Republican politics in a nutshell
I’ve written this in various forms over the years, but I think JV Last distills it perfectly:
Last week Amanda Carpenter made the point to me (on TNL) that Republican voters have simply decided that they like DeSantis. Period. And once voters decide they like a candidate, then all of the logic flows from there. In politics, Amanda argued, voters make their decisions first and then rationalize backwards.
And that theory was on full display in The Focus Group podcast this weekend (listen to the show here) where Sarah talked with groups of evangelical Christians who voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020.
If you go by the numbers, then for these voters, Mike Pence should be The Guy. But to a man, they were all anti-Pence. Why? Their rationalizations were ridiculous:
“I don’t like how Trump was like in your face and everything. But then Pence is almost too far in the other direction. You don’t know anything about him.”
“I’m having a hard time backing Pence right now and I can’t tell you why other than just maybe my gut.”
“He’s almost become too entrenched in the establishment.”
“I almost feel like he’s the Donald Trump equivalent of Kamala Harris.” [JVL: WTF does that even mean?]
At the risk of playing armchair psychologist, there are only two possible explanations for such statements:
-These people are dumb as a bag of hammers; or
-After January 6th they decided that they no longer liked Pence. So they have now invented reasons to be against him.
Option (2) seems more likely to me. Your mileage may vary.
The same dynamic was on display in the The Focus Group with evangelicals who were rationalizing why they loved Trump. One woman told Sarah that she felt comfortable with Trump because Trump spends so much time with “his minister.”
“What I saw in [Trump’s] four years was he did have a very strong pastor that was there with him a lot. And you know that pastor was here from Dallas and I would hear him on the radio a lot talking about not necessarily their personal meetings but just talking about how he’s . . . getting it.”
Please raise your hand if you think Trump has been to services more than a dozen times in the last 20 years. Or has read the Bible. Remember: Trump is a self-proclaimed Christian who says he’s never had to ask for God’s forgiveness—tell me you have no understanding of Christianity without saying, “I have no idea what Christianity is.”
But sure.
So did this evangelical voter genuinely believe that Donald Trump was praying with his “pastor” every day and working through his Bible study and walking with Christ?
Or did she decide that she just liked Trump and so built a rationalization from there?
Again: Your mileage may vary. But I know what I’d guess.
So maybe politics really is that simple.
Policy matrices, logical arguments, and advanced positioning are just backfill. What really matters is the id, which decides to either like or dislike apart from rationality.
The id is the instinctual, illogical part of the self. The part of the brain that just wants. But the source of the id’s want is very specific: The id is a pleasure-seeking impulse. It’s not motivated by desires for protection or actualization. It’s all about self-gratification.
The id wants what it wants because it feels good.
And I think you can construct a theory of Republican politics around the id that fits observable reality pretty well.
It’s not like Republican voters have been overburdened by logical consistency over the last decade. By turns they have:
-Insisted that character and virtue are the paramount issues in politics; then voted for the thrice-married liar who cheated on his postpartum wife with a porn star and was on the cover of Playboy.
-Proclaimed the importance of Christian teaching in public policy; then celebrated using refugees as political pawns.
-Claimed that January 6th was a false-flag operation conducted by Antifa activists; insisted the protests were entirely peaceful; and also believed that the people engaging in violence were brave patriots trying to stop a constitutional usurpation of the presidency.
-Demanded unquestioning support of law enforcement when minorities are beaten or killed by police; then argued for defunding the FBI when it investigated Trump and also called the Capitol Police crisis actors after January 6th.
-Argued that America shouldn’t be giving aid to Ukraine because we should be “helping people at home”—even though they opposed the Child Tax Credit to help working families.
You can come up with your own list. My point isn’t to make an exhaustive chronicle, but to observe that these seemingly contradictory positions are more the rule than the exception in Republican politics.
And also to observe that if you try to square these circles with logic, then you’re going to tie yourself in knots coming up with some grand unified policy worldview to explain it all.
But the Id Theory of politics explains it quite nicely. In each case, there is a view that challenges Republican voters and a view that gives them pleasure. Republican voters, as a group, seem to choose pleasure just about every time.
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I’m not convinced that they have all decided they like DeSantis. He’s still largely unknown. And a lot of those who are super-tuned in also like Trump and Trump certainly doesn’t like DeSantis. I think it’s complicated when there is a front runner they know and like.
But the general thesis is correct, in my opinion. They are all about their pleasure. And what gives them pleasure is owning the libs, racism, whining about their grievances, trolling etc. It’s the pleasure of a 12 year old bully. They will take it wherever they can find it and their politicians are eager to give it to them. It’s all Id.