And there, in that question, lies the problem with the Left. (There was a similar book published four years ago, “What’s the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America.”) For most leftists, their political opponents are a bunch of morons who can be surprisingly smart, sometimes, but are morons nonetheless. It’s like what Senator Obama noted recently in his lipstick on a pig comment.
The Left’s weary contempt for people they consider as political hicks is understandable. Leftists, after all, believe they have already unlocked the mysteries of the world; that they have the answers to all our problems. Hence, we should listen to them. It perplexes them that not everyone shares their certitude. They are irritated by the horse they have just led to water but still refuses to drink.
Consider, for example, the ongoing discussions regarding the marine monument proposal. (It was this newspaper, incidentally, that urged the governor to at least listen to the Pew group’s presentation; we also advised the monument proponents to do a better job of reaching out to the local community.) Most of the leftists in the community support this proposal and now probably find it amusing that the U.S. president they despise the most can make their dreams come true. (There is a lesson there, but I don’t think they’ll get it.)
A lot of local people I know simply tuned out when the monument proponents started sounding like they were lecturing the unwashed masses. The proponents’ tone, at least initially, was one of righteous condescension. But this was quickly followed by ad hominem attacks and then by outright insults. For the proponents, their opponents are basically stupid or criminally corrupt — or both. The proponents refuse to acknowledge that some people can be honest and sincere, too, in their opposition to this beautiful, wonderful proposal, and that emotional issues are also involved in the debate.
For the proponents, you have to be dumb not to support it.
So right now, on the one hand, we have a group of vocal citizens claiming that most of the people are for the proposal; and, on the other, CNMI officials — i.e., politicians — who oppose it in the name of the people who put them into office. Politicians, as we all know, are extremely sensitive to public opinion, and in this small community, House members, who have to run for office every two years, are usually the first ones to know which way the wind blows. This House has already rejected the monument proposal twice.
But all this, of course, is conjecture and no one really knows what the majority of the people think about the monument proposal.
My “solution”? Put the question on the November ballot.
The monument debate is a public policy issue, and all public policy issues, whether we like it or not, are political questions. Now politics is always about “who gets what, when, how.” And in politics, the biggest mistake one can make is to believe that your opponent is an idiot — even if you’re certain that he is.
This is why ideologues can never be good politicians. Ideologues want everything clear cut. Complexity irritates them. Like engineers, they want everything to “connect.” A natural politician, however, “knows, instinctively, that nothing ever really connects except in what we imagine science to be,” says Gore Vidal, who will be 83 next month but is still a leftie. Politics, he adds, requires a divergent mind. “Compare,” he says, “[FDR’s] inspired patternless arabesques as a politician, artfully dodging this way and that, to the painstaking engineer Jimmy Carter, doggedly trying to make it all add up, and failing.”
So why do a lot of people in the states vote Republican? Because, says the Left, they’re bitter people clinging to their guns and religion and they are being “manipulated” by the GOP which is making them angry about abortion and other social issues so they will vote for Republicans who will give the rich tax cuts.
Or maybe a lot of statesiders support strong defense, small government, low taxes, law and order and traditional values which include respect for human life, personal responsibility and love of country.
In other words, they’ve been brainwashed.
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