Hard on Our Allies, Sympathetic to Our Opponents
Why moderates find it hard to play at tribalised politics
"Trump Vance shirts" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
The origins of this project came in the middle of the 2010s. I had been troubled by my friends buying into weakly sourced conspiracy theories since getting stuck into social media in 2007. By 2015, I had spent 13 years as an investigative reporter specialising in finance, working with a carefully designed methodology. I had also just completed a masters degree in media management in my spare time, which had introduced me to reflective practice.
I decided to bring my unease at conspiracy theories together with a reflective project that answered the question of how people should evaluate information on the internet. The first step was to spend a lot of my spare time on a huge literature review before going public with my findings in 2020.
While I was in the middle of this research project, I ran across a 2017 article in the New York Times called What Moderates Believe (paywalled) by David Brooks, which was hugely influential on the direction I was to take. As well as giving a hat tip to Aurelian Craiutu’s great book Faces of Moderation (see link below), one line from the article stuck in my mind:
Moderates are problematic members of their party. They tend to be hard on their peers and sympathetic to their foes.
Yes! The idea of being tough on our own side while striving to understand my opponents resonated hard with me and became a foundational part of this project. It also aligned with my ideas about journalistic neutrality.
Although - broadly speaking - I find myself on the socially progressive and anti-nationalist centre left, I strive to be critical of people with similar views while trying to be self-critical and struggling to understand other points of view. This approach has led to some unobservant people misreading me as being right-wing or conservative at times. To be fair to my critics, it has to be said that long-time financial journalists do, on average, tend to be a little bit more sympathetic to markets-based solutions than regular people.
Over time, I have taken this stance of uneasiness with tribal suites of views a little further by developing the idea that I call institutionalism, which sits above ideology. I see this approach as a way of finding links to other moderates across the horseshoe; as well as promoting the idea of becoming floating voters instead of party loyalists. In general terms, I think both sides can do better; and nobody has a monopoly on truth.
The centre left should embrace economic growth and pragmatic environmentalism while fighting back against terrible policy ideas from activists; and the centre right should think much harder about resolving the tensions between a market economy and families, while also finding space for politicians from humble backgrounds. Both sides should get much better at distancing themselves from populists on the same side of the horseshoe.
The rest of today’s essay is based on Brooks’ observation. It has been somewhat difficult to write and some of you might find it a little hard to read. The theme is this: what can moderate progressives learn from US President-elect Donald Trump? What does he get right? Please make sure you make it to the end of the essay before yelling at me on the internet!
For all his faults, Trump has put his finger on some interlocking issues that resonate hard with many voters. Globalised markets have made many basic products and services much cheaper, particularly when it comes to consumer electronics, but the theory behind trade specialisation is based on the assumption that all states are playing by the same rules. This is not necessarily true in the real world.
China has built a manufacturing machine. It accounts for 31.6% of global manufacturing, almost double the score of the US, which is in second place with 15.8%. China’s muscle is such that it has forced large swathes of the West to de-industrialise, focusing instead on areas like services and tourism instead of producing cheap goods. This creates a strategic problem for future conflicts. Any large-scale wars will be won and lost in the factories of combatant nations. China has a massive advantage on this score.
Trump correctly identified the interlocking problems in a way that other politicians failed to do. For example, in July, he said that China is “killing us as a country.” The rhetoric is a little over-heated, but the problem he pointed to is very real: Israel’s attack on Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies last year was a clear indication that an edge in technical know-how can also be an advantage in war.
Trump has said that “tariff” is “the most beautiful word in the dictionary.” Sadly, import taxes will almost certainly be inflationary if applied without finesse. However, it is difficult to see how the West can re-industrialise and re-build a competitive military without any tariffs at all, probably combined with industrial policy, as progressive commentator Noah Smith argues.
The US President-elect has also been completely right about Europe mostly spending far too little on defence, as centrist columnist Janan Ganesh argues (paywalled). For too long, Europe has been a free-rider in the post-World War II world built by the US. One clear lesson on the Ukraine war is that Europe needs to be able to deal with conflicts in its own backyard without relying on American leadership. As with tariffs, Trump’s threats to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are irresponsible, but the underlying issue is real.
Something similar is true of undocumented immigration. More than half of Americans think that immigration levels are too high. Trump read the room. His rhetoric about rounding up illegal immigrants and expelling them from the country is extreme, but it hit a nerve with ordinary American voters across the country. The stories about Haitians eating pets were ungrounded, but the primal and atavistic fears that Trump evoked proved to be powerful.
Trump has probably never read social psychologist Jonathan Haidt (let alone Enlightenment philosopher David Hume whose work he has built upon), but he also has a clear instinctive understanding of motivate reasoning. We are emotional animals: our feelings come first; and we base our worldview on our emotions rather than on logic. Trump’s most significant weapon is his storytelling skills to frame our darker emotions.
The reality TV star turned politician always begins with an emotionally charged starting position, which often shocks many outside his base. He then seeks concessions before declaring victory. It is a surprisingly emotionally astute approach, which is very different from what most politicians do most of the time. It is fickle and mercurial rather than rules-based, which makes Trump unpredictable and his core views (if he has core views) difficult to fully grasp.
When Trump won the 2016 election, there was a lot of talk in the media about the way he was a poor man’s idea of a rich man. This idea contains an important truth. Working-class men without university degrees can imagine living a brash Trump-like lifestyle after a big lottery win, complete with dating models and front-row seats at the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Imagining themselves as thoughtful corporate lawyers, who enjoy contemporary art galleries and going to the opera, is a bigger leap. Trump gleefully plays up this stylistic difference from mainstream politicians, who over-recruit from the legal sector. It must be one of the factors that explains a rare Republican landslide in the US.
For years, Trump has been promoting the idea that well-educated and articulate left-leaning politicians (many with legal training), who offer carefully calibrated narratives, are in some essential way out of touch with ordinary voters and possibly sinister to boot. He loves the contrast with his own style, which is based on shooting from the hip, if not necessarily shooting straight. At the same time, his Democratic opponent this time around, Kamala Harris, failed to define her brand.
Thinking about style can help us understand aspects of Trump’s approach. Do you remember his strange conspiracy theories about the origins of his first Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama? They were completely nonsensical at a logical level. Likewise, the QAnon conspiracy cult, which he has promoted, is daft - the idea that senior members of the Democratic Party are baby-eating Satanists is very silly.
However, Trump has cynically been trying to play up the distance between career politicians and voters who didn’t go to university for more than a decade now. Focusing on the actual words instead of the underlying emotion (distrust and suspicion) misleads many commentators when it comes to this point.
I would like to take a step back now and discuss the methodology behind this post. The subscriber base for Sharpen Your Axe has grown more than 6x since April 2021, when I published an essay on how to avoid internet debates spinning out of control. In that post, which was aimed at debates with conspiratorially minded friends and acquaintances, I said this:
It should be obvious that semi-hostile debates, with each side plotting quick comebacks, are counter-productive because we both double down on our starting positions. Instead, try listening deeply to the other person. Invite them to explain their views, maybe on a call instead of a social media platform. Look for points of common ground. It often helps to split the other person’s views in two, so you can agree with a general point or two (“it is great that you are doing your own research and distrusting elites is definitely a healthy attitude”) without commenting on specific theories.
As you will see, this week’s essay strives to do exactly this. We are splitting Trump’s views in two, between a very general and emotionally grounded point about the big picture and the more specific claims about policy. Doing this makes it much easier to find areas of agreement. It is hard to do, but I believe it is very worthwhile taking the time to act like this during a fierce culture war, which can separate well-educated professionals from those of our friends, family members and acquaintances who lack degrees but want to do their own research about the world.
Let me end this essay with a very important point: trying to understand Trump’s appeal shouldn’t be seen as an endorsement of his approach. Spotting a real problem, proposing an emotionally charged solution and then diluting it after receiving concessions is a strange and potentially dangerous way of doing politics.
The businessman has spent many years promoting grifts and his political career could well fall into the same category. His encouragement of an assault on the peaceful transition of power on 6th January 2021 was unforgivable; and should have disqualified him from ever holding public office. Finally, populists often erode the institutions that are meant to hold them back after winning an election or two. The risks of Trump implementing Russian-style gangster capitalism aren’t zero.
The comments are closed, as always when I write about populists - supporters of populism can be very annoying on the internet. If you subscribe, though, you can hit reply to the email. I might not get to it immediately, but I will reply when I get a chance. See you next week!
Previously on Sharpen Your Axe
Tariffs and inflation
Defence spending in Europe (part one and part two)
Motivated reasoning and moral foundations
April 2021 post on internet debates
On culture wars (part one and part two)
Further Reading
Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes by Aurelian Craiutu
This essay is released with a CC BY-NY-ND license. Please link to sharpenyouraxe.substack.com if you re-use this material.
Sharpen Your Axe is a project to develop a community who want to think critically about the media, conspiracy theories and current affairs without getting conned by gurus selling fringe views. Please subscribe to get this content in your inbox every week. Shares on social media are appreciated!