The condescension is strong in this one...

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robeiae
Thaumaturge

On a down bound train

Posts: 6,692

The condescension is strong in this one... Oct 24, 2017 7:53:24 GMT -5

Post by robeiae on Oct 24, 2017 7:53:24 GMT -5

"Safaris" through middle America (read the whole thing): www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/on-safari-in-trumps-america/543288/

Think tanks like Third Way, along with many journalists and some individuals, are looking for "understanding."

A couple of bits from the above piece:

Group after group of befuddled elites has crisscrossed America to poke and prod and try to figure out what they missed—“Margaret Meads among the Samoans,” one prominent strategist remarked to me.

Open-mindedness was the sworn commitment of the Third Way team. The researchers were determined to approach rural Wisconsin with humility and respect. After the election, Hale told me, “You heard people saying, ‘These people aren’t smart enough to vote, they’re so stupid, if that’s what they want, they deserve what they get.’ That hit us, on every level, as wrong.” They wanted to open their hearts and their minds and simply listen. They were certain that, in doing so, they would find what they believed was true: a bunch of reasonable, thoughtful, patriotic Americans. A nation of people who really wanted to get along.

Hale and Watson’s opening remarks to focus groups were an honest statement of the group’s animating worldview: that all things are possible when politicians make the right sales pitch to a fundamentally reasonable electorate that can agree on a lot of things. That in a time of division, they could find the things that still bound Americans together. That with enough research and focus groups and listening tours and charts and graphs, they could figure out—and cure—what ails the body politic.

The first bit is striking in its arrogance and--like the "safari" label--kinda racist, no?

The second is, to me, seeped in condescension, since it proceeds from the idea that the researchers necessarily have to curb their attitudes, that they actually lack that humility and respect. Because let's be honest: most of them do, especially when they're from well-funded think tanks like Third Way (just as true of think tanks on the conservative side).

And the last, well it betrays the actual modus operandi of the researchers. They're not looking for ways to cure anything, they're looking for information that will give them what they need to win, to essentially get over on a sufficiently large chunk of the electorate.

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Optimus
Illuminati

Posts: 2,508

The condescension is strong in this one... Oct 24, 2017 16:21:35 GMT -5 robeiae likes this

Post by Optimus on Oct 24, 2017 16:21:35 GMT -5

I got the condescension tone, but I think it was a product of blind idealism and arrogant naivete. That's what I picked up on from the article (more so than overt condescension). That, and that they were on a Quixotic quest driven by a head-scratching amount of doe-eyed denialism and confirmation bias.

It also struck me as a little odd that Third Way was described as "center-left," yet Nancy Hale (the apparent leader of the group) is an anti-nuclear "career activist" who has "spent her career...training activists to work for social change." In my experience, people who are professional activists (whatever the hell that means) are usually more far-left, because people in the center-left aren't as politically active as those on the far end of the spectrum and prefer to have actual, real jobs. That's kind of one of the defining features of being at the center, whether you're right or left; generally you're not so politically fringey as to want to be a full-time activist. That's not really a big deal, though. Just something that puzzled me when I read it.

(as an aside, I've noticed that, while the far-left has "professional activists," those don't really exist on the far-right. Instead, the far-right has "professional lobbyists" which, unfortunately, seem to be far more effective at accomplishing their goals.)

The trip was predicated on the optimistic notion that if Americans would only listen to each other, they would find more that united than divided them. This notion—the idea that, beyond our polarized politics, lies a middle, or third, path on which most can come together in agreement—is Third Way’s raison d’etre. It is premised on the idea that partisanship is bad, consensus is good, and that most Americans would like to meet in the middle.

That's certainly a noble goal, but the more I read through the article, the more it seemed to me that - even though these people strongly feel that there is a burgeoning political middle where people can more agree than disagree - they don't actually understand what the middle actually is and don't understand that people in the middle can agree on 7 out of 10 issues, but might strongly disagree on those last 3. It seems like Hale and Third Way had a distorted conception that the middle was a "safe space" of people who more-than-mostly agree with Democrat positions. That, by definition, would not be the "middle."

I did like that they were able to see first-hand and realize that tribalistic echo chambers exist on both sides. I was hoping it'd be a more eye-opening, reflective experience for them but judging by what the author said at the end of the article, it seems that wasn't what happened.

For all intents and purposes, it was Third Way’s vision that had been on the ballot in 2016—and lost. The think tank, inspired by the New Democrat centrism of the 1990s, had advised Hillary Clinton on her 2016 policy platform. In debates within the Democratic Party, Third Way advocated for the sensible center. It argued that a left-wing platform could not win elections, and that what voters preferred was a pragmatic, moderate, technocratic philosophy, socially liberal but pro-business and wary of big government. It used research and data to demonstrate that these policies made good politics.

That may have been mostly true - and that may very well have been Third Way's vision - but that's not really the kind of campaign that Clinton ultimately ran. And, even if she had, I don't feel that she was the type of candidate who could've successfully positioned herself as representing all of that. She had too much political baggage and her campaign message, at the end, had devolved into, "vote for me because I'm a woman and Trump is a rapist." As much as I doubt he would've accepted, I think one of her biggest mistakes was not convincing Bernie to be on the ticket with her.

I wondered if any of the tourists from the coasts would be open-minded enough to absorb a reality that might cut against their preconceptions. Did Third Way and Zuckerberg and Huffpo and all the rest want to confront an angry and divided nation head-on, or would they settle for a series of earnest exchanges that left their core assumptions intact?

Open-mindedness was the sworn commitment of the Third Way team. The researchers were determined to approach rural Wisconsin with humility and respect. After the election, Hale told me, “You heard people saying, ‘These people aren’t smart enough to vote, they’re so stupid, if that’s what they want, they deserve what they get.’ That hit us, on every level, as wrong.” They wanted to open their hearts and their minds and simply listen. They were certain that, in doing so, they would find what they believed was true: a bunch of reasonable, thoughtful, patriotic Americans. A nation of people who really wanted to get along.

This is indicative of the doe-eyed denialism and naivete I noted earlier. I get the sense that the author was shaking his head writing this the same was I shook my head reading it. I applaud the nobility of their goal, and I somewhat envy their sunny outlook, but I again am left scratching my head how anyone - especially people at a so-called "think tank" - could not foresee the polarization in the electorate after watching everything that happened during this last election cycle.

Politics, though, was not the focus of the Third Way interviewers, who believed there was more to be gained by asking neutral, open-ended questions. In accordance with Third Way’s ideology, they believed that political partisanship was not most people’s primary concern. But sometimes the Wisconsinites brought up politics anyway.

This is one of the parts that really hammered home the sheer ignorance and "alternate reality" viewpoint it seemed that the Third Way people had. How can you go on an "anthropological" data gathering road trip to try to understand the political attitudes that shaped the last election, and NOT focus your questions and data-gathering on people's political attitudes? That's a really stupid, self-defeating approach and made me find the "think tank" label to be amusingly ironic, as it seems that no one at this organization can successfully think in the first place.

That left me scratching my head more than anything else, and encapsulates the heart of Third Way's problem; "We desperately want to understand people's political attitudes, but we're going to avoid any questions that actually ask about their political attitudes."

Huh?

Debriefing after this particular group, the Third Way listeners said they found the union men demoralizing. “I feel like they can’t see their way out,” Hale said.

“They were very negative,” Paul Neaville, another researcher, concurred.

They were so fixated on blaming Republicans, Hale fretted. “It was very us-and-them.”

On the long drives between stops, I asked the researchers about their views and what they had been hearing around the country. They admitted that some of the things they had heard had shocked them. In South Florida, Hale told me, a local chamber of commerce official had calmly asserted, “We don’t have any Muslims here, and that’s a good thing, because Muslims are trouble.”

This, again, underscores these people's stunning detachment from reality. How could people who run a so-called "political think tank" NOT anticipate/understand/realize that these types of attitudes existed in the electorate? It would require an unfathomably deep pile of sand in which they've had their heads buried for the past two years, or an unfathomable amount of stupidity. Perhaps running a "political think tank" is not a career which plays to their talents.

The report surprised me when I read it. Despite the great variety of views the researchers and I had heard on our tour, the report had somehow reached the conclusion that Wisconsinites wanted consensus, moderation, and pragmatism—just like Third Way. We had heard people blame each other for their own difficulties, take refuge in tribalism, and appeal to extremes. But the report mentioned little of that. Instead it described the prevailing attitude as “an intense work ethic that binds the community together and helps it adapt to change.”

....

The researchers had somehow found their premise perfectly illustrated. Their journey to Trump’s America had done nothing to unsettle their preconceptions.

This is the section of that article that has me convinced that this was simply a masturbatory exercise in confirmation bias. It seems like the entire trip was done only for the sake of appearances (the "optics," that one's for you, @cassandraw ). Because, at the end of it, they still wrote a report that distorted the data gathered during their trip into a somewhat false narrative that fit their prior beliefs.

The article spends several paragraphs after this, toward the end, further describing the frustrating confirmation bubble these people operate in. If this is the way Democrat "think tanks" actually think, and the advice they give is based on this type of dysfunctional paradigm and behavior, then it's no wonder the Dems keep losing.

It's a bit disheartening to me, because I want them to get their shit together and start winning again. But, if this is the quality of the advice they get, and this is the quality of the people they listen to, I'm afraid the Dems will be out of power for a long, long time.

Last Edit: Oct 24, 2017 16:25:35 GMT -5 by Optimus

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Deleted
Deleted Member

Posts: 0

The condescension is strong in this one... Oct 24, 2017 19:55:59 GMT -5

Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2017 19:55:59 GMT -5

It's "opty-cs," Optimus .

Yeah, I have to hope the Democrats can pull through in 2018 and 2020. I think that's likely the only way of de-Trumping the country.

But yeah, alas, I agree that this sort of thing is kinda tone-deaf and just not helpful. Bill Clinton and Obama knew how to reach people and tap into a political mood. The current party leaders need to take some tips from them.

Last Edit: Oct 24, 2017 19:56:47 GMT -5 by Deleted

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Deleted
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The condescension is strong in this one... Oct 24, 2017 20:16:26 GMT -5

Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2017 20:16:26 GMT -5

Honestly, though? I don't think the 2016 platform was he problem so much as the fact that Clinton herself turned off a fair number and didn't turn on enough others sufficiently. And the country is divided enough, with enough people who aren't really so much about policy, that this matters a lot.

I'm not sure looking into the fault of the platform is the way to go so much as looking into the messaging and the messengers.

Which means some folks are going to have to face up to the fact that they're coming off as preachy, condescending, and self-righteous, more than they're coming off as caring about America, the little guy, etc.
Again, Bill and Obama knew how to do this, and had the charisma to get it across.

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robeiae
Thaumaturge

On a down bound train

Posts: 6,692

The condescension is strong in this one... Oct 25, 2017 7:14:38 GMT -5 Optimus likes this

Post by robeiae on Oct 25, 2017 7:14:38 GMT -5

Oct 24, 2017 16:21:35 GMT -5 Optimus said:

Oh, I agree with you here, 100%. But I am amazed at how they--organized, well-funded think tanks and professionals--can be so blind in this regard, can be unable to recognize this in themselves.

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