From a wonderful article on recent US politics (Really. Please read it.) Revenge of the Reality-Based Community: My life on the Republican right—and how I saw it all go wrong by Bruce Bartlett.
The final line for me to cross in complete alienation from the right was my recognition that Obama is not a leftist. In fact, he’s barely a liberal—and only because the political spectrum has moved so far to the right that moderate Republicans from the past are now considered hardcore leftists by right-wing standards today. Viewed in historical context, I see Obama as actually being on the center-right.
This is a tale worth reading about this man’s journey and first-hand experience of being ostracised by his former friends, colleagues and an employer for reaching intellectual conclusions and expressing findings of fact that didn’t gel with his ‘in-group’.
There are lessons in Bartlett’s story for all of us, any of us, not least the prevalence and power of a tribal mindset and attitude to dissidence — which is NOT, I’m sure, purely a problem of the right.
This, too, which follows directly from the passage quoted above, was telling, and I agree:
At this point, I lost every last friend I had on the right. Some have been known to pass me in silence at the supermarket or even to cross the street when they see me coming. People who were as close to me as brothers and sisters have disowned me.
I think they believe they are just disciplining me, hoping I will admit error and ask for forgiveness. They clearly don’t know me very well. My attitude is that anyone who puts politics above friendship is not someone I care to have in my life.
I bet they blocked him on Twitter too.
– P
PS I’ve faced similar experiences, but on a smaller scale, as befits the NZ media duckpond.
Video of Bruce Bartlett at Bill Moyers:
Bruce Bartlett on Where the Right Went Wrong from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.
Another good article:
Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult
Thanks to @NickDale for the link. (Previously mentioned here: http://www.thepaepae.com/an-inside-view-of-the-political-madhouse/18440/ )
Hi Peter,
Greetings from the Land of the Long White Cloud. New Plymouth beckons tomorrow!
I would tend to agree with the author that George W Bush was a terrible President.
On the Keynes / Krugman argument, I would respectfully disagree with him.
This financial crisis is predominantly supply side driven in my view (a classic Austrian style collapse of a credit bubble) rather than a Keynesian style collapse in aggregate demand preceding supply shock.
As for Mr Obama, I am relaxed about his re-election, and I genuinely hope that he will get it right this term. Tax rises wouldn’t be the end of the world in the US, but clearly and more importantly he needs to get a handle on entitlement and defence spending.
Let us hope Mr Obama turns out to be at least half as good a President as his vociferous Democrat supporters claim him to be.
Rgds,
*p*
Welcome back. Let’s see if we can meet up for another drink. – P