The way in which Republican ideology is fundamentally self-contradictory

In the last week or so, we've heard a lot from the usual suspects about how bad CBS is, how much of an agenda Dan Rather has, and (all together now!) how liberal the media is. Let's take a representative quote, this one from Carl Limbacher, of Newsmax, on Joe Scarborough's show:

Now we learn that, at least in Rather's case, there seems to be a very pronounced agenda that goes so far even to tolerate perhaps forged documents getting on to the nation's airwaves in a way that severely misleads the potential voters in this year's election.

And if you're a person with a brain, you probably thought, "why is it that Dan Rather's agenda is being questioned, but the right-wing nutjobs, who are always making stuff up, don't get the same kind of scrutiny?" Then you go to Media Matters, and find that Sean Hannity said this, of the CBS producer who produced the segment with the apparently forged memos:

HANNITY: [T]his woman who also produced -- was the producer who obtained the Abu Ghraib photos. ... [T]he same person that had the Abu Ghraib pictures -- the Abu Ghraib photos is apparently the same one that got these documents. ... Now here's the question. Where did she get all this stuff from? So that could mean that Abu Ghraib -- where did that come from? Was that a DNC plot too? I mean, there's a lot of questions here.

And your head explodes, when you see that Sean Hannity is somehow suggesting that a matter investigated by multiple branches of the US Armed Forces and the US Congress is a Democratic plot to steal the election. Sure, some people make a distinction between an opinion journalist and an anchor like Dan Rather. But surely, such a distinction doesn't mean that one is allowed to libelously conspiracy theorize and another is not.

A very intelligent commentator on Kevin Drum's site had this to say, and I want to elaborate on it:

You are soon to be working in a media atmosphere where there are no facts. Where there is no objective evidence. This is the world the Republicans want. By focusing on the form and source of the memos rather than their content, you are helping Republicans out in their post-modern project of making form and source the only important measure of truth.

The Abu Gharaib photos are forgeries. Scream all you want, reason all you want, list facts and witnesses, you no longer matter as an arbiter of the truth. I mean, consider the source.

This comment has me thinking, because when you read what Hannity said, it's hard to come to a different conclusion. That despite the fact that everyone on both sides of the aisle and in the military admit that prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib happened, Hannity is suspicious enough of it that he has to suggest that it was a DNC plot. With such careless and seemingly intentional disregard for facts, how can one do other than to think that Hannity really is trying to change the standards by which we judge the truth of a situation?

Let me get to my point.

I think there are two strains in modern Republican ideology (and I mean to distinguish "Republican" from "conservative"); I think they are competeing and contradictory; and I think that this is the fundamental reason the Republican worldview is incoherent. Here are the two strains:

1) A world of moral absolutes, of black and white, of good and evil. A world of Bush saying, "you're either with us or you're with the terrorists," and a world in which he talks about an "axis of evil." The moral absolutes in this strain are based on either explicitly religious sentiment, or quasi-religious sentiment. Which is to say, they are "faith-based." Bush doesn't really need any evidence that Saddam Hussein is evil (though there is plenty), because it is enough that Bush thinks that Saddam Hussein is evil. The terrorists hate us for our liberties, and the Republican party doesn't need any documentation to prove that. Good v. Evil. It's that simple.

2) A world of absolute relativism, in which evidence doesn't matter because we only take the evidence that we want, and it doesn't have to be real evidence, anyway. WMD? Well, the British government says that Saddam can launch a WMD within 45 minutes of having given the order. Nevermind those state department caveats, the suppressed dissenting opinions in the National Intelligence Estimate. The Brits have also learned the Saddam was trying to buy signifigant qualities of uranium from Africa. Global warming? We don't like the science. John Kerry's service in Vietnam? He didn't deserve his medals and you'll have to take our word for it. The media? They're liberal, and if you can't see that you're not looking carefully. (Evidence for that? We don't need evidence!) Trickle down economics? More money for everyone! Abu Ghraib? A DNC plot!

These competing strains, what you might call moral absolutism vs. evidentiary relativism, are in apparent contradiction, right? If the world is black and white, then surely there is an easy way to judge the truth of falseness of a statement. How then, can the Republican standard of evidence be so, shall we say, lenient?

I think it's because there is a fundamental center to both of these strains, or rather, a lack of center. Given that Bush is an apparently sincerely religious man, it is easy to see that his religious faith might lead him to view the world, and history, in terms of very stark contrasts -- Saddam, Hitler, Stalin, all evil. At the same time, though, evangelical Christians (not to single them out, it's just that the president is one) are especially ready to point out that faith cannot be rationally understood, that God works in mysterious ways, that belief in God, for example, is a matter of faith, not of evidentiary determination.

Which is to say this: there is a certain psychology which allows one to interpret the world in absolutist terms, but which at the same time, allows one to avoid any particular rationalization for a belief system. "I won't negotiate with myself." "The reason I believe in a large tax cut is because it's what I believe." Sound familiar? Such a psychology seems particularly well suited to being part of a certain kind of religious faith, but not necessarily so. It seems to me that it has a secular embodiment as well, and if you look at Dick Cheney's continued insistence that Iraq and all-Qaeda were linked, you might see it in action.

But I think the essential part of this psychology is an absolute certainty that the world revolves around a fixed and very clear moral axis, combined with an absolute disregard for fixed and clear standards of reasoning. It is this sort of thing that can lead Sean Hannity, even though he might be aware that accusing the Democrats of orchestrating Abu Ghraib has no basis in reality, to say it anyway, and to say it without necessarily having a moral qualm.

A few final notes: what I consider crucial about the ideology that I have described above is that the two apparently opposing poles exist simultaneously, which is what makes Pres. Bush, for example, sound so credible and sincere in public, even when saying something that everyone knows to be untrue (remember, this is the man who said, after having pushed for UN security council weapons inspectors, "We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in"). Or what makes it possible that Paul Wolfowitz, in a Senate hearing this spring, really didn't know how many US casualties there have been in Iraq (he said 500; there were 722).

A person like Karl Rove, for whom the ends justify the means (and for whom the disregard for reasoning is merely an means), is perhaps only a weak version of the sort of psychology I'm talking about here. You can see, though, how an unholy alliance between a Machiavellian figure like Rove and a paradoxically self-decieving figure like Bush might be possible.

If you're ever watching Bush on TV, and he's saying something untrue like "Sen. Kerry voted for the war, then he opposed it," and you're wondering how a person like that could possibly become president, think about my theory. Try it out. See if it works. Then, if you decide that it make sense, don't be surprised when you learn that 42% of the American public thinks that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11.

Comments

[d meyers]

nice post, I disagree with most all of it.. I won't spend time going back and forth on this because we each would be writing books. You do a good job of reflecting your view in it so I won't hammer you on your beliefs...

I don't find it interesting that you stress that our side is so black and white, facts/evidence don't matter, etc (I know I am generalizing but it is close to what you said) and then you say something like:

" person like Karl Rove, for whom the ends justify the means (and for whom the disregard for reasoning is merely an means),"

And the evidence for that? You blast republican OPINION artists then say something like that. You don't know Mr. Rove, you don't know anyone who personally knows his character and yet you feel it is ok to throw out such an unsubstantiated charge.

Plug the CBS (two thirds BS) memos into your rant and detail the statements from harkin, rather, mcawful, etc and you have another instance to add to you post.

[dmeyers]

I am sure I am guilty of doing what I am going to accuse you of and I need to watch myself if I am.

I personally believe it is fine to debate policy differences but I don't think it is fine to attempt to psycho analyze the other side in an attempt to figure out why they hold their beliefs. I especially think it is wrong to try and explain the other side by bringing religion into the mix. Especially if you are not a religious person (I have no idea if you are or not) one should not try and use a belief in religion as a way to blast someone.

Again, we all analyze others but claiming to know what another's intentions are or what another believes or what someones motivation is is dangerous and we should all strive not to do that, me included.

HWL,

I just don't think it is helpful to play dime-store shrink and claim to know the reasons behind conservative thinking

[d meyers]

I think also it is important to distinguish between commentators and news people. You always bring up Rush, Sean, Ann amoung others, which is fine, but all these people are commentators. You may claim that to the right they are the news purveyors but that would be your opinion, which I would disagree.

I analyze what Krugman/Kristoff say differently then what I analyze what the big three say (Dan, Peter, Tom) and differently than what the news pages of the NY Times say. One group is offering opionions and the others are supposed to be offering the news.

As I said before, I would really like to think commentary could be removed from news stories but that may be too much to ask. Just the Facts Man. Don't give me opinion statements in news reporting

[d meyers]

I think we all need some humor. Finally, a 527 I can stand behind

http://www.footballfansfortruth.us/

often times humor and mocking is the most effective form of attack

[here's what's left]

I think also it is important to distinguish between commentators and news people. You always bring up Rush, Sean, Ann amoung others, which is fine, but all these people are commentators. You may claim that to the right they are the news purveyors but that would be your opinion, which I would disagree.

yeah, i addressed that in the post. i do distinguish between commentators and news reporters, and it would be false not to. but i don't think that commentators, because of some supposed privileged status they possess, are any less accountable to actual facts.

which is to say this: Rather might have been duped, and should bear some responsibility for something; which means that at least he should say, if everything is clear after the dust settles, that he was wrong. But no one seems to think that Rather was intentionally putting something he knew to be false on the air.

Sean and Rush are different stories though, and are abviously far worse. It's hard to say how seriously Sean would make a claim like that Abu Ghraib was a DNC plot, but surely he knows that the facts contradict that; he also knows that there are people in his audience that will believe it. just because he's a commentator doesn't mean we excuse his unclear relationship with reality.

My point in this whole thing, though, remains that this kind of uneasy attitude towards facts is characteristic of republican (again, not "conservative," per se) ideology and rhetoric as a whole -- this is how your side wins elections. and i think your party bears the primary responsibility for the dumbing down of elections.

[d meyers]

"ideology and rhetoric as a whole -- this is how your side wins elections. and i think your party bears the primary responsibility for the dumbing down of elections"

why is it it always comes back to the people are stupid and Republicans are great at fooling them.

I personally think most people who vote are pretty aware of things. I think most people have a pretty good CRAP filter that they use and they take everything in, the Rather's, Rush's, Sean's, Katie's, etc, etc, etc and make pretty informed decisions.

I point to the House elections of 1994 as one of the greatest ISSUE elections there have been in a long time. The House Republicans put out a really specific 10 point Contract with America detailing what they are running on. All House Republicans stuck to the themes and won HUGE. They WON ON ISSUES, not on deception.

When was the last time Dems actually put together a detailed issues campaign and ran on it and won??? Clinton in 1992 actually did run on some issues and lets not forget that he did not run on LEFTY issues.

Republicans will run on the issues they believe in and they win when they do. I get P.O'd when conservatives don't run as conversatives and try to water down their issues. This is a recipe for election defeat. The fact is TAX CUTS as an issue has been shown to be game, set, match for Republicans... And that is fine for me

[here's what's left]

I think most people have a pretty good CRAP filter that they use and they take everything in, the Rather's, Rush's, Sean's, Katie's, etc, etc, etc and make pretty informed decisions.

oh, i see, that makes the fact sean hannity knowingly lied OK, then.

The House Republicans put out a really specific 10 point Contract with America detailing what they are running on.

how'd that whole contract with america thing do, btw? remind me.

but let me not ignore the fact that you changed the subject, because you didn't have a counter argument to my original point, which is that your surrogates lie, and are not held accountable. where was your outrage when sean hannity showed a doctored photo of john kerry and jane fonda?

I personally think most people who vote are pretty aware of things.

well, it's a free country, and your entitled to think that i you want guess.

what's percentage of americans who think that saddam hussein was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks? 42% or something? and that was at the beginning of this month. pretty aware of thing, aren't they?

i don't think it's john kerry who's been camapaigning on the idea that iraq is the central front in the war on terror either, is it? nice issues you got there.

[d meyers]

"how'd that whole contract with america thing do, btw? remind me."

Only one of the most successful House campaigns in the history of this country. A pick up of over 50 seats and control of the House going to Republicans after over 40 years in the minority. A majority they still hold today. 1994 is the flash point of where we are today. The Dems have NEVER recovered from getting their asses handed to them.

You know, I really don't lose any sleep over the fact that opinion people who do more than 15 hours a week of commentary screw up at times. The issue you pointed out was Hannity bringing up Abu Grahab and the C-BS documents. It may be a bad comparison but is it a lie if Hannity wishes to tie them together?? IF he believes it then he could be a fool but why is he lying? He is offering opinion.... I trust the market will eventually filter out individuals that are liars so no, pointing out liars in the media is of no interest to me... As I said I think the individual CRAP meter does a fine job.

So are you 100% Sadaam had no ties to 9/11??? The Czech inteligence agency says Mohamed Atta met with an Iraq intelligence officer in April 2001, the CIA does not confirm that. Will you or I ever know if this meeting took place?? Of course not. So is it reasonable for people who may believe this meeting took place to come to the conclusion that Sadaam was tied to 9/11? I think it is but you and I both know that we will never know for sure about Iraqi and Al-Qaeda ties.

I personally do not support the war in Iraq because of links between Sadaam and 9/11, I support it because, as John Kerry said, it is part of the Global War on Terror... (p.s., check his comments regarding the 1000th person who died in Iraq). I know you don't believe it is but that is fine.