Tag: Cato Institute

Empirical researchers are studying this--Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion is one very important contribution--and as a way of organizing our thinking on rhetorical and political division I think Arnold Kling's short book The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides is especially insightful. He considers three groups in American politics: liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. Liberals frame issues in terms of the struggle between oppressors and the oppressed. Conservatives frame issues in terms of the struggle between civilization and barbarism. Libertarians, meanwhile, frame issues in terms of the struggle between liberty and power (or coercion). These different framings lead us to different ways of thinking about policy issues. How, then, do we understand what is happening along the border, and how do we understand the political rhetoric and division regarding the migrant caravan? For conservatives, the struggle between barbarism and civilization is also obvious. The rights-emphasizing libertarian can point to the exercise of force along the border as illegitimate interference with voluntary interaction between migrants and those who wish to hire them, rent to them, care for them, or otherwise associate with them. Instead of jumping right to the assumptions of stupidity and ill will, Kling suggests that we first seek to really understand one another's ways of framing the issue, and not just superficially.

John Harris, Politico editor in chief, and Roger Pilon, VP for legal affairs at the Cato Institute, discuss how the partisan divide over Kavanaugh is affecting the country. » Subscribe to MSNBC: http://on.msnbc.com/SubscribeTomsnbc About: MSNBC is the premier destination for…

According to survey data from the Democracy Fund Study Group, churchgoing Trump voters were significantly more moderate than non-churchgoing Trump voters on a host of issues, ranging from religious tolerance and acceptance of immigrants to the death penalty and international trade. After the 2016 election, just 49 percent of Trump’s churchgoers regarded him favorably, compared to 63 percent of his secular voters. This analysis is consistent with Pew’s findings in its new typology of religiosity, which maps Americans onto a seven-item scale from “Sunday Stalwarts” to “Solidly Secular.” The Stalwarts are a good deal more religiously observant than the second most religious group, the “God-and-Country Believers.” They attend worship much more often, they participate in church groups, and they are significantly more likely to say that they rely on religion to make life decisions and that religious faith is the most important source of meaning in their lives. This suggests that the latter see themselves much more as culture warriors manning the barricades against encroaching secularism—even as almost one in ten say they have no religion. When it comes to politics, both the Stalwarts and the God-and-Countries are, at 59 percent, equally Republican. But while the former just barely approve of Trump’s performance, 50 percent to 48 percent, the latter solidly (and alone among all seven groupings) approve of it, 58 percent to 41 percent. By contrast, it’s the least religious who are most liberal on the issues and most anti-Trump, with the moderately religious somewhere in the middle. The lesson that Cato’s Ekins draws from her findings is that, rather than condemn religion as a force for Trumpism in the world, liberals should acknowledge its liberalizing effect on conservative Americans. In other words, the non-religious are bifurcating between a large majority who are very much to the left and a significant minority who are very much to the right. And as their numbers increase, the polarization is only going to increase.

Whatever your feelings may be about the FBI or the Mueller investigation or the Hillary Clinton email investigation (full disclosure: I’m a former Clinton campaign staffer), it is undeniable that Strzok strongly disliked then-candidate Donald Trump and displayed a political preference for Clinton. Sure, his texts were ill-advised, but can anyone point to any explicit wrongdoing on his part? Citing a 2009 article in which Kavanaugh argued that indicting a sitting president “would ill serve the public interest, especially in times of financial or national-security crisis,” Democrats claimed his view on the issue is clearly prejudiced and, should such a case come before the Supreme Court, he cannot be trusted to rule objectively. Some on the left went so far as to argue, “Without an absolute and unequivocal commitment to recuse from any deliberations involving Trump’s alleged wrongdoing, which no one expects Kavanaugh to make, this nomination cannot possibly be seen by Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives, as a credible choice to serve on the Supreme Court.” Those on the right responded, “Read any of the more than 300 cases that Kavanaugh has decided and the judge consistently strives to interpret the law as it is written, not as he would like it to be.” Politics is treated like sports, with loyalists on each side unwilling to question their own team or hear out the other. If you want to legitimize the investigation into Trump, then it’s important that Strzok’s work not be seen as biased. For decades, conservatives and liberals have fought over the issue of defining free speech. When Trump and his allies speak against the FBI, Democrats sound the alarm about undermining the rule of law. Can Kavanaugh put aside his personal views and make an impartial ruling on an investigation involving the president? The very nature of bias itself makes it easy to see it in others and difficult to see in ourselves. It is easy to spot impropriety on the part of our opponents if we spend all our time searching for them.

Jerry Taylor believes he can change the minds of conservative climate skeptics. Taylor and others believe it’s conversations like these—with political elites, and focused on policies they can justify in conservative terms—that could eventually lead to real action on climate change. Lesson one: Pick the right targets Political scientists consistently find that mass opinion doesn’t drive the policy debate so much as the other way around. A Gallup poll in late March found that nearly 70 percent of Republicans believe global warming is “generally exaggerated,” while 67 percent of Democrats believe it will pose a “serious threat” in their lifetimes. Instead, the goal should be to change the minds of the elites. The good news is this means you don’t have to change as many minds. Carbon pollution costs real people real money. Republicans generally oppose new taxes, of course. In fact, there are signs of growing bipartisan support for clean energy, at least partially driven by the fact that deeply red states have become big generators of jobs in wind and solar power. That, given today’s intense culture wars over climate change, is at least a start.