Here’s the most charitable thought I have had about January 6: It seems really bad in most of the ways people say it is bad. Specifically, it’s a horrible precedent that undermines one of the best things about democracy: the peaceful transition of power. But I also know that American history is long and complicated, so my initial question was, “How many times have comparable things happened in the past?” If it turned out that things like this happened five or ten times over the last hundred years, and they always turned out fine, that would be a reason to doubt that the precedent was all that dangerous because the institutions and the norms behind them were obviously strong enough to withstand the treachery. But at this point if there were a bunch of analogous historical episodes I think MAGA writers would have popularized them; so I have to conclude J6 really was unique and horrible, and Trump really is, in an important sense, a dangerous wildcard.
The closest is Feb 13, 1861, when a mob tried to prevent Lincoln from taking office. They were stopped from entering the building by Capitol security, since they were not empowered and encouraged by the sitting President (who was one of three people with the authority to send the NG). MAGAts don't reference this to try to save their traitor President for obvious reasons.
I hadn't heard about that. I know there was supposedly a plot to assassinate Lincoln (in Baltimore, rather than DC though) even as early as back then though.
However, no one was allowed in other than the appointed members and a handful more given tickets by the President of the House or sitting VP. The closest it came to actual violence was after the EVs were counted (Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration):
> A dozen angry , disappointed men were on their feet before the door had closed upon the last senator , clamoring for recognition by the speaker . For a few minutes the tumult was so great that it was impossible to restore order . The con- centrated venom of the secessionists was ejected upon the General of the Army . There were jeers for the " rail - splitter , " sharp and fierce shouts for " cheers for Jeff . Davis , " and " cheers for South Carolina . " But " hard names and curses for " old Scott " broke out every- where on the floor and in the gallery of the crowded hall . The quiet spectators seemed in a moment turned to mad- men . " Superannuated old dotard ! " " Traitor to the state of his birth ! " " Coward ! " " Free - state pimp ! " and any number of similar epithets were showered upon him . Members called on the old traitor to remove his " minions , " his " janizaries , " his " hirelings , " his " blue- coated slaves , " from the Capitol . I glanced around me . The seat next me was empty ; my military friend , and the quiet gentlemen I had noticed near by , had vanished - where and for what purpose I knew only too well . For a few moments I thought they would officiate in a revolution.
> It was , however , " vox et præterea nihil . " The power of the human lung is limited , and howling quickly exhausts it . The speaker soon pounded the House back to order , and the danger inside had passed.
The preventative measures (including two batteries of artillery basically across the street) seemed to basically stop anything more serious from happening.
I think the most comparable situations are 1876 and 2000.
In 2000, well many people remember, basically there was a dispute over ballots in Florida and it all got resolved legally and peacefully. You could argue corruption because the Supreme Court decided among partisan lines. But there wasn't really any hint of violence.
I'm not a historian but I think 1876 was probably even worse than the January 6 events. Lots of violence due to the aftermath of the Civil War. Lots of violence specifically to prevent black people from voting. Four states ended up not agreeing on who to assign their electoral votes to after arguing about fraud and all sorts of things. So it really was a constitutional crisis because the Constution doesn't really explain what to do when the states fail to decide on their votes. In the end they had to compromise where the Republican president agreed to accept some particular Democratic policies in order to move on. So, I mean, this was really bad, but it was sort of an aftershock of the Civil War.
These cases both seem pretty different though. We just don't really have that much historical precedent in the US. You can certainly look at coups in other countries and see how they do sometimes succeed in destroying democratic government. For the US, J6 was pretty unique and bad, and I don't know of any real way to quantify "how bad" it was. I can understand both people who say it's disqualifying and people who say, well it's bad but I only assign it -2 points.
1876 is a very important example because it demonstrates what stable governance is actually reliant upon—finding some sort of equilibrium that both sides can live with. Regardless of how you get there, both sides need to feel that they have some minimum stake in continuing things as they are.
Doing this through our precious “established norms” may be preferable, but if you push things far enough, people will eventually side with their interests over some sort of fanatical loyalty to “democratic norms.” The primary function of those precious “democratic norms” is to facilitate this equilibrium, so if the equilibrium can’t be found, then the norms have failed at their purpose anyways, thus bringing into question why one would remain blindly obedient to them.
Interesting, I remembered this time as being entirely nonviolent but I guess technically there was violence. If you look at coverage at the time like...
''I was punched twice in the back and kicked once,'' Mr. Rosero said. ''Everyone needs to calm down and relax. I think we've hit a new low point here.''
Okay, there's one guy who said he got punched. And this is Slate and the NYT, they're not gonna take the Republican side on things.
So, yeah "not a hint of violence" is an overstatement. But still.
the problem is that there is no remotely plausible causal chain that leads from "rioting through the Capitol" to Trump getting another term, so January 6th is by definition not a coup attempt but simply a riot. Richard doesn't answer this objection because he can't, instead he just censors references to it.
Now various other "lawfare" actions and pressures on states to replace electors by Trump prior to 1/6 could be seen as a very incompetent coup attempts, but then this raises the question of how other increasingly common lawfare practices might be seen as coup attempts. In a sense though Trump couldn't really practie "lawfare" as he didn't have the sustained organization and planning needed, so he apparently did try some naked pressure on state election officials that could look more coup-like.
This is so dumb. If Trump tried to shoot his opponent but he was a really bad marksman and there was no way he’d hit from that distance, would you say that it’s no big deal he tried to shoot his opponent?
Every pro-Trump argument trying to justify the 2020 coup attempt is just so dumb. I haven’t answered this one before because you guys have an endless list of non sequiturs. I thought I heard them all but you all keep coming up with new stuff. This is clearly just low decoupling because if you could think about this issue rationally at all you’d see what you’re saying makes no sense.
The argument is clearly dumb for the reasons you cite. But is it low decoupling? It seems couched in that style of rhetoric, “Richard doesn’t answer” type stuff but it does seem to be addressing a single point.
Well I’m assuming that there’s a motivation here to defend Trump, because the guy supports him and has to come up with stuff like this. But you’re right, maybe that assumption is wrong and he’s actually a Harris supporter. That’s possible but would be surprising.
I am making a very simple obvious point, which is that you cannot overthrow the US government or overturn the election by rioting in Congress hence the riot on January 6th was not a coup by any definition. Apparently some of the rioters had the intention of getting Congress not to certify the electoral votes, but they did nothing in the way of persuasion to do that and if physically prevented from certifying on 1/6 Congress simply would have certified some other day over the two weeks between 1/6 and the inauguaration. Even the House Select Committee identified the riot on 1/6 not as a coup but as one part of a seven point plan to overturn the election. But they did not really specify how it was supposed to actually help with that plan (by delaying certification? But Trump had no feasible timeline that was coordinated with an effort to do that).
I am not enthusiastic about either choice in this election and am not defending Trump from a charge that he refused to accept his 2020 loss, which he clearly did. However, I think efforts to say that he is an authoritarian who will overthrow American democracy have a problem with his seeming inability or lack of motivation to actually follow through and formulate a plot to overthrow American democracy, which is a very complicated enterprise.
"[After Trump is declared the winner] let the other side challenge his actions in court, where Tribe (who in 2001 conceded the President of the Senate might be in charge of counting the votes) and others who would press a lawsuit would have their past position – that these are non-justiciable political questions – thrown back at them, to get the lawsuit dismissed. The fact is that the Constitution assigns this power to the Vice President as the ultimate arbiter. We should take all of our actions with that in mind."
As I commented, I don't want to defend Trump, but it's simply incorrect to dub it a coup rather than a riot. If you want, you could even compare it to February 6 1934 in France (another political riot that failed to prevent the handover of power).
Actually, that characterization of what happened in France no longer strikes me as completely accurate and I relied too much on what Jonathan M. Katz said about it at https://slate.com/culture/2022/10/amsterdam-movie-true-story-real-history-business-plot.html The French government had been elected in 1932, years before the riots. The issue was a scandal resulting in some resignations within that government.
Doesn’t that mean it was an incompetent coup attempt, not that it wasn’t a coup attempt? Trump seemed to believe that there were reasons to egg people on and get them to march in the direction of the capital. He subjectively thought there was such a chain.
Also, this is all eliding the point that Trump wanted Pence to declare him the winner, when he wasn't the winner, thereby ending American democracy.
If he'd convinced Pence to do this by writing him a flowery letter instead of sending his fans off to the Capitol, it would still have been the end of our democracy.
But that was in fact his plan. Trump is not a longterm thinker. He's a raptor, shaking the fence, looking for a weak point.
His knows his overall goal, in this case, to stay in office. Then he tries a bunch of different shit. If he sees something get him marginally closer to his goal, he pushes on that as hard as he can, to see if that presents another opportunity to get a little closer.
That's why I was surprised that he took the time to create false slates of electors. That required thinking several steps ahead, which I thought was beyond him.
But it's crystal clear overall what he wanted to do, especially because he told us so himself, over and over again. Which, as I stated, was to end the American experiment because his feelings were hurt.
He was trying to coerce Pence into not counting the ballots. If he succeeded, the plan was to force the election to be decided by House delegations under the Twelfth Amendment. The GOP controlled a majority of delegations
Coercion by a mob was not a realistic way to get Pence to cooperate with the Eastman plan. Pence needed to do the ballot counting thing in an official session of congress, congress was not going to hold an official session while being swarmed by a mob. In fact, the intervention of a mob would be the best way to get any action Pence took to try to overturn the election viewed as illegitimate and illegal
Trump knows Mike Pence better than you or I do, and he thought it had a chance. Plus, the Electoral College ballots are tangible pieces of paper, so if the mob has destroyed them, that would be an even stronger conceit for tossing it to the House delegations.
Trump does not care if the election he ostensibly wins is viewed by his opponents as illegitimate and illegal. Then it's the Democrats in the street rioting/protesting instead of his folks. And if/once the Supreme Court rejects Biden's challenge (again, U.S. v. Nixon), then he's really set.
Anyways, I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make. Robbing banks is a really dumb way to try to make money. Most of the robbers get caught and they make all sorts of dumb mistakes. We still punish them. It's still a corrupt intention, even if it's a very unrealistic scheme.
Banning for a month but keeping the comment up as an example of what not to do. This is new in terms of arguments to defend Trump’s attempted coup. There’s a remarkable degree of creativity shown by these people sometimes.
The reason conservatives are more focused on tallying team points than in developing and refining ideas is that conservatism isn't an ideology; unlike liberalism, libertarianism, or socialism, but rather an attitude. Conservatism is just an attachment to your society's traditional way of being and doing things. Hence, conservatives from different countries have no ability to coordinate, whereas leftists collaborate across borders. Conservatives often favor self-interested policies for their country that are contrary to the interests of conservatives elsewhere because the conservative is a citizen of whatever nation first and a rightist second. Conservatism boils down to "I like my nation as it has traditionally existed. I'm indifferent to those outside it. I'm hostile to those who threaten my conception of my nation." Ideologies, on the other hand, aren't subjectively bound and instead work like, "I value x, y, and z ends. Regime-type A is theoretically the optimal means of achieving these ends. Therefore, I favor whatever aligns my society more closely with regime-type A."
> Conservatism is just an attachment to your society's traditional way of being and doing things.
Would also explain why ordinary conservatives are definitionally unwilling (or unable) to decouple. The stance you describe has a sort of 'everything we believe and do is baked in together', and considering the parts of the system or policies outside of that interdependent context is taboo.
On the smarter end, there may be a contingent of conservatives who can decouple but choose not too. Or else, feel pressure from their tribe in a way that encourages them not to.
I mean, there are philosophies that say that decoupling isn't actually appropriate; your moral intuitions provide useful information. I can think of a few arguments for this:
-Christian: God gave us moral intuitions to help guide us on the path of natural law, so if we ignore them we're ignoring an important part of the puzzle. There's a fun literary example of this in C.S. Lewis's *That Hideous Strength* where the villain tries to corrupt the hero with abstract art that's subtly *wrong* and unbalanced.
-Evo-psych: Our moral intuitions reflect the product of millennia of evolution, and are more trustworthy than philosophies such as liberalism (or socialism) that have been tested for only a few hundred years.
-Libertarian/liberal: Moral intuitions are an important part of freedom of choice. We don't necessarily have to be logical if we don't want to. Who are you to tell us we should try to be totally dispassionate about everything?
MAGA Trump supporters aren’t really that conservative though. Democrats now seem to be more conservative. I’m not sure if MAGA is an ideology, but it does appear to be part of a global populist movement, allied with people like Orban in Hungary, Farage in Britain, Le Pen in France etc..
Assuming we survive a second Trump term, I can see Democrats turning into Rockefeller Republicans. Better educated, known as the party of fiscal responsibility ("tax and spend" now being considered fiscally responsible, versus "cut and spend."), chill on social issues.
Republicans return to the previously Democratic coalition of protectionism, isolationism, and racism.
I think in a sense some Dem factions are small-c conservative these days. In certain ways they've adopted messaging around law and order, compromise, institutional continuity, etc.
I don't see MAGA as part of a global populist movement because Americans, especially Republican voters, are so insular. The intelligentsia wants it to be a single transnational movement with shared goals, but most right-wing voters in any given countrg are indifferent to their foreign counterparts
How would you define liberalism as an ideology, as distinct both from centrism and from what we call progressivism or leftism? I would say it’s “leftism but markets and free speech are sometimes good”, but I’m curious what you think.
I'd distinguish between two kinds of liberalism, namely classical liberalism and modern liberalism. Classical liberalism is fhe reigning ideology in every *liberal* democracy, and hence both progressives and conservatives in such societies would fall under it. Modern liberalism as an ideology is probably best articulated by Rawls in his theory of justice as fairness. I also see it as connected to liberal internationalism as a foreign policy project
I like the Rawlsian framework for defining modern (social) liberalism, because it comprises the emphases on protecting both economically marginalized *individuals* and societally marginalized *groups*. Idk how we distinguish this from progressivism though.
I think of classical liberalism as itself distinct from modern liberalism, with an emphasis on limited/decentralized government, free markets, and strong property rights. One way I think of it is as a European-style/less-extreme libertariansim.
Maybe the term "liberalism" is the best way to describe the broad set of assumptions underpinning modern *liberal* democraices, and can be understood to encompass modern conservatism, classical/modern liberalism, and progressivism.
This article is a shame because the argument is really good, but you picked the worst possible comments. I understand that NonZionism really pissed you off, but the main comment coming from an article about 17th century Catholicism is too narrow. I didn't read that essay and I supposed many didn't either.
If you had picked comments from more mainstream posts of yours, this could have been one of the best posts of the year, as the articulation of the arguments is really good, but, at least to me, except for point 2, they don't help me to substanciate what you're arguing for.
At least, I hope you consider this comment high in decoupling hahaha!
Yeah, I would agree with this. I'll admit I didn't really follow the whole thread about James II and kind of ignored it while mentally filling in the blanks of other bad comments that I've seen here.
Perhaps some libertarians are cognitive decouplers (ability to override their own default responses) but many are just male autists whose default response is disgust, abstraction and an inability to practice cognitive empathy (understanding how others think and thinking from their perspective)
There are indeed many different kinds of people who use the libertarian label to describe themselves. Labeling one's self as libertarian is therefore probably does not guarantee decoupling skills.
There seems to be more of a common type of elite human capital libertarian that does seem to be a high decoupler. But there are also a bunch of crazies (of various stripes) and anti-government conspiracy people too.
I disagree, most "elite human capital libertarian" I have meet have a very hard time cognitively empathizing with the Left or Right. Instead they rely on abstractions which is their default way of thinking rather than being able to think from a variety of different perspectives
"My audience is mostly conservative, so the liberals who find me are smarter and more open-minded than is typical for their side." As a reader/subscriber of left leaning tendencies - thanks for the compliment!
You’ve defined low-decoupling here in opposition to tribalism: “an ability and willingness to consider individual questions and issues on their own merits without being distracted by tribalist considerations”
But the right-wing/conservative worldview is inherently and fundamentally tribalistic. That's actually its whole point. So if non-tribalism is your definition, then yes of course there are more “low decouplers” on the right. That's not selection bias in your readership, that's a a property that's necessary to the whole purpose of right-wing-ism.
The whole basis of right-wing policy preferences could be described as “what is best for my group and what will keep us together, strong, and dominant?” And the whole basis of left-wing policy preferences is more like “what is the system that would guarantee the best outcome if I was randomly swapped into anyone else’s body, in or out of my group and anywhere on the status ladder?” So to ask a right-winger to “decouple” in a manner that could possibly make their group weaker or less dominant entirely subverts their whole purpose. Absent tribalism, there's no clear uniting thread, and the right would otherwise look like an arbitrary mish-mash of policies over history and geography.
Consider the major underlying tenets:
Right: one’s family and God is the most important thing, followed by one’s community, followed by one’s country.
Left: the inherent worth of the individual is the most important thing and no person is worth more than another, regardless of their nation, creed, or family status. Although we all naturally feel differently and favor our own, that's a base instinct to be overcome.
Right: respect and deference to authority is important and good; loyalty is important and good.
Left: authority and loyalty are bad unless earned, and often used by those with power to manipulate and control those without.
Right: status hierarchies are good and natural and it’s important to respect them to avoid chaos.
Left: hierarchies are generally bad and prone to corruption and abuse, and only legitimate if based on earned achievement on an equal playing field.
Right: my own [family/God/country/group] is the best and worthy of defense and prevailing over others, potentially at all costs, and sympathizing with potential adversaries is a major offense.
Left: my own [family/god/country/group] has equal claims on worthiness to others and the only justifiable reason for not sympathizing with outsiders is if they refuse to extend the same respect.
Right: novel, new, strange things that don’t reflect the existing culture are to be viewed with suspicion and probably aren’t part of the culture for a good reason, and therefore are best treated as potentially dangerous.
Left: novel, new, strange things are neutral and you don’t know if they’re good til you try them.
Right: life has a purpose, as revealed by God or your king/leader/head of household, and subverting that purpose is evil.
Left: it’s unclear whether life has any purpose, and therefore we should just try to make it as best as we can for everyone.
Economic issues really don’t tie very closely to right-wing views and are all over the place in different times/places. Historically, right-wing groups just support whatever economic positions the prestigious and powerful guys in their group support. But that has meant everything from communism to ultra-capitalism to protectionism, depending on the group. Economics on the left ALSO are not universal, but that’s mostly because of disagreements about what provides the best outcome on a utilitarian analysis, not about a particular tribe. They differ about what is more effective, but assume a good system would have the same efficacy to everyone, regardless of the group.
So if you leave economic disagreements out of it, the only unifying threads are things like the above tenets, and the right-wing tenets are all basically just stuff that keeps a tribe functioning and cohesive and prevents it from being conquered or dispersed. The left-wing tenets are inherently universal and non-tribal. So if non-tribalism is the definition, then yeah, obviously there are way more high-decouplers on the left because their whole worldview comes down to being ANTI-tribalist.
The past decade or so a very tribalistic thing we call woke arose on the left, which focused on amplifying group identities and membership, and acted in a very tribalistic, mob-like manner online through cancelations, etc. Reams have been written about the circumstances and vulnerabilities that led to it. But that's also why wokeism alienated so many people who were actually committed to non-tribalism, and they're all dropping it like a hot potato, as you note. They got called “heterodox” when really they were just always fairly committed anti-tribalists/high de-couplers.
This is why I budget my conversations with Trump supporters to be 2-3 hours long, and extensively outline the topic ahead of time. I find that it’s way too easy to get distracted by meme talking points and veer off-course, which is the intended goal (e.g. "What about that time Hilary Clinton called Trump an illegitimate president??"). Sometimes you just have to be a dick and repeat a question until you get a straight answer, and maybe then can you move on.
My point in that comment was that it makes perfect sense to care less about Trump's behavior when you're faced with an opposition who is willing to do all of the things I listed. Court packing by itself threatens to blow up the established order, never mind all the other stuff. If the left could just show people that it's getting less crazy and actually wants to pursue a "return to normal," maybe you'd have more success getting people to be upset about Orange Man. When people feel that the left is itching to stomp them into the dirt as soon as it gets the chance, it's a hard sell.
this is exactly the issue he is writing about. you refuse to engage with a specific point and instead flee into vague politics which is also the reason why republicans have such lunacy among their ranks they cant call out.
I don't have an issue calling out Trump's behavior as bad. There are lots of things about him I don't like, his behavior on January 6 being one of them. If you give me a choice between Trump and some other hypothetical Republican who is the same as him but behaved better after the 2020 election, I'll pick the latter, no problem.
What I take issue with is the focus on Trump and the 2020 election as a form of "special evil" that overrides everything else in existence. To Richard's credit, he agrees with this narrative but then says he's going to vote Trump anyways. I think he is the only person I have seen take that position. Literally everyone else who is really mad about Trump and 2020 are "low decouplers" for whom it's a total disqualifier (of course, most of these people were never going to vote Republican anyways, but I repeat myself).
If Democrats were to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court with the specific goal of restoring Roe v Wade and/or forcing through liberal policies in general, I would consider this to be the same in kind as Trump wanting to overturn the 2020 election. You could argue that it's of a lesser degree, but it's the same in kind. Instead of accepting a loss, it would be the left flipping the board in response. I think that's where I differ from Richard. He appears to think that these things are not the same in kind, that overt court-packing and similar behaviors are totally above board and not worthy of similar concern.
That goes back to my complaint about this topic in general--I see a gazillion of these pieces about how Trump is disqualified because of 2020, but I'm not sure if I've seen a single one about Democrats wanting to blow up established norms. Certainly not from any of the same people who are mad about Trump, at least.
>If Democrats were to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court with the specific goal of restoring Roe v Wade and/or forcing through liberal policies in general, I would consider this to be the same in kind as Trump wanting to overturn the 2020 election.
This is where you lose the plot and fall into the same mental vice Richard is trying to point out. There is no moral equivalency between this stated action Dems want and Trump's actions on Jan 6. As Richard states, no one in the Democratic party is stating that part of pursuing this policy requires upending or disregarding established democratic norms to enact it (they want to win enough elections to democratically enact these changes). Trump pursued power in contra to CLEARLY established norms AND, most likely, illegal means such as the fake elector plot. These two goals, packing the court via winning elections, and staying in power via UN-Constiutional means, are not the same in terms of harm to our democracy. They should not elicit "similar concern" unless you cannot decouple.
I reject this binary notion that literally nothing matters so long as 50% + 1 people voted for it. This demonstrates a shallow to nonexistent understanding of game theory. If your opponent clearly states their intention to rig the game against you as much as possible as soon as they get the opportunity, it's entirely predictable that the game will fall apart from there and entirely rational that you might entertain pre-emptively cheating in order to stop them.
Indeed, this is one reason right-wingers are so confident of the left's willingness to cheat; it's completely reasonable to cheat if your opponent is Literally Hitler, as the left has spent the past decade claiming Trump is (this behavior may have ended up helping him a lot, as it meant people were already desensitized to such talk by the time Jan 6 happened).
To give an example extreme enough to make the point, suppose that at some point Republicans were able to pass a constitutional amendment stripping citizenship and voting rights from anyone who has ever voted Democrat for president. Would you roll over and shrug your shoulders and say "this is fine" because it's technically legal going by the letter of the law? No, you wouldn't, and you're a liar if you say you would. Democrats pursuing court-packing is just a lesser form of this, the basic motivation and methodology is the same.
This is a straw man argument. Its not grounded in the realities of our republican system which gives extreme protections for the minority from the majority. The Constitution is silent on how many Supreme Court justices should there be. This is by design to allow Congress to decide. To do so, the the politics of power necessitate that the Democrats would need to control both chambers of Congress (with a filibuster proof majority) and the Presidency (overcoming their disadvantage in the electoral college). This isn't a 50%+1. To accomplish such a task within the bounds of our democratic system, as the Democrats have desired to do, would require major electoral victories in traditionally Republican areas.
Yet once again, you're not addressing the point that such an agenda, even on the merits alone (not how the Dems would actually achieve their electoral victories to pack the court) has no moral equivalency to Trump's agenda on Jan 6 to maintain power through un-democratic, probably illegal means.
You can criticize the Democratic agenda for packing the courts, you can attack the validity of the merits of such an idea, but you can't question the democratic norms of how they would have achieved it if they achieved via the ballot box. Outcomes of democratic elections doesn't grant a moral good to a policy by any means. But how something is attained is absolutely relevant to its moral legitimacy. You can find yourself in possession of a piece of land, but how you obtained it matters in how other perceive your valid claim to it. You could have bought it, you could have been gifted it or you could have stolen it. It wouldn't change that you possess it, but all three have distinct impacts on how you achieved it and the degree people grant you morally deserve it. Again, Trumps actions are uniquely abhorrent let alone immoral. Because its so norm breaking, and so unique in the history of our democracy, he absolutely deserves extra enmity from those interested in maintaining our democracy, Republican or Democrat.
Another way to describe it is that the low decouples fail to distinguish between violations of tradition, defacto institutional norms, and de jure rules. In this sense court packing and electoral college shenanigans are both forms of breaking with tradition. But they are very different in terms of following the rule of law.
Actually, you only need 51 Senate votes to end the filibuster, and from there they can mostly do whatever they want with their simple majority, including packing the Supreme Court. Democrats came this close to ending it during Biden's presidential term. They were only stopped by a couple of defectors (Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin) who were retiring. The filibuster has been left untouched for so long despite the ease with which it could theoretically be ended specifically because both sides have generally recognized its value in maintaining the balance of power.
Neither Trump nor any other prominent Republicans have even suggested ending the filibuster or packing the Supreme Court, so far as I know.
Except he didnt retreat to “vague politics,” he pointed to specific threats to institutions posed by the left, such a court packing and undermining judicial independence, that are both more impactful and potentially permanent than trump’s antics
Richard, you've convinced me that Jan 6 was worse than I've previously believed. Maybe I even believe now that it was an "attempted coup" albeit a very bad one.
You don't like people trying to argue that it wasn't a coup, but do you think the events of that day have been mischaracterized by Trump-hating media at all? And does that matter?
Was this also an "insurrection"? And does it matter at all that there were no guns? Does it matter that it was completely unlike any other coups or insurrections we know from history?
I would say it matters in the sense that the overall threat of Trump was overblown. Trump might wish to do bad things (like stage a coup), but ultimately is not capable of doing them. He might want to be more threatening than he is, but it's fair for us voters to make our judgments based on what might actually realistically happen under a second Trump term.
This is a wonderful piece as an example of a well-written long-form evisceration of the specific comments described within.
I had never come across the term “decoupling” as you’ve been using it. It seems to boil down to judging each item based on its own merits. And to be self-aware of your own prejudices and biases. I would’ve taken those to be basic adult attributes.
But it does ring true that the more extreme and aggressive righties have high correlation to J6 whataboutism and vaccine conspiracies (and to some extent, anti-immigration vibes). Those things seem to track repeatedly. I don’t tend to read comments as much on this stack, but that observation is readily sustained in the comments section of the free press. In a way that you simply don’t see on places like ACX. I have no way of knowing how the readership skews on those sites, but the commentariat track very differently. Even though Bari et Al and Scott are likely more similar than dissimilar.
I think you should feel more confident wielding the banhammer. Unmoderated communities attract the most obnoxious and drive away the most knowledgeable.
You could theoretically test that by examining propositions particularly unflattering to high-decoupling libertarians and see how many of them provide reasoned arguments to counter you and how many of them start calling you names. How much of 'high-decoupling' is actually being able to examine an argument purely on its merits, and how much is it the fact their oxen aren't the ones being gored?
(This may seem a bit trollish, but I think the trolling actually makes the point!)
For example:
-Libertarianism is usually defeated in political contests; therefore, if you believe in democracy and liberalism, you should reject it as a philosophy. (I think it was Hoppe who decided to punt democracy as a result of this.)
-From a utilitarian point of view, neoliberal or libertarian policies lead to more inequality, which leads to instability and an eventual reaction; some degree of welfare state is necessary to avoid this.
Or to be a little more personally nasty (note the insult applies to me in all cases!):
-The fertility collapse is the result of women making free choices against neckbeards and other low-social-skills men and therefore not something to be opposed.
-Libertarians don't get the pro-life position because they've never had kids they care about.
-Pro-life libertarians don't get the pro-choice position because they've never had women they care about.
-High-decouplers ignore porn as a problem because they've never been a woman who had guys try to choke them (the preferred complaint among the anti-porn crowd these days).
Although I am taking this article to heart more than I would have a few years ago, based on some brief self-reflection, I see myself as always having been a pretty high decoupler just by virtue of the various political transformations I have gone through over the years and the cognitive dissonance I often experience trying to reconcile my different views. For example, your reference to homophobia made me realize that even though I find the homosexual lifestyle and (stereotypical) personality distasteful and/or annoying, I am still very tolerant (in the libertarian sense); hence, my defense of liberty for all, which includes freedom of association. This means I can empathize with the disgust experienced by many religious conservatives while also strongly pushing back on their illiberal tendencies.
Necessary discussion. Though I disagree with Richard on a lot of subjects, I come here in part to hear about ideas for improving this stupid, corrupt party that I have no choice but to vote for in every election. And would agree a good chunk of the stupidity is driven by stupid enculturated habits -- a lack of interest in the humble pursuit of truth -- rather than a simple lack of native intelligence.
I don't understand the urge to argue Richard into being more tribal. There are plenty of places to be tribal online. Why not treat this as a space where it's OK for us rightists to occasionally self-reflect?
For most of us, there is a really big overlap between "being tribal" and simply being right. It is not the case that people who disagree with Richard about immigration secretly think he's right but just feel that they have to go along with their tribe anyways. They actually think he's wrong about immigration.
Who brought up immigration? I disagree with Richard on immigration too. I'm sure I overlap with your policy views drastically more than I do with Richard's, I've read some of your Substack. But from what I've seen of your comments here, it would be more constructive if you could dial down your instinct for "whataboutism" by about 40%, at least when you're engaging with other rightists.
My point is that people generally aren't trying to argue anyone into "being more tribal" here, they're expressing sincerely held differences in belief. That's because Richard diverges strongly from many right-wing viewpoints to the extent that many right-wingers don't view him as being on the right at all. If you wanted a space for rightists to self-reflect, you'd look for an author who is firmly right-wing and can thus credibly criticize his own "side" without them questioning his motivations. On a lot of issues (admittedly not all), Richard doesn't want the right to "self-reflect," he just wants us to lose.
"I think I would take the side of seventeenth century Catholics in that debate."
No!!! This is literally the whole point! Catholics weren't part of this debate because they were a small, despised and periodically persecuted minority. When puritans attacked 'popery' they were actually attacking normal Protestants who weren't extremist loons. Read a book, Richard!
As to the rest, it was a good comment. Sure, it was about something tangential to the main point (though maybe not so much, because your view of whether the puritan role in American history is good or not is kind of the chief thing here), but that is a normal and proper way of using the comments section. It was the most liked comment, and sparked a fun little debate about 17th century history which other readers can use for pointers if they want to explore the subject more.
High decoupler is just a nice way of saying autistic (in the internet sense, not the clinical diagnosis sense). I am very autistic, and my comment was highly autistic so the criticism is misapplied. Obviously, I could have made it better if I had spent more time on it, but if I spend more than 15 minutes on a comment, I would just turn it into an article on my own Substack.
Finally, I got about 20 subscribers out of this, which is great, but I would have got way more had you not posted this on Shemini Atzeret, when Jews aren't on the internet (it's even worse because, in America, it's a 2-day festival and the next day was Shabbos). Next time you wish to publish my witty and incisive comments, please consult a calendar which includes Jewish festivals. You can get them from any Ivy League university. ❤️
I'm not calling anyone else names, but January 6th is one of the major things keeping me from voting for Trump, TBH. I've never seen a lame-duck president try to prevent the transfer of power by trying to start a riot before. They sat there, gave over the presidency, and went off to write books.
There's plenty of blame to go around: the Democrats screwed things up by trying to prosecute him on seriously flimsy charges, and now he has to win to stay out of jail. If they'd kept their rage in check they could just let him live out his days selling junk from Mar-A-Lago. But nah, you had to try to put him in jail on BS charges.
Here’s the most charitable thought I have had about January 6: It seems really bad in most of the ways people say it is bad. Specifically, it’s a horrible precedent that undermines one of the best things about democracy: the peaceful transition of power. But I also know that American history is long and complicated, so my initial question was, “How many times have comparable things happened in the past?” If it turned out that things like this happened five or ten times over the last hundred years, and they always turned out fine, that would be a reason to doubt that the precedent was all that dangerous because the institutions and the norms behind them were obviously strong enough to withstand the treachery. But at this point if there were a bunch of analogous historical episodes I think MAGA writers would have popularized them; so I have to conclude J6 really was unique and horrible, and Trump really is, in an important sense, a dangerous wildcard.
The closest is Feb 13, 1861, when a mob tried to prevent Lincoln from taking office. They were stopped from entering the building by Capitol security, since they were not empowered and encouraged by the sitting President (who was one of three people with the authority to send the NG). MAGAts don't reference this to try to save their traitor President for obvious reasons.
I hadn't heard about that. I know there was supposedly a plot to assassinate Lincoln (in Baltimore, rather than DC though) even as early as back then though.
Could you provide a citation on that?
Guh. It appears somewhat exaggerated from the sources I read summarizing it. At the time, there was concern about such an attempt by Gen. Winfield Scott, reported e.g. here, under THE PLOT AGAINST THE CAPITAL: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030313/1861-02-01/ed-1/seq-1/
However, no one was allowed in other than the appointed members and a handful more given tickets by the President of the House or sitting VP. The closest it came to actual violence was after the EVs were counted (Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration):
> A dozen angry , disappointed men were on their feet before the door had closed upon the last senator , clamoring for recognition by the speaker . For a few minutes the tumult was so great that it was impossible to restore order . The con- centrated venom of the secessionists was ejected upon the General of the Army . There were jeers for the " rail - splitter , " sharp and fierce shouts for " cheers for Jeff . Davis , " and " cheers for South Carolina . " But " hard names and curses for " old Scott " broke out every- where on the floor and in the gallery of the crowded hall . The quiet spectators seemed in a moment turned to mad- men . " Superannuated old dotard ! " " Traitor to the state of his birth ! " " Coward ! " " Free - state pimp ! " and any number of similar epithets were showered upon him . Members called on the old traitor to remove his " minions , " his " janizaries , " his " hirelings , " his " blue- coated slaves , " from the Capitol . I glanced around me . The seat next me was empty ; my military friend , and the quiet gentlemen I had noticed near by , had vanished - where and for what purpose I knew only too well . For a few moments I thought they would officiate in a revolution.
> It was , however , " vox et præterea nihil . " The power of the human lung is limited , and howling quickly exhausts it . The speaker soon pounded the House back to order , and the danger inside had passed.
The preventative measures (including two batteries of artillery basically across the street) seemed to basically stop anything more serious from happening.
I think the most comparable situations are 1876 and 2000.
In 2000, well many people remember, basically there was a dispute over ballots in Florida and it all got resolved legally and peacefully. You could argue corruption because the Supreme Court decided among partisan lines. But there wasn't really any hint of violence.
I'm not a historian but I think 1876 was probably even worse than the January 6 events. Lots of violence due to the aftermath of the Civil War. Lots of violence specifically to prevent black people from voting. Four states ended up not agreeing on who to assign their electoral votes to after arguing about fraud and all sorts of things. So it really was a constitutional crisis because the Constution doesn't really explain what to do when the states fail to decide on their votes. In the end they had to compromise where the Republican president agreed to accept some particular Democratic policies in order to move on. So, I mean, this was really bad, but it was sort of an aftershock of the Civil War.
These cases both seem pretty different though. We just don't really have that much historical precedent in the US. You can certainly look at coups in other countries and see how they do sometimes succeed in destroying democratic government. For the US, J6 was pretty unique and bad, and I don't know of any real way to quantify "how bad" it was. I can understand both people who say it's disqualifying and people who say, well it's bad but I only assign it -2 points.
1876 is a very important example because it demonstrates what stable governance is actually reliant upon—finding some sort of equilibrium that both sides can live with. Regardless of how you get there, both sides need to feel that they have some minimum stake in continuing things as they are.
Doing this through our precious “established norms” may be preferable, but if you push things far enough, people will eventually side with their interests over some sort of fanatical loyalty to “democratic norms.” The primary function of those precious “democratic norms” is to facilitate this equilibrium, so if the equilibrium can’t be found, then the norms have failed at their purpose anyways, thus bringing into question why one would remain blindly obedient to them.
Uh, Brooks Brothers riots stop recounting. You could argue whether its affect later decisions, but 2000 election do have violence
Interesting, I remembered this time as being entirely nonviolent but I guess technically there was violence. If you look at coverage at the time like...
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2000/11/sweeney-and-the-siege-of-miami.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/23/us/counting-vote-miami-dade-county-wild-day-miami-with-end-recounting-democrats.html
''I was punched twice in the back and kicked once,'' Mr. Rosero said. ''Everyone needs to calm down and relax. I think we've hit a new low point here.''
Okay, there's one guy who said he got punched. And this is Slate and the NYT, they're not gonna take the Republican side on things.
So, yeah "not a hint of violence" is an overstatement. But still.
the problem is that there is no remotely plausible causal chain that leads from "rioting through the Capitol" to Trump getting another term, so January 6th is by definition not a coup attempt but simply a riot. Richard doesn't answer this objection because he can't, instead he just censors references to it.
Now various other "lawfare" actions and pressures on states to replace electors by Trump prior to 1/6 could be seen as a very incompetent coup attempts, but then this raises the question of how other increasingly common lawfare practices might be seen as coup attempts. In a sense though Trump couldn't really practie "lawfare" as he didn't have the sustained organization and planning needed, so he apparently did try some naked pressure on state election officials that could look more coup-like.
This is so dumb. If Trump tried to shoot his opponent but he was a really bad marksman and there was no way he’d hit from that distance, would you say that it’s no big deal he tried to shoot his opponent?
Every pro-Trump argument trying to justify the 2020 coup attempt is just so dumb. I haven’t answered this one before because you guys have an endless list of non sequiturs. I thought I heard them all but you all keep coming up with new stuff. This is clearly just low decoupling because if you could think about this issue rationally at all you’d see what you’re saying makes no sense.
The argument is clearly dumb for the reasons you cite. But is it low decoupling? It seems couched in that style of rhetoric, “Richard doesn’t answer” type stuff but it does seem to be addressing a single point.
Well I’m assuming that there’s a motivation here to defend Trump, because the guy supports him and has to come up with stuff like this. But you’re right, maybe that assumption is wrong and he’s actually a Harris supporter. That’s possible but would be surprising.
I am making a very simple obvious point, which is that you cannot overthrow the US government or overturn the election by rioting in Congress hence the riot on January 6th was not a coup by any definition. Apparently some of the rioters had the intention of getting Congress not to certify the electoral votes, but they did nothing in the way of persuasion to do that and if physically prevented from certifying on 1/6 Congress simply would have certified some other day over the two weeks between 1/6 and the inauguaration. Even the House Select Committee identified the riot on 1/6 not as a coup but as one part of a seven point plan to overturn the election. But they did not really specify how it was supposed to actually help with that plan (by delaying certification? But Trump had no feasible timeline that was coordinated with an effort to do that).
I am not enthusiastic about either choice in this election and am not defending Trump from a charge that he refused to accept his 2020 loss, which he clearly did. However, I think efforts to say that he is an authoritarian who will overthrow American democracy have a problem with his seeming inability or lack of motivation to actually follow through and formulate a plot to overthrow American democracy, which is a very complicated enterprise.
The intent was to pressure the GOP into not certifying the real electors. That's it.
It almost worked, but Mike Pence said no.
If you think that's a dumb plan, then read the Eastman memos and weep.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_memos
"[After Trump is declared the winner] let the other side challenge his actions in court, where Tribe (who in 2001 conceded the President of the Senate might be in charge of counting the votes) and others who would press a lawsuit would have their past position – that these are non-justiciable political questions – thrown back at them, to get the lawsuit dismissed. The fact is that the Constitution assigns this power to the Vice President as the ultimate arbiter. We should take all of our actions with that in mind."
As I commented, I don't want to defend Trump, but it's simply incorrect to dub it a coup rather than a riot. If you want, you could even compare it to February 6 1934 in France (another political riot that failed to prevent the handover of power).
Actually, that characterization of what happened in France no longer strikes me as completely accurate and I relied too much on what Jonathan M. Katz said about it at https://slate.com/culture/2022/10/amsterdam-movie-true-story-real-history-business-plot.html The French government had been elected in 1932, years before the riots. The issue was a scandal resulting in some resignations within that government.
Doesn’t that mean it was an incompetent coup attempt, not that it wasn’t a coup attempt? Trump seemed to believe that there were reasons to egg people on and get them to march in the direction of the capital. He subjectively thought there was such a chain.
A coup attempt would require the participation of security forces. A big mob of people overwhelming law enforcement through sheer numbers is a riot.
Also, this is all eliding the point that Trump wanted Pence to declare him the winner, when he wasn't the winner, thereby ending American democracy.
If he'd convinced Pence to do this by writing him a flowery letter instead of sending his fans off to the Capitol, it would still have been the end of our democracy.
Pence didn't have the power to do it. The whole plan was a non-starter.
But that was in fact his plan. Trump is not a longterm thinker. He's a raptor, shaking the fence, looking for a weak point.
His knows his overall goal, in this case, to stay in office. Then he tries a bunch of different shit. If he sees something get him marginally closer to his goal, he pushes on that as hard as he can, to see if that presents another opportunity to get a little closer.
That's why I was surprised that he took the time to create false slates of electors. That required thinking several steps ahead, which I thought was beyond him.
But it's crystal clear overall what he wanted to do, especially because he told us so himself, over and over again. Which, as I stated, was to end the American experiment because his feelings were hurt.
He was trying to coerce Pence into not counting the ballots. If he succeeded, the plan was to force the election to be decided by House delegations under the Twelfth Amendment. The GOP controlled a majority of delegations
Coercion by a mob was not a realistic way to get Pence to cooperate with the Eastman plan. Pence needed to do the ballot counting thing in an official session of congress, congress was not going to hold an official session while being swarmed by a mob. In fact, the intervention of a mob would be the best way to get any action Pence took to try to overturn the election viewed as illegitimate and illegal
Trump knows Mike Pence better than you or I do, and he thought it had a chance. Plus, the Electoral College ballots are tangible pieces of paper, so if the mob has destroyed them, that would be an even stronger conceit for tossing it to the House delegations.
Trump does not care if the election he ostensibly wins is viewed by his opponents as illegitimate and illegal. Then it's the Democrats in the street rioting/protesting instead of his folks. And if/once the Supreme Court rejects Biden's challenge (again, U.S. v. Nixon), then he's really set.
Anyways, I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make. Robbing banks is a really dumb way to try to make money. Most of the robbers get caught and they make all sorts of dumb mistakes. We still punish them. It's still a corrupt intention, even if it's a very unrealistic scheme.
Banning for a month but keeping the comment up as an example of what not to do. This is new in terms of arguments to defend Trump’s attempted coup. There’s a remarkable degree of creativity shown by these people sometimes.
The reason conservatives are more focused on tallying team points than in developing and refining ideas is that conservatism isn't an ideology; unlike liberalism, libertarianism, or socialism, but rather an attitude. Conservatism is just an attachment to your society's traditional way of being and doing things. Hence, conservatives from different countries have no ability to coordinate, whereas leftists collaborate across borders. Conservatives often favor self-interested policies for their country that are contrary to the interests of conservatives elsewhere because the conservative is a citizen of whatever nation first and a rightist second. Conservatism boils down to "I like my nation as it has traditionally existed. I'm indifferent to those outside it. I'm hostile to those who threaten my conception of my nation." Ideologies, on the other hand, aren't subjectively bound and instead work like, "I value x, y, and z ends. Regime-type A is theoretically the optimal means of achieving these ends. Therefore, I favor whatever aligns my society more closely with regime-type A."
> Conservatism is just an attachment to your society's traditional way of being and doing things.
Would also explain why ordinary conservatives are definitionally unwilling (or unable) to decouple. The stance you describe has a sort of 'everything we believe and do is baked in together', and considering the parts of the system or policies outside of that interdependent context is taboo.
On the smarter end, there may be a contingent of conservatives who can decouple but choose not too. Or else, feel pressure from their tribe in a way that encourages them not to.
I mean, there are philosophies that say that decoupling isn't actually appropriate; your moral intuitions provide useful information. I can think of a few arguments for this:
-Christian: God gave us moral intuitions to help guide us on the path of natural law, so if we ignore them we're ignoring an important part of the puzzle. There's a fun literary example of this in C.S. Lewis's *That Hideous Strength* where the villain tries to corrupt the hero with abstract art that's subtly *wrong* and unbalanced.
-Evo-psych: Our moral intuitions reflect the product of millennia of evolution, and are more trustworthy than philosophies such as liberalism (or socialism) that have been tested for only a few hundred years.
-Libertarian/liberal: Moral intuitions are an important part of freedom of choice. We don't necessarily have to be logical if we don't want to. Who are you to tell us we should try to be totally dispassionate about everything?
MAGA Trump supporters aren’t really that conservative though. Democrats now seem to be more conservative. I’m not sure if MAGA is an ideology, but it does appear to be part of a global populist movement, allied with people like Orban in Hungary, Farage in Britain, Le Pen in France etc..
Assuming we survive a second Trump term, I can see Democrats turning into Rockefeller Republicans. Better educated, known as the party of fiscal responsibility ("tax and spend" now being considered fiscally responsible, versus "cut and spend."), chill on social issues.
Republicans return to the previously Democratic coalition of protectionism, isolationism, and racism.
Exactly. Hanania will be a comfortable Dem voter in 2028
I think in a sense some Dem factions are small-c conservative these days. In certain ways they've adopted messaging around law and order, compromise, institutional continuity, etc.
I don't see MAGA as part of a global populist movement because Americans, especially Republican voters, are so insular. The intelligentsia wants it to be a single transnational movement with shared goals, but most right-wing voters in any given countrg are indifferent to their foreign counterparts
How would you define liberalism as an ideology, as distinct both from centrism and from what we call progressivism or leftism? I would say it’s “leftism but markets and free speech are sometimes good”, but I’m curious what you think.
I'd distinguish between two kinds of liberalism, namely classical liberalism and modern liberalism. Classical liberalism is fhe reigning ideology in every *liberal* democracy, and hence both progressives and conservatives in such societies would fall under it. Modern liberalism as an ideology is probably best articulated by Rawls in his theory of justice as fairness. I also see it as connected to liberal internationalism as a foreign policy project
I like the Rawlsian framework for defining modern (social) liberalism, because it comprises the emphases on protecting both economically marginalized *individuals* and societally marginalized *groups*. Idk how we distinguish this from progressivism though.
I think of classical liberalism as itself distinct from modern liberalism, with an emphasis on limited/decentralized government, free markets, and strong property rights. One way I think of it is as a European-style/less-extreme libertariansim.
Maybe the term "liberalism" is the best way to describe the broad set of assumptions underpinning modern *liberal* democraices, and can be understood to encompass modern conservatism, classical/modern liberalism, and progressivism.
This article is a shame because the argument is really good, but you picked the worst possible comments. I understand that NonZionism really pissed you off, but the main comment coming from an article about 17th century Catholicism is too narrow. I didn't read that essay and I supposed many didn't either.
If you had picked comments from more mainstream posts of yours, this could have been one of the best posts of the year, as the articulation of the arguments is really good, but, at least to me, except for point 2, they don't help me to substanciate what you're arguing for.
At least, I hope you consider this comment high in decoupling hahaha!
Yeah, I would agree with this. I'll admit I didn't really follow the whole thread about James II and kind of ignored it while mentally filling in the blanks of other bad comments that I've seen here.
Agree to all this.
"As for libertarians, high decoupling is sort of our specialty. "
Now I understand better why I like this newsletter so much.
Perhaps some libertarians are cognitive decouplers (ability to override their own default responses) but many are just male autists whose default response is disgust, abstraction and an inability to practice cognitive empathy (understanding how others think and thinking from their perspective)
There are indeed many different kinds of people who use the libertarian label to describe themselves. Labeling one's self as libertarian is therefore probably does not guarantee decoupling skills.
There seems to be more of a common type of elite human capital libertarian that does seem to be a high decoupler. But there are also a bunch of crazies (of various stripes) and anti-government conspiracy people too.
I disagree, most "elite human capital libertarian" I have meet have a very hard time cognitively empathizing with the Left or Right. Instead they rely on abstractions which is their default way of thinking rather than being able to think from a variety of different perspectives
"My audience is mostly conservative, so the liberals who find me are smarter and more open-minded than is typical for their side." As a reader/subscriber of left leaning tendencies - thanks for the compliment!
You’ve defined low-decoupling here in opposition to tribalism: “an ability and willingness to consider individual questions and issues on their own merits without being distracted by tribalist considerations”
But the right-wing/conservative worldview is inherently and fundamentally tribalistic. That's actually its whole point. So if non-tribalism is your definition, then yes of course there are more “low decouplers” on the right. That's not selection bias in your readership, that's a a property that's necessary to the whole purpose of right-wing-ism.
The whole basis of right-wing policy preferences could be described as “what is best for my group and what will keep us together, strong, and dominant?” And the whole basis of left-wing policy preferences is more like “what is the system that would guarantee the best outcome if I was randomly swapped into anyone else’s body, in or out of my group and anywhere on the status ladder?” So to ask a right-winger to “decouple” in a manner that could possibly make their group weaker or less dominant entirely subverts their whole purpose. Absent tribalism, there's no clear uniting thread, and the right would otherwise look like an arbitrary mish-mash of policies over history and geography.
Consider the major underlying tenets:
Right: one’s family and God is the most important thing, followed by one’s community, followed by one’s country.
Left: the inherent worth of the individual is the most important thing and no person is worth more than another, regardless of their nation, creed, or family status. Although we all naturally feel differently and favor our own, that's a base instinct to be overcome.
Right: respect and deference to authority is important and good; loyalty is important and good.
Left: authority and loyalty are bad unless earned, and often used by those with power to manipulate and control those without.
Right: status hierarchies are good and natural and it’s important to respect them to avoid chaos.
Left: hierarchies are generally bad and prone to corruption and abuse, and only legitimate if based on earned achievement on an equal playing field.
Right: my own [family/God/country/group] is the best and worthy of defense and prevailing over others, potentially at all costs, and sympathizing with potential adversaries is a major offense.
Left: my own [family/god/country/group] has equal claims on worthiness to others and the only justifiable reason for not sympathizing with outsiders is if they refuse to extend the same respect.
Right: novel, new, strange things that don’t reflect the existing culture are to be viewed with suspicion and probably aren’t part of the culture for a good reason, and therefore are best treated as potentially dangerous.
Left: novel, new, strange things are neutral and you don’t know if they’re good til you try them.
Right: life has a purpose, as revealed by God or your king/leader/head of household, and subverting that purpose is evil.
Left: it’s unclear whether life has any purpose, and therefore we should just try to make it as best as we can for everyone.
Economic issues really don’t tie very closely to right-wing views and are all over the place in different times/places. Historically, right-wing groups just support whatever economic positions the prestigious and powerful guys in their group support. But that has meant everything from communism to ultra-capitalism to protectionism, depending on the group. Economics on the left ALSO are not universal, but that’s mostly because of disagreements about what provides the best outcome on a utilitarian analysis, not about a particular tribe. They differ about what is more effective, but assume a good system would have the same efficacy to everyone, regardless of the group.
So if you leave economic disagreements out of it, the only unifying threads are things like the above tenets, and the right-wing tenets are all basically just stuff that keeps a tribe functioning and cohesive and prevents it from being conquered or dispersed. The left-wing tenets are inherently universal and non-tribal. So if non-tribalism is the definition, then yeah, obviously there are way more high-decouplers on the left because their whole worldview comes down to being ANTI-tribalist.
The past decade or so a very tribalistic thing we call woke arose on the left, which focused on amplifying group identities and membership, and acted in a very tribalistic, mob-like manner online through cancelations, etc. Reams have been written about the circumstances and vulnerabilities that led to it. But that's also why wokeism alienated so many people who were actually committed to non-tribalism, and they're all dropping it like a hot potato, as you note. They got called “heterodox” when really they were just always fairly committed anti-tribalists/high de-couplers.
While reading this, something clicked: wokeism is to the left what MAGAism is to the right. TY
This is why I budget my conversations with Trump supporters to be 2-3 hours long, and extensively outline the topic ahead of time. I find that it’s way too easy to get distracted by meme talking points and veer off-course, which is the intended goal (e.g. "What about that time Hilary Clinton called Trump an illegitimate president??"). Sometimes you just have to be a dick and repeat a question until you get a straight answer, and maybe then can you move on.
Dissecting the Ray Epps conspiracy theory with a Trump supporter: https://www.ymeskhout.com/p/ray-epps-does-jay-six-updated
Dissecting how a second Trump presidency could possibly advance free speech: https://www.ymeskhout.com/p/voting-trump-to-save-free-speech
2-3 hours? You are too generous with your time.
My point in that comment was that it makes perfect sense to care less about Trump's behavior when you're faced with an opposition who is willing to do all of the things I listed. Court packing by itself threatens to blow up the established order, never mind all the other stuff. If the left could just show people that it's getting less crazy and actually wants to pursue a "return to normal," maybe you'd have more success getting people to be upset about Orange Man. When people feel that the left is itching to stomp them into the dirt as soon as it gets the chance, it's a hard sell.
this is exactly the issue he is writing about. you refuse to engage with a specific point and instead flee into vague politics which is also the reason why republicans have such lunacy among their ranks they cant call out.
I don't have an issue calling out Trump's behavior as bad. There are lots of things about him I don't like, his behavior on January 6 being one of them. If you give me a choice between Trump and some other hypothetical Republican who is the same as him but behaved better after the 2020 election, I'll pick the latter, no problem.
What I take issue with is the focus on Trump and the 2020 election as a form of "special evil" that overrides everything else in existence. To Richard's credit, he agrees with this narrative but then says he's going to vote Trump anyways. I think he is the only person I have seen take that position. Literally everyone else who is really mad about Trump and 2020 are "low decouplers" for whom it's a total disqualifier (of course, most of these people were never going to vote Republican anyways, but I repeat myself).
If Democrats were to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court with the specific goal of restoring Roe v Wade and/or forcing through liberal policies in general, I would consider this to be the same in kind as Trump wanting to overturn the 2020 election. You could argue that it's of a lesser degree, but it's the same in kind. Instead of accepting a loss, it would be the left flipping the board in response. I think that's where I differ from Richard. He appears to think that these things are not the same in kind, that overt court-packing and similar behaviors are totally above board and not worthy of similar concern.
That goes back to my complaint about this topic in general--I see a gazillion of these pieces about how Trump is disqualified because of 2020, but I'm not sure if I've seen a single one about Democrats wanting to blow up established norms. Certainly not from any of the same people who are mad about Trump, at least.
>If Democrats were to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court with the specific goal of restoring Roe v Wade and/or forcing through liberal policies in general, I would consider this to be the same in kind as Trump wanting to overturn the 2020 election.
This is where you lose the plot and fall into the same mental vice Richard is trying to point out. There is no moral equivalency between this stated action Dems want and Trump's actions on Jan 6. As Richard states, no one in the Democratic party is stating that part of pursuing this policy requires upending or disregarding established democratic norms to enact it (they want to win enough elections to democratically enact these changes). Trump pursued power in contra to CLEARLY established norms AND, most likely, illegal means such as the fake elector plot. These two goals, packing the court via winning elections, and staying in power via UN-Constiutional means, are not the same in terms of harm to our democracy. They should not elicit "similar concern" unless you cannot decouple.
I reject this binary notion that literally nothing matters so long as 50% + 1 people voted for it. This demonstrates a shallow to nonexistent understanding of game theory. If your opponent clearly states their intention to rig the game against you as much as possible as soon as they get the opportunity, it's entirely predictable that the game will fall apart from there and entirely rational that you might entertain pre-emptively cheating in order to stop them.
Indeed, this is one reason right-wingers are so confident of the left's willingness to cheat; it's completely reasonable to cheat if your opponent is Literally Hitler, as the left has spent the past decade claiming Trump is (this behavior may have ended up helping him a lot, as it meant people were already desensitized to such talk by the time Jan 6 happened).
To give an example extreme enough to make the point, suppose that at some point Republicans were able to pass a constitutional amendment stripping citizenship and voting rights from anyone who has ever voted Democrat for president. Would you roll over and shrug your shoulders and say "this is fine" because it's technically legal going by the letter of the law? No, you wouldn't, and you're a liar if you say you would. Democrats pursuing court-packing is just a lesser form of this, the basic motivation and methodology is the same.
This is a straw man argument. Its not grounded in the realities of our republican system which gives extreme protections for the minority from the majority. The Constitution is silent on how many Supreme Court justices should there be. This is by design to allow Congress to decide. To do so, the the politics of power necessitate that the Democrats would need to control both chambers of Congress (with a filibuster proof majority) and the Presidency (overcoming their disadvantage in the electoral college). This isn't a 50%+1. To accomplish such a task within the bounds of our democratic system, as the Democrats have desired to do, would require major electoral victories in traditionally Republican areas.
Yet once again, you're not addressing the point that such an agenda, even on the merits alone (not how the Dems would actually achieve their electoral victories to pack the court) has no moral equivalency to Trump's agenda on Jan 6 to maintain power through un-democratic, probably illegal means.
You can criticize the Democratic agenda for packing the courts, you can attack the validity of the merits of such an idea, but you can't question the democratic norms of how they would have achieved it if they achieved via the ballot box. Outcomes of democratic elections doesn't grant a moral good to a policy by any means. But how something is attained is absolutely relevant to its moral legitimacy. You can find yourself in possession of a piece of land, but how you obtained it matters in how other perceive your valid claim to it. You could have bought it, you could have been gifted it or you could have stolen it. It wouldn't change that you possess it, but all three have distinct impacts on how you achieved it and the degree people grant you morally deserve it. Again, Trumps actions are uniquely abhorrent let alone immoral. Because its so norm breaking, and so unique in the history of our democracy, he absolutely deserves extra enmity from those interested in maintaining our democracy, Republican or Democrat.
Another way to describe it is that the low decouples fail to distinguish between violations of tradition, defacto institutional norms, and de jure rules. In this sense court packing and electoral college shenanigans are both forms of breaking with tradition. But they are very different in terms of following the rule of law.
Actually, you only need 51 Senate votes to end the filibuster, and from there they can mostly do whatever they want with their simple majority, including packing the Supreme Court. Democrats came this close to ending it during Biden's presidential term. They were only stopped by a couple of defectors (Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin) who were retiring. The filibuster has been left untouched for so long despite the ease with which it could theoretically be ended specifically because both sides have generally recognized its value in maintaining the balance of power.
Neither Trump nor any other prominent Republicans have even suggested ending the filibuster or packing the Supreme Court, so far as I know.
Except he didnt retreat to “vague politics,” he pointed to specific threats to institutions posed by the left, such a court packing and undermining judicial independence, that are both more impactful and potentially permanent than trump’s antics
Richard, you've convinced me that Jan 6 was worse than I've previously believed. Maybe I even believe now that it was an "attempted coup" albeit a very bad one.
You don't like people trying to argue that it wasn't a coup, but do you think the events of that day have been mischaracterized by Trump-hating media at all? And does that matter?
Was this also an "insurrection"? And does it matter at all that there were no guns? Does it matter that it was completely unlike any other coups or insurrections we know from history?
I would say it matters in the sense that the overall threat of Trump was overblown. Trump might wish to do bad things (like stage a coup), but ultimately is not capable of doing them. He might want to be more threatening than he is, but it's fair for us voters to make our judgments based on what might actually realistically happen under a second Trump term.
This is a wonderful piece as an example of a well-written long-form evisceration of the specific comments described within.
I had never come across the term “decoupling” as you’ve been using it. It seems to boil down to judging each item based on its own merits. And to be self-aware of your own prejudices and biases. I would’ve taken those to be basic adult attributes.
But it does ring true that the more extreme and aggressive righties have high correlation to J6 whataboutism and vaccine conspiracies (and to some extent, anti-immigration vibes). Those things seem to track repeatedly. I don’t tend to read comments as much on this stack, but that observation is readily sustained in the comments section of the free press. In a way that you simply don’t see on places like ACX. I have no way of knowing how the readership skews on those sites, but the commentariat track very differently. Even though Bari et Al and Scott are likely more similar than dissimilar.
I think you should feel more confident wielding the banhammer. Unmoderated communities attract the most obnoxious and drive away the most knowledgeable.
You could theoretically test that by examining propositions particularly unflattering to high-decoupling libertarians and see how many of them provide reasoned arguments to counter you and how many of them start calling you names. How much of 'high-decoupling' is actually being able to examine an argument purely on its merits, and how much is it the fact their oxen aren't the ones being gored?
(This may seem a bit trollish, but I think the trolling actually makes the point!)
For example:
-Libertarianism is usually defeated in political contests; therefore, if you believe in democracy and liberalism, you should reject it as a philosophy. (I think it was Hoppe who decided to punt democracy as a result of this.)
-From a utilitarian point of view, neoliberal or libertarian policies lead to more inequality, which leads to instability and an eventual reaction; some degree of welfare state is necessary to avoid this.
Or to be a little more personally nasty (note the insult applies to me in all cases!):
-The fertility collapse is the result of women making free choices against neckbeards and other low-social-skills men and therefore not something to be opposed.
-Libertarians don't get the pro-life position because they've never had kids they care about.
-Pro-life libertarians don't get the pro-choice position because they've never had women they care about.
-High-decouplers ignore porn as a problem because they've never been a woman who had guys try to choke them (the preferred complaint among the anti-porn crowd these days).
Although I am taking this article to heart more than I would have a few years ago, based on some brief self-reflection, I see myself as always having been a pretty high decoupler just by virtue of the various political transformations I have gone through over the years and the cognitive dissonance I often experience trying to reconcile my different views. For example, your reference to homophobia made me realize that even though I find the homosexual lifestyle and (stereotypical) personality distasteful and/or annoying, I am still very tolerant (in the libertarian sense); hence, my defense of liberty for all, which includes freedom of association. This means I can empathize with the disgust experienced by many religious conservatives while also strongly pushing back on their illiberal tendencies.
Necessary discussion. Though I disagree with Richard on a lot of subjects, I come here in part to hear about ideas for improving this stupid, corrupt party that I have no choice but to vote for in every election. And would agree a good chunk of the stupidity is driven by stupid enculturated habits -- a lack of interest in the humble pursuit of truth -- rather than a simple lack of native intelligence.
I don't understand the urge to argue Richard into being more tribal. There are plenty of places to be tribal online. Why not treat this as a space where it's OK for us rightists to occasionally self-reflect?
For most of us, there is a really big overlap between "being tribal" and simply being right. It is not the case that people who disagree with Richard about immigration secretly think he's right but just feel that they have to go along with their tribe anyways. They actually think he's wrong about immigration.
Who brought up immigration? I disagree with Richard on immigration too. I'm sure I overlap with your policy views drastically more than I do with Richard's, I've read some of your Substack. But from what I've seen of your comments here, it would be more constructive if you could dial down your instinct for "whataboutism" by about 40%, at least when you're engaging with other rightists.
My point is that people generally aren't trying to argue anyone into "being more tribal" here, they're expressing sincerely held differences in belief. That's because Richard diverges strongly from many right-wing viewpoints to the extent that many right-wingers don't view him as being on the right at all. If you wanted a space for rightists to self-reflect, you'd look for an author who is firmly right-wing and can thus credibly criticize his own "side" without them questioning his motivations. On a lot of issues (admittedly not all), Richard doesn't want the right to "self-reflect," he just wants us to lose.
"I think I would take the side of seventeenth century Catholics in that debate."
No!!! This is literally the whole point! Catholics weren't part of this debate because they were a small, despised and periodically persecuted minority. When puritans attacked 'popery' they were actually attacking normal Protestants who weren't extremist loons. Read a book, Richard!
As to the rest, it was a good comment. Sure, it was about something tangential to the main point (though maybe not so much, because your view of whether the puritan role in American history is good or not is kind of the chief thing here), but that is a normal and proper way of using the comments section. It was the most liked comment, and sparked a fun little debate about 17th century history which other readers can use for pointers if they want to explore the subject more.
High decoupler is just a nice way of saying autistic (in the internet sense, not the clinical diagnosis sense). I am very autistic, and my comment was highly autistic so the criticism is misapplied. Obviously, I could have made it better if I had spent more time on it, but if I spend more than 15 minutes on a comment, I would just turn it into an article on my own Substack.
Finally, I got about 20 subscribers out of this, which is great, but I would have got way more had you not posted this on Shemini Atzeret, when Jews aren't on the internet (it's even worse because, in America, it's a 2-day festival and the next day was Shabbos). Next time you wish to publish my witty and incisive comments, please consult a calendar which includes Jewish festivals. You can get them from any Ivy League university. ❤️
I'm not calling anyone else names, but January 6th is one of the major things keeping me from voting for Trump, TBH. I've never seen a lame-duck president try to prevent the transfer of power by trying to start a riot before. They sat there, gave over the presidency, and went off to write books.
There's plenty of blame to go around: the Democrats screwed things up by trying to prosecute him on seriously flimsy charges, and now he has to win to stay out of jail. If they'd kept their rage in check they could just let him live out his days selling junk from Mar-A-Lago. But nah, you had to try to put him in jail on BS charges.
You’ve still never seen a lame-duck president try to stay in power by starting a riot, because it’s never happened.
You’ve seen a few prior lame-ducks challenge their defeats in court, though none had nearly so strong a case as the one in 2020.