No Neutrals
They say in Harlan County There are no neutrals there. You'll either be a union man Or a thug for J. H. Blair.
(from Bloody Harlan by Florence Reece)
One irritating feature of online argument, especially in an election year, is the routine assumption that everyone is on one side or the other and that which side you are on determines what you say. If you say something favorable about a Republican candidate or negative about a Democratic one you must be a Republican supporter and are therefor obligated to respond to any argument offered against Donald Trump. If you say something favorable about Biden you must be a supporter of the Democrats and obliged to defend Biden against any and all arguments.
When, in a previous election, I commented on my blog that I thought Obama was the least bad candidate and offered some reasons why, with luck, he might actually do some good things, I promptly got labelled in a variety of places as having endorsed him. When I spent a number of blog posts defending Governor Palin from blatantly dishonest quotations out of context, at least one blogger found it suspicious that I was saying so much in defense of the Republicans. In one online argument a poster refused to believe my statement that I didn't plan to vote for McCain. It was obvious to him that only someone committed to the other side could possibly question his side's version of whatever issue we were discussing.
In another argument online I pointed out that Biden had misrepresented the role of the Vice President as set out in the original Constitution. The poster who responded apparently thought I was defending Dick Cheney's claims as to where in the governmental structure he belonged and what privileges he got thereby. I had not actually paid much attention to that issue; the role of the Vice President may possibly have changed since the Constitution was written, especially after the Twelfth Amendment created our present system of electing a paired president and vice president instead of making the vice presidency the consolation prize for the presidential candidate who came in second. Biden had cited Article I of the Constitution, Article I directly contradicted what Biden had said, and that told us something about Biden whether or not it had any relevance to Cheney or the present role of a VP.
The pattern is not limited to elections. If I say something critical of the current climate orthodoxy, as I have done from time to time, I must be a climate denier who thinks global temperature is not going up. Part of the explanation for this pattern of behavior is the human tendency, probably hardwired, to view the world as in-group and out-group, us and them. If I defend Palin or point out Biden's errors I am obviously not part of the Obama in-group so must be on the other team.
Most people are not very interested in political, economic, historical matters, let alone statistics or virology, all of which have been relevant to at least some of the issues. Most people enjoy cheering for their team. So political arguments, especially online during an election year, are populated by a few people interested in the ideas and a lot of people who see arguing for their side as a way of fighting for their side and assume that everyone else is doing the same thing.
The Latest Examples
I wrote a draft of this post some months ago based on blog posts written much earlier, as my examples might suggest. I was reminded of it by comments on my most recent posts.
The first post of the series, Gaming Election Law, was on possible legal maneuvers, apparently being taken seriously by some high level democratic politicians, to keep Trump from becoming president even if he was supported by a majority of the voters. The second post, Trump’s Threat to Democracy, argued that the willingness to engage in partisan use of the legal system, both such maneuvers and the ongoing civil and criminal attacks on Trump, posed a greater threat to our democratic system than anything Trump had done.
That raised the question, put by a commenter, of how to distinguish the partisan use of the legal system from the rule of law. That was the subject of the final post of the series, Lawfare or Rule of Law, which argued that Trump’s political opponents were indeed engaged in lawfare, partisan use of parts of the legal system they controlled to attack him in order to keep him from being reelected.
In none of the three posts did I suggest that I wanted Trump to be president. Among my comments:
So far as the 2020 election I think it is clear that most of Trump’s claims of fraud are bogus
Being irrational is not a criminal offense. (about Trump’s election claims.)
All of those charges are, I think, true. (About the charges in the DC case)
The most positive comment I made about Trump:
“Trump is a competent demagogue but an incompetent administrator”
Despite which, responses to my lawfare post included:
I wonder if you can distinguish between e.g. Trump and Biden w/r/t/ which of them misappropriates power, indeed is eager to do so and advertises the fact publicly, or whether noticing more closely the scale of the difference between them on this point might be the core reason that many people normally part of the libertarian/classic liberal coalition are at present aggressively supporting Biden and rooting for Trump to end up permanently out of positions where he can abuse public trust. (March 13th)
You know I get the whole being a conservative at Harvard in the 60’s thing. I’m a bit of an iconoclast myself and there is a good case to be made for conservative and libertarian positions. But why carry water for this noxious goon with no discernible principles? It make no sense at all to me. Do you really think the country will be better off after another Trump presidency? (March 12)
That commenter did, to his credit, back off when I pointed out that I was neither a conservative not a Trump supporter.
On the other side, in response to a commenter attacking Trump:
Let me guess, you personally benefit from said establishment corruption. (March 13)
A comment to the Threat to Democracy post:
The writer and commenters aren't the fenceposts wearing orange hats, who can claim the low IQ excuse. You are the large class of educated people who helped Hitler into power in Germany just about a century ago. You peddle multiple and obvious falsehoods on behalf of a psychopath (March 9)
On the Other Hand
After writing this post it occurred to me that I could mine the comment threads to my past posts on contentious issues for more examples. I read through all of the comment threads on my climate posts and was pleasantly surprised to find not a single commenter accusing me of not believing in global warming.
Maybe elections bring out the very worst in people.
I have had the same experience, even with my good friends. After Trump was elected, I didn't join in with those who inserted in every conversation, relevant or not, something like "Well, we have a president who <something horrible>" I never joined in, even though it was clear they expected me to also denounce Trump. One friend noticing my lack of response, turned to me and asked "You don't LIKE Trump, do you?!" Years later, she still thinks she knows what I think about every possible political issue, because she has lumped me in with the group of people who wear MAGA hats, follow QAnon, and watch Fox News. I've tried to explain to her what a libertarian believes, and that I recognize the nuance in all these issues, but it's useless. The only way we stay friends now is to never, ever discuss politics at all.
Keep sharing your thoughts, David. It's nice to know that some other people try to think about issues from first principles, instead of as a matter of what one's tribe has told them to think.
Unfortunately gone is that period of history in the US and Australia after WW2 where a more bi-partisan attitude was applied to politics generally as most of the then adult male population (including politicians) had fought in either WW1 or WW2 (and many females had served in the military themselves or the war effort generally and had lost loved ones).
There was a more open society where both sides of politics hoped that their children didn't have to go through what they had had to endure. It grew, for many, out of a mate-ship under fire where all were equal.
We now have the luxury where wars are fought by the few and the remainder have time to be selfish.
Where we are misrepresented for our views (where we try to use reason and logic to discuss a subject), little can be done to correct that misrepresentation.
I believe Mark Twain once said:
"Never argue with an idiot as he (she) will drag you down to their level and beat you with their experience.