Does Ideology Shape Community, or Community Shape Ideology?

What happened to them? The same thing that happened to you.

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I’m on vacation right now, and that means I really, really shouldn’t be writing a newsletter. But I sat down to read a book (I’m currently reading the excellent Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I by Alexander Watson) and felt an irresistible compulsion to write. It’s Tuesday! On Tuesday I write a newsletter!

Even worse, I have a topic that’s been on my mind for a long, long time. I’ve been thinking a lot about an old chart. And yes, I know what you’re thinking. Anyone who sits around on vacation thinking about an old chart really needs a vacation. But here we are. 

I’ve been extremely interested in why so many Americans can look at each other and ask, with complete sincerity, “What happened to you?” As a lifelong Republican turned independent, I get that question quite a bit. I know that Trump Republicans get that same question from their Never Trump friends. “We used to be so aligned. What happened?”

Now, here’s the chart. It’s semi-famous. It’s the foundation of progressive writer Kevin Drum’s argument that liberals are mainly responsible for the culture wars:

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  1. Winwardneil

    There is a tendency to go shopping for opinions as a packaged deal and there is peer/group/echo chamber pressure to be fully aligned to the suite of opinions to which a particular opinion is considered to belong. It is convenient and lazy. As much as there can be strong disagreements between groups with differing suites of opinions, the dispute within groups whose members do not sign-up for the full package can be extreme - the so-called narcissism of small differences.

    If our beliefs are less a means to help us understand, decode and predict the world in which we live and more a means of establishing and reinforcing our group membership, then we are at risk of being shifted around by the dynamics of the group we have chosen. Nowhere was this more evident than during Covid.

    The only antidote to this is to be very careful indeed about the opinions one espouses and to observe one's own tendency to be swept up by the tide of group opinion. Living in the world is a challenging endeavor!

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  2. Joe1776

    I just read this:
    https://gfile.thedispatch.com/p/principles-vs-partisanship

    I think he and several other never trump republicans feel betrayed by Trump. For me I never felt close enough to the republican party community to feel betrayed by it. I had a different institution that I feel more strongly attached to - the Catholic Church. But even there some people might say my religious views are such that I am not truly a Catholic.

    In any case I think it is important to have several communities/institutions/tribes that shape us. These institutions can be social groups, scholarly groups, ethnicity or even a connection based on the work you do etc. When you can draw on all these different groups perhaps you can look at each community/tribe more objectively. I'm unhappy with Trumpism. But I am not surprised or hurt either. I think I always saw the republican party with enough detachment to see this could happen.

    For me I would say my elephant is marching in favor of Catholicism/Christianity and therefore that is likely the biggest cause of my own biases. That is and has always been the institution I wanted to most closely identify with.

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  3. Marjorie Lloyd

    I'm finally reading this. Yes, your thesis is so true! Who we identify with affects our convictions. That's why I advocate strongly for taking an independent stance. I actually agree more with Democrats than Republicans, but I want to maintain independence in my thinking, so I don't consider myself a Democrat. I'm also a member of "No Lables," the group that tries to bring together Democrat and Republican legislators in Congress. When we take a label, we subconsciously start to feel more sympathy to that label's stance. I see it in my liberal relatives and feel the pull myself. However, I resist it, because I am committed to thinking for myself, by leaning on prayer, the Bible, listening to the Holy Spirit, and striving for humility. I really like what you said about humility, so, so crucial!

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  4. Ron and Colleen

    War and Peace by Tolstoy comes to mind, Mr. French.

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    Bryan Hinkle

    Put the computer down, and slowly step away…

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  6. Jim Hahn

    If you are going to analyze the ideology of the country and how it is going, look at the history. Let’s take that chart.

    Back in 1994, what was the world like?……The US was the only hyperpower 5 years after the USSR fell. China was not a superpower or a major economic power. Bill Clinton (a Democrat) said the “Era of big government was over”….and manufacturing jobs were still thriving in the United States……even NAFTA was just another acronym. Also, if you were a college student back in the 90s, most of your professors may have been liberal, but they weren’t communists. I don’t think you can say that today……and even Democratic party didn’t want to defund the police.

    And then what happened…….a lot of the establishment politicians (on both sides) gave it all away….With no Soviet threat, the era of globalism began.

    They helped China become a superpower and an economic power…. Madeleine Albright “ We don’t want to be the world’s only hyperpower”…..

    9/11 happened and they used that as an excuse to try and “nation build” around the world with 3 wars that lasted decades and the costs are still adding up. (Don’t forget Obama and Libya)

    So here we are today….I know there is so much more.....

    I know what the Democratic party has become “we will make other people pay for you”….

    But I’m not sure what the “Establishment” Republican party really stands for…….it seems like they want to be like the Democratic party’s close second.

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    Bono Vox

    Good morning Frenchie, Galgon can take you away on vacation but life goes on with or without you. David just admit it, we live in a political world and you just cannot help yourself but want to spout out about it. Fine by me, I will follow you and religiously read your every word because you don’t lie, cheat, steal or tolerate those that do. I will not live by Trumps lies. And that proverbial elephant in the GOP has cost me many a former beloved friend, who every single one, I have the same basic question of mentioned above…except, to wit, this here fist clenched Roman [comma] Catholic would ask “WTF happened to you?” As someone that spent my the first 18 years of my life raised by a man that actual knows the places in Band of Brothers so well, it was like the horror story never left him, I have constantly fretted about how in the fa could a man, that should have been back home in NYC celebrating Christmas of 44 with his family, instead was in a bunker in the God foresaken Ardennes forest commanding…fearing…and praying for his and everyone of his comrades lives. And I think of two famous photos, one of downtown Berlin in 4/20/40, the worlds biggest celebration in earths history (take note the birthday boy was already the worlds most successful mass murderer and war criminal) and compare and contrast five years later the birthday boy trembling through a line of old men and young boys still saluting him, almost five years later, to the day, after millions more were murdered all for a man’s evil desires. So far the Trump cold body count is only one looney tune Ashli Babbitt. But from Rudy Ghoulliani, to that Fffrrr Carlson, to some of your former mates at NR, most notably Dinesh, Victor Davis Hanson, and most regrettably, even a wannabe Biblical scholar Dennis Prager who’s always patting himself on the back for being such a good altar boy (I don’t know what a good Jewish service analogue), to all my former friends that not only bought a conmans lies, by crook, line and sinker, all my die hard Trumpers hearts and minds don’t skip a beat and will regurgitate their fuhrurs lies and double down on the grift to this day. From supposed Zapruder films of ballot box stuffings, to the Ides of generals marching on Washington to reinstate The Don….I, of course could go on and on about conspiracies…but the number one reason my true believer Trump MAGA hat wearing, Trump bumper sticker sporting friends believe with all their out of their fing minds and soul that Trump is still the duly elected President is because….en masse, they are collectively guilty, beyond any reasonable doubt, of forsaking their Gods NUMBER ONE AND NUMBER TWO COMMANDMENTS…Just like the Germans of the thirties did….because they abide lies, willfully, collectively, because, like triumph of the will, they know they are right. Because I have and never will forget the needle and the damage done by the German people, I will confront every single fing Trumper with my biggest weapon, my God given brain. And I will do my best to remember to love one’s enemy, and always keep in mind my old man never had a negative word to say about the German people, because, at least the German people unconditionally surrendered and admitted whole their collective guilt. Here’s still hoping and praying for a Slow Burn podcast to become a true story, a la post Nixon, I mean Trump….and maybe, just maybe, one of those crackpot evangelical preachers jumps off the Chump train and scares The Dons crooked soul to death, and Americas Biggest Sore Loser Donald J Trump finds Jesus…and for once in his crony capitalist pig life he tells the truth, and nothing but the whole truth, so help Our God, and just admits he had already made up the stolen election, a la Steve Bannon already knew, grift BEFORE the first Tuesday in November, but could no longer stick to the script, because even his conscience began to start bugging him. In the meantime, I am going to do everything in my power to bug still Trumpers. Thanks for everything you write Frenchie. Long live the Dispatch. Gotta run on. I am not on vacation but off to work. Peace through superior mental firepower

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  8. RVA

    Jonathan Haidt's analogy is apt. In my lifetimes, I've met plenty of good people and bad people across the political spectrum, plenty of dumb lefties and smart lefties, etc. And so, over time, I've come to the conclusion that for the most part, one's political outlook is pre-rational and not a product of reason. In other words, most people have a particular political orientation that is largely based on their psychological profile, their family / religious background, the outlook of their peers, whether they intuitively have an optimistic or pessimistic view of human nature. And then they use reason after the fact to justify their political views (reason that is inevitably clouded by confirmation bias and other cognitive biases).

    This is why I usually don't bother getting into political arguments, particularly with friends. It's just pointless. That's not to say that people never change their minds, but when they do, it's usually because some tectonic shift has occurred behind the scene (e.g., shift in peer group, living circumstances, etc.), or occasioally because some personal tragedy has occurred that suddenly causes them to see the world in a completely different light. Of course, people don't like to admit (or perhaps aren't even aware) that they changed their minds for non-rational reasons, so they usually come up with ways to rationalize the change.

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    John Russell

    I had never heard the Wake Wake song until David linked to it. Now I can't get the chorus out of my head

    Tsamina mina, eh, eh
    Waka waka, eh, eh
    Tsamina mina zangalewa, anawa-a-a
    Tsamina mina, eh, eh
    Waka waka, eh, eh
    Tsamina mina zangalewa
    This time for Africa

    Not to mention the visuals with Shakira and the backup dancers

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    Rdpulfer

    I think it's a little of both. On one hand, I've always been pretty left of center, and while I attend a deeply conservative church, my political ideologies have shifted all that much . . . but I have thought more deeply about certain issues, such as abortion, likely because of my membership.

    I think online community matters just as much as geographical community. I can definitely point to The Dispatch as giving me plenty of food for thought as a left-ish moderate, but unfortunately online communities can often radicalize with echo chambers that only enrage and then indoctrinate their followers.

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