8.3.24 - why I'm a democrat
So, I've always considered myself liberal, but as the world has changed my friends and colleagues have liked to joke that I think and act like I'm a conservative. A lot of people, for whatever reason, peg me as a conservative.
I've personally always found this annoying, and it shows that politics today is more about vibes and aesthetics than anything else. If you see a clean cut young man who talks a certain way and is interested in certain kinds of books and ideas than you think, oh that guy is a conservative. If you see someone with stickers on their macbook and certain emojis in their instagram bio you think, oh they're liberal.
Anyways, I have plenty of conservative friends, and lots of conservative family members, and I've had conversations with them where I betrayed my more traditional views on family, gender, society, merit, etc. For instance:
- I think that if you work hard you can generally do well, and its good to think of yourself as having agency
- I think traditional families are the "ideal" (not only) model to organize society
- I think boys and girls are different
- I have a respect for the basic premises of economics, and think the market is an important engine for resource allocation
It turns out, these are very right-coded opinions today. And when people get the sense that I hold these beliefs, they think, well how can you be a democrat?
I honestly never understood the question, because those things are sort of personal values of mine and I don't necessarily associate them with beliefs on policy, which is a different domain in my head. So I'll keep my reasons short.
1. The republicans are crazy. Trump is an absolute basketcase and a dangerous authoritarian. This in itself should be enough of an answer, and I'm shocked that more reasonable, conservatively minded people don't see that as a single issue reason to vote for democrats. He doesn't represent anything remotely conservative, except maybe vibes. Even if I were more conservative, Trump would be enough for me to vote blue consistently.
2. The democratic party, as an institution, has been the most effective policymaking force perhaps in the history of the world. The Civil Rights Act. The Great Society. NAFTA. Affordable Care Act. CHIPs and Science Act. Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Starting the Apollo missions. I like these things. They're not perfect, I have problems with execution and finer points of policy, but the dems get things done. I'm generally a futurist, and want a party that will bring us into the future.
3. I can't stand anti-intellectualism. Now, to be fair, this is happening on both parties now. But the republicans are worse. Climate change denial. Election denial. General disdain for academia. I don't fuck with it at all.
4. I think that we should help people. Some people are poor or in bad situations because things happen to them. Yes, I believe in individual agency and that there are usually ways to muscle out of it for healthy people (but plenty of people have disablities etc.) but I also believe in the agency of society as a whole unit. If we have the means, we should ensure everyone has a minimum standard of living. The dems are generally the party that embody that worldview. I'm all about thinking in "bootstraps" terms in your personal life, because its adaptive, but that should not be imputed to COLLECTIVE decision making. As a collective, we have obligations to our members.
5. I don' think that the government should be socially policing people. Look, I have plenty of problems with "wokism." I think the left has a very live and let live attitude that can be destructive to society. But in general, I belive in highly coercive, high-social pressure informal institutions to guide people on the right life paths——like families, clubs, and religious institutions. I don't think the government should be doing that stuff. Even if I thought elective abortions were immoral (I don't think that), I would say, well its up to society in general to make that case to people. Not the government to mandate choices for people. I guess I have civil libertarian instincts.
None of this stuff seems that insane to me. Yet in conversations, people have often acted like my politics are dumbfounding. This is fresh of mind I guess because I came home from visiting family the other day. I guess, what really characterizes my thinking on politics is a pretty hard demarcation between the individual and collective domains.
On the individual level, I think that conservative values are generally the most adaptive. There is literally reserach that shows conservatives are happier people (there are confounding variables there, are they conservative because they're more happy? if you're happy, you'll be more likely to appreciate existing structures in society, making you conservative). I think it's good to believe in self-sufficiency, agency, have strong morals, don't blame others or circumstance for what happens to you. It's good to have reverence for the past and always ask why something is the way it is before criticizing it.
But when I think on the collective, policy level, the whole point of doing things TOGETHER is to make things better, to help eachother, to do things that no one could do on their own. That's generally embodied in a progressive worldview, which sees the state as an engine of social change. So yeah, I'm okay with policies that would help workers, improve work-life balance, improve access to opportunities for marginalized people, that redistribute some value in our economy. That's all great.
Maybe there's an inconsistency in my worldview, but I don't see it. I have no idea why I wrote this. Why write anything? Why do anything? One day the sun will explode and all will be dust, lost to the sands of time. https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2FFYt9ko8blsdRbheDqxIlUOHm077EIWaNUq-kV1HhiKQ.jpg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3Da56f863d7c6016f4158985e38b6ae77298f07f29
Cheers,
knxnts