Signs of Patriotism

I was recently asked whether Liberals’ vocal opposition to President Donald Trump is unpatriotic. Actually, the question was, “Why are Liberals so unpatriotic?” The questioner made the argument that not “getting behind” President Trump was especially dangerous in this time of war. The questioner argued that Liberals’ criticism is putting the country and its military in greater danger, even going so far as to suggest that Liberals’ criticism is encouraging terrorists to attack the U.S.

This was my response:

Christopher Hemphill said, “Although poles apart ideologically, they are both unashamed of their patriotism.” Most fundamentally, patriotism is a feeling of strong attachment to one’s country— not to a particular politician, a particular political party, or particular culture within that country. We are all, in some sense, idealists. We have a vision for what our country could/should be. We have notions of what needs to change and what we need to hold on to. The “United States of America” means different things to different Americans.

With an understanding of what “patriotism” actually means, we can proceed to consider how those of a particular political ideology might or might not be patriots. But, first, let’s consider the “concerns.”

• Criticizing a president during a war: There has been no U.S. war in which our freedom of speech, including our right to oppose the positions taken by our government or our president, has not been our highest right. That right is established in the very first amendment to the U.S. Constitution: There can be no law “... abridging the freedom of speech....” Did Republicans criticize President Obama for eight years about his approach to the existing Afghanistan and Iraq Wars? Yes, they did. Were they being unpatriotic? No; they were exercising their First Amendment rights. It is an important sign of the health of a nation when it allows, listens to, and considers diverse opinions and ideas, especially in times of severe adversity such as war.
  
• Putting the U.S. and its military in danger: What puts the U.S. in danger is not citizen criticisms of its president, legislators, or judiciary. Did Conservatives’ criticism of U.S. strategies in 2008–2016 put the U.S. in additional danger? Did those criticisms put our military in further danger? No. It is the Commander-in-Chief who puts our military forces “in harm's way.” It is our generals, in executing a war, whose strategies and tactics have the greatest impact on the safety of our troops.
  
• Encouraging terrorists to attack: Currently, the U.S. is dealing with a few kinds of terrorists: Islamic extremists, White Nationalists, and Russian operatives are probably the big three.

• Islamic extremists: On September 11, 2001, Islamic extremists coordinated attacks on three locations in the United States: two planes headed toward the World Trade Center in New York City, one plane headed toward the Pentagon, and one plane commandeered to hit the Capitol Building or White House. This terrorism did not happen because some Americans were critical of President G. W. Bush. Since then, acts of Islamic terrorism on U.S. soil have been by radicalized individuals. One can theorize about what caused them to become radicalized, but we know it is not because, say, Conservatives were criticizing President Obama.

• White Nationalists: Hate crimes against Muslims, Jews, Blacks, Latinos, and LGBTQ people have increased within the U.S. as White Nationalist groups announced that they have a political figure to look up to, one who would support their latent aspiration to make the U.S. a White-dominant, Christian nation (by some interpretation of what Christianity means— an interpretation that a lot of Christians find abhorrent). Was it criticism of their favorite candidate, Donald Trump, that made extremists begin to damage synagogues, mosques, churches that serve Black communities, social places for members of the LGBTQ community? Of course not! If there is no loud criticism of these hate crimes and the anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Black, (etc.) rhetoric coming from politicians (in particular) and voters, these White Nationalists will feel even more empowered. It is our patriotic duty-- whether we’re Conservatives or Liberals-- to condemn such domestic terrorism.

• Russian Operatives: There are many kinds of terrorism. But one kind we often don’t think about is cyber-terrorism. When a foreign government or its operatives attempt to destabilize another country’s way of governing, the results have the potential to be far more damaging to a nation than an AK-47 going off in a school yard or a fire set in place of worship. During the 2016 presidential and congressional campaigns, Russians took advantage of the existing hostilities between Liberals and Conservatives to undermine those federal elections. They took advantage of a predisposition of so many Americans to believe anything bad about one of the candidates, including a whole lot of stuff that simply was not true. Easy work for the Russians. They just made stuff up and trafficked in innuendos. Many Americans were so eager to believe the nonsense that they didn’t even stop to find the actual facts in order to determine whether any of the social media posts were true. The Russians took advantage, in particular, of Conservatives’ criticism of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton to further sow seeds of distrust about the U.S. elections. But, should we blame the Conservatives for this? Of course not! Dissent is at the foundation of what it means to be an American. There will always be tyrants who try to use our freedom of speech and freedom of thought against us. However, we should not blame Conservatives who were critical of President Obama or Secretary of State Clinton for Russia’s motivation to conduct political cyber-terrorism.
  
• Standing united behind the president: In 2008, President Obama won the popular vote by a margin of 52.9% to Senator McCain’s 45.7%. He won the Electoral College vote by 365 to 173. In other words, neither the popular vote nor the Electoral College vote was close. Was it unpatriotic for those who did not believe in President Obama’s vision for the U.S. to criticize that vision? Of course not! It was their patriotic duty to speak their minds.
  
  Now we have President Trump in office. Secretary Clinton obtained 48.2% of the popular vote to President Trump’s 46.1%. The Electoral College gave President Trump a 304 to 227 (for Secretary Clinton) win. Here we have a popular election in which one candidate won by almost 3,000,000 popular votes while another candidate dominated the Electoral College vote. Is it unpatriotic for those who do not support President Trump’s vision for the U.S. to criticize his vision or his behavior in office? Of course not! It is their patriotic duty to speak their minds.
  

While I’ve mostly used examples of the ways in which Conservatives’ criticisms and complaints are examples of patriotism, you can turn that around to understand that Liberals’ criticisms and complaints are also examples of patriotism, that this exercise of our First Amendment rights does not cause terrorist attacks or harm to U.S. troops. It is what our U.S. troops fight for every time a president places them in harms’ way: a fight for our Constitution (and all its Amendments) and our way of life.

How Can Liberals Understand Conservative Thinking?

The greatest imperative in understanding someone with political ideologies other than yours is to listen without interruption.

Right now, Republicans are having difficulty “understanding” each other. So, “the other party” is, for now, not so easy to characterize. However, the basic tenets of political ideologies in the U.S. answer just a few questions (that you can ask of Conservatives whom you know). For each question, understanding comes from asking the follow-up question, “What reasons do you have for believing your position?” Listen. Don’t even think about using a tone of voice that could be interpreted as accusatory.

• Is federal government or state government where the seat of governance and the provision of services best located? This is the argument of federalism vs. confederalism that has been part of U.S. history since states were trying to decide whether or not to sign the Declaration of Independence. This was the essential question of the U.S. Civil War. It is a war that is still being fought.
• How much of social welfare is the responsibility of the government (either federal or state)? Conservatives rightly point out that at the founding of the U.S., social services were not central to the U.S. Constitution and the responsibility of the government. However, the U.S. Constitution speaks to the rights and freedoms of individuals, starting with freedom of the press, of speech, and of religion. Major events over the past 240 years, such as economic disasters, have taught us that national security and national stability are strongly linked to economic stability— of institutions and individuals. Most social services came about as a result of economic disasters, like the Great Depression, or the impact of national and foreign wars.
• Do people in certain demographics of the United States have inherent obstacles to achieving economic well-being? If so, is there an obligation on the part of government to lessen these obstacles? There is the Horatio Alger portrayal of disadvantaged Americans as people who just need tenacity and hard work to achieve “success.” There is the cultural belief in the right to achieve “The American Dream” (owning a home, having food security, being able to take vacations away from home, etc.).
• Who is deserving of legal protection against biased treatment? This starts with the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Equal Protection Clause. But most Conservatives believe the law has gone too far. Protecting people in the LGBTQ community? Muslims? Hmmm.
• How much should the government regulate? For national regulations pertaining to the financial industry, the same economic disasters have driven the addition of regulations. The most recent motivation for asking this question was the Great Recession of 2007–2010. Sub-prime mortgages and other forms of very loose lending— not just in the United States— are credited/blamed for this recession (from which some industries and individuals have not yet recovered). In 2017, there seems to be a difference in interpretation of what happened in 2007. Get past those interpretations and understand a Conservative’s belief about if and when the government (and the semi-independent Federal Reserve) should assert itself into the economy.
• Which alternative to free trade is best for the U.S. in the long-/short-term? For international agreements, all political ideologies talk about “free trade” and no party actually wants it. The question requires some understanding of the global economy and the ways that trade agreements and trade, itself, are tied to political foreign affairs. So, the question to a Conservative is to understand which alternative to free trade they think the U.S. should pursue (and why).
• What are the pros and cons of the separation of Church and State? It’s difficult to understand at least the majority of Conservatives without understanding their beliefs about how religion (especially, Christianity) should influence such things as Supreme Court decisions and Acts of Congress. Noting the preponderance of pros vs. cons will tell you a lot.

In my experience and as a fundamental belief, there is no better way to understand the thinking of “Conservatives” than to talk with then (not at them). “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” (Steven Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People)

Political Tribes

I was asked why the U.S. can't have a "logical combination" of liberalism and conservatism rather than turning politics into only these two political ideology choices.

As in many countries where people have a say in their government, there’s a tendency for people in the U.S. to identify with a political “tribe.” To do that, they have to overlook some differences and focus more on commonalities. In fact, different people have different priorities; for example, they might seek out commonalities on fiscal policy and shut their eyes to social policies that don’t match their values.

I don’t think it matters whether there can be a logical combination because a lot of politics is driven by emotions. Perhaps we could think of that as “emotional logic.” Voters’ reasoning definitely doesn’t adhere to principles of analytic logic! At the very least, in analytic logic, self-contradiction is not allowed. In emotional logic, cognitive dissonance is common. You can actually hear or read people who say opposite things within the span of a few minutes or paragraphs. And there are other people who reason analytically after making some very emotional decisions, in other words, post-rationalization.

In countries where elections involve the formation of alliances among political parties, it can be pretty difficult to figure out what the “logical combination” is. There are behind-doors negotiations of the nature of I’ll-go-along-with-this-thing-that-you-want-if-you-go-along-with-this-other-thing-that-I-want. Negotiation used to be the way the U.S. Congress worked. I think you’re asking why it isn’t that way now.

In the U.S. I think it’s all about the tribe mentality. Humans are not bonobos. Tribes fight to keep their territory. Tribes work to distinguish their identity from that of other tribes, who can be seen as enemies. In 2010, it was tribal rhetoric that resulted in a fairly dramatic change in the way politics are conducted at the national level. There’s a tribe that has the power to give no quarter to the other tribes. In fact, there’s a splintering of tribes, with some tribal members now being “enemies.”

This splintering is evidence that U.S. politics is not binary. People argue over ownership of the terms “liberal” and “conservative.” Those to the left of what used to be the center of the U.S. political spectrum are now splintered into Moderate Liberals, Progressives, fiscal Liberals, social Liberals, etc. Those to the right of what used to be the center are now splintered into Moderate Conservatives, Tea Party Conservatives, the Freedom Caucus (very conservative representatives in the U.S. House), the Christian Right, White Nationalists, etc.

Therefore, the U.S. appears not to have reduced politics to a binary choice but rather to have created many splinter groups. Those further to the extremes of the political spectrum are more intransigent than those who are more moderate. And those groups, especially among more radical Conservatives, are very loud. If one only listens to them or their counterparts at the left end of the spectrum (beyond “Progressives”), you’d think that there is zero possibility of a “logical combination.” Practically speaking, that’s right. But not because there cannot be a balance between federalism and confederalism or between free college for all Americans vs. pay-or-don’t-go education “opportunities.”

Until the tribal leaders recognize that their war-at-all-costs is costing their tribe too much, they will not be amenable to negotiating a logical combination of political policies.

We Are the Leaders of the Social Media Data-sharing Conspiracy

There seem to be non-diabolical explanations for what goes on with social media profiles and how Russian operatives might obtain them. Those operatives don't need oligarchs or billionaire high-tech CEOs to give them a key to the social media data kingdom.

In fact, we are semi-unwitting accomplices in the sharing of our personal information.

Anyone with a social media account has made a Faustian bargain. It's now been explained to all of us (many times over) how all social media monetize their assets (which are us). Facebook is a good example.

If you haven't read the Facebook terms of service lately, here they are in non-technical English: https://www.facebook.com/terms. Facebook is quite up front about how users' privacy works and what users' rights and responsibilities are. Many Facebook (and other social media) users have not properly secured their profile information. They have left the permissions for viewing their friends list, for example, to "public," i.e., anyone with a Facebook account can see that list.

Creating a Facebook profile means that what you read and write can be used to characterize you. That is what is valuable for monetization. That's what we "pay" in order to have "free" use of Facebook. We "let" others-- even Russian hackers-- access our information with our own privacy choices.

Customers (not us, but rather people who pay Facebook actual money for services) can pay for Facebook to provide clickbait postings on the walls of those who have certain characteristics (things like "people who look at Breitbart News but not The Washington Post"). One monetization strategy goes a little like this: Paying customers don't get the account owners' profile or even the name on the account. Facebook uses its internal matching and distribution services to decide who gets which news feed articles and wall postings. When a user suddenly starts seeing posts on their wall from OccupyDemocrats without "following" that group, it's most likely because they have "liked" other liberal-leaning posts or they've been writing with liberal language. They're a good match for what OccupyDemocrats is “selling.”

Do you know people who log in to a site using their Facebook login credentials rather than by creating an account with a unique, hard-to-guess password? They're raising their hand to have their Facebook profile information shared.

Here's another gotcha that Facebook users tend not to think through: http://wfla.com/2016/02/24/hackers-using-facebook-quizzes-to-get-personal-info-from-users/ Those who take sponsored "quizzes" on Facebook are deciding that not only their privacy but also your privacy are worth less than finding out which animated character they are most like based on the first name used for their account.

Facebook could do better, but it can't totally protect us from ourselves.