets about four progressive congresswomen, where he asks why they don't "go back" to "the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came." All the congresswomen are USAmerican citizens. Three of the four were born in the USA. As is usually the case, I think, Surely this time he's gone too far.

And, as is also usually the case, prominent conservative voices (with a critical exception here and there) are either silent about this--or they double down. "Troll Level: EPIC," declares RedState's Mike Ford. In Ford's view, Trump--witnessing infighting among Congressional Democrats (Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez)--threw some gasoline into the fire. The predictable Democratic reaction--"that's racist"--will, Ford argues, simply alienate Democrats further from the electorate. Most (white) Americans, in Ford's view, are tired of hearing "the race card" played. Trump's tweets will not seem racist to them, so left-progressive cries of racism will just make the criers seem unhinged--just as Trump planned all along.

Not every comment on Ford's article agrees that Trump's tweets are 4-D strategy (though many do). The vast majority, however, agree that (1) there's nothing racist about his tweets, (2) the women Trump targets are the real racists, and (3) the left will cry "racist" no matter what Trump does, and (4) it's the reaction to the tweets, not the tweets themselves, that are actually objectionable. (Necessary disclaimer: RedState commenters and writers are not necessarily representative of all conservative folk, just as Lawyers, Guns, & Money commenters don't form a representative sample of all real-life left-leaning folk.)

Underlying the support for Trump's action here is admiration for Trump's aggressiveness. One commenter, for example, put it this way:

Too many people wish that politics was the so called "gentleman's" game it once was.
You know speak well of your opponent while twisting the knife in his back behind the scenes.
Modern media technology has changed that paradymn FOREVER. It's attack dog politics 24/7. Troll your opponents. This is the new reality. The new normal. Trump is so far ahead of the curve on this that the conventional GOP might has become totally ineffective. [. . .]
Wish for the "old days" of "civil" politics all you want. ("We're going to take the high road on this"... a la señor Bush 43). Do so and you'll never gain power. If that's your goal, go for it!

Once you believe you're in the right, once you believe you're in a high-stakes game with only one winner possible, then anything goes. It has to, because (from such a convicted perspective) "they" are already playing dirty and winning. Trump garners admiration because he "goes there"--saying out loud what "lots of people" already think, damn the consequences. From the outside, such passion looks like dangerous fanaticism; from the inside, it looks like speaking truth to power and setting a clear limit with the bullies. (A reverse dynamic perhaps happens with Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's rhetoric. blues like me see "bold truth-telling"; reds see "lunacy.")

To be clear, research seems to indicate that this tendency exists on the left as well as the right.  Once we become convinced of our own side's righteousness--religious or activist--then we prove more willing to take a step toward "anything goes."

More tomorrow,

JF