AN APPROPRIATE RESPONSE TO MAGA/POPULIST CONCERNS
Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D. 2-21,9-22,9-24
ABSTRACT: Basic psychological needs for being valued, being accepted, and being safe are posited to account for most political populism, and these needs point society toward what needs fixing if populist risings are to be assuaged and government is to be less divided—(1) accepting that all citizens have an equal right to influence government and to have their concerns taken seriously, (2) thinking in a balanced way—i.e., seeing and voicing both sides of an issue (seeing and voicing both the pros and cons of a position or proposal, instead of advocating in a one-sided way); (3) dealing in a more informed and tolerant way with differences between us, most especially value or worldview differences; and (4) treating everyone with appropriate respect and courtesy.
KEY WORDS: psychology, psychological needs, politics, populism, conservatism, democracy
POPULISM
Populist uprisings, such as the one that propelled Mr. Trump to the White House, occur when some segment of society is particularly unhappy, usually because of some perceived threat to themselves and/or their way of life, and this is true of Mr. Trump’s MAGA and populist supporters. Many Trump voters and many members of white identity groups (identity groups for whose members whiteness has been a key aspect of their self-esteem, including white supremacist groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers) feel that an important buttress to their self-esteem is being taken away from them by the diminishing percentage of the population that is white and by the attention and concern given to immigrants and non-white persons by government.
Many liberals and progressives are amazed at the large number of voters who prefer Donald Trump as president, which betrays their lack of understanding of the concerns of Trump’s MAGA/populist supporters. Even when liberals hear those concerns explained, they tend to reject the information, dismissing those concerns as trivial or selfish (while maintaining that their own concerns, of course, are important, righteous, and in the best interest of the country). Mr. Trump continues to champion his MAGA/populist supporters by giving voice to their complaints and reassuring them of their value and importance, and this populist rebellion is likely to continue until liberals/progressives acknowledge that the populists are (1) equal to liberals/progressives as Americans and (2) entitled individually, as are all Americans, to having an equal say in the government and the future of the country, and (3) the federal government (whether Republican or Democrat) takes visible steps to indicate the equal importance of MAGA/populist concerns. The strength of their concerns is illustrated by the Jan. 6 actions by the more extreme of them, and all of these concerns should be responded to seriously and not simply identified and dismissed as criminal or unimportant. The notions about equality that we say we believe in put liberals/progressives to the test as to whether they will accept and take seriously the issues of the MAGA/populists.
This roadmap would put the U.S. on a different path to the future. Instead of our current adversarial system in which one party rules for four years seeking only to move the country in their preferred direction, only to have the other party then try to undo their actions and move the country in another direction for four years, we would (could) expect of both parties an agenda incorporating the wishes of all Americans and not just its own supporters. This would require an honest acceptance of the equal right of all Americans’ wishes to be represented at all times in government, and this would mean not simply trying to convince all voters that their brand (Republican or Democrat) of progress would be best for all voters, but actually incorporating the wishes of the voters themselves into a multi-group agenda. This would involve the expectation of compromise and the creation of platforms that acknowledge the value of both conservative and liberal values in politics and in life.
The current concerns of MAGA/populists are (1) being devalued and shamed by liberals/progressives and by the intellectual and political elites, (2) not being accepted as full Americans, (3) feeling “replaced” by immigrants and foreigners, (4) having their morals, values, and religion attacked and demeaned (white Evangelicals especially) by liberals/progressives, (5) the lack of good jobs available to them, (6) the cost of everyday goods due to the recent upturn in inflation, (7) feeling neglected by the federal government in favor of minorities and immigrants (8) their children’s schools trying to change the values of their children, and (9) corruption in government.
Many MAGA/conservative voters feel excluded from governance due to their inability to function in more highly verbal interactions based in sophisticated uses of information (preferring instead to rely on emotion for decisions and accepting the opinions of those, especially authority figures, who seem to be “on their side”). Most also feel shame due to the put-downs from their fellow Americans in the more liberal and the more successful parts of the country and due to their own current relative lack of economic success compared to people in the more liberal and the more successful parts of the country. In addition, we must recognize the anxiety aroused by change in general, which seems to continue to accelerate for everyone in our society.
Besides basic survival needs, the most painful when unfulfilled are our need to be valued (self-esteem and the esteem and basic acceptance of us by others), our need to be included as part of relevant groups (family, social group, work group, nation), and our need to feel relatively secure (to be mostly free of significant survival fears). For many populists these needs are not met.
Naturally, MAGA/populists feel demeaned and shamed by the “other side.” The negative stereotype of these MAGA/populists (coarse, rude, prone to violence, backward, and ignorant) is looked down on by liberals/progressives. Their conservative morals (family values, abortion, sexual orientation, gender-change issues, self-reliance) are rejected by society’s elites and traditional media as well as by the Democratic party. Their religious beliefs are seen as unscientific and backward by liberals/progressives and people in the upper classes, and their desires for freedoms are seen by some as antithetical to appropriate controls on behavior in our society (e.g., gun control).
Liberals/progressives tend to view MAGA people as an inconvenient blot on American honor and wish them to simply go away or shut up. Unfortunately, this is a substantial part of the American public, and it is not going to simply go away. Whether the movement will survive the eventual disappearance of Mr. Trump is unclear, but honesty and fairness compel us to recognize their legitimate existence and attend to their concerns just as liberals/progressives do for other groups. There are far more MAGA people in the country than there are gays, trans people, and immigrants that liberals/progressives seem to focus on and fight for. Government should always be for all the people, rather than for only one “side” at a time. The very existence of the MAGA/populist group is proof of the failure of our adversarial approach to government to deal evenly with all Americans!
Clearly, at his rallies, Mr. Trump talks directly to MAGA/conservative voters, and they are the most likely to be aroused by Mr. Trump’s rhetoric of a stolen election and the need to “fight” to keep what they value in our country. Currently, these populists and their concerns are the face of the Republican party, though Mr. Trump’s hold on the party will no doubt fade over time. Mr. Trump recognizes their vulnerability to shame from being looked down on and establishes a relationship with them by fighting implacably against his own shaming and symbolically fighting against theirs, too. (Mr. Trump translates any opposition to him as criticism and shaming and responds vigorously, denying responsibility, denying the shame, and promising revenge for it.)
Many of these persons are falling behind economically, and they see other groups to which they once felt superior being praised publicly so that they themselves feel downgraded. Many of these citizens had manufacturing or industrial jobs that disappeared as our economy transitioned to being a financial and services economy, largely because of globalization and off-shoring of these jobs to workers who could be paid less somewhere else. Our societal institutions have nothing to offer them, because we have always believed that people should find their own jobs and find themselves better jobs if they wish to “move up.” These workers functioned well in manufacturing jobs and are not oriented to the values of a paperwork and services economy, and almost nothing has been offered to them in the way of retraining. Cheap talk of retraining all these manufacturing workers to do computer coding and other desk work is foolish, since computer coding requires cognitive skills that most manufacturing workers have not developed over their lifetimes. In addition, a significant minority of the middle and lower classes are now in jobs that do not pay enough to live on, and recent research is showing that it is becoming less likely that people will be able to actually move up class-wise in the U.S. than it was fifty years ago.
Many persons who resist adding non-white immigrants to the country feel that they are losing social esteem and an accepted place in society since immigrants seem to them (rightly or wrongly) to have more rights and benefits than they do, and being white no longer seems a justification for feeling good about oneself. “Critical race theory” is often misinterpreted to imply that whites should feel guilty for the sins of their forebears, and these populists take sin and guilt seriously, whereas our elites these days do not.
Globalization implies that their more near-to-home (insular, isolationist?) worldview is no longer honored or honorable. They don’t feel equipped to compete in the global market (and may not want to be) and so feel inferior. They do have their families and social groups, but they do not feel welcome in the governance of the country. They do not feel economically secure and are therefore fearful, and the rest of the country doesn’t seem to care. Their identities are not valued by the major forces in society, which also raises fears of displacement. For these reasons, they feel marginalized and unable to assert their equality. (These problems do not justify the Jan. 6 violence at the Capitol, but they do explain the feelings and motives of many who were violent.)
Understandably, this latest populist uprising in the U.S. has been met largely with criticism and rejection by the elites and the establishment, partly because its champion, Mr. Trump, is so disliked by the elites and intelligentsia of the country and because it has become an accepted truth in our society that immigrants and non-white persons in our society are discriminated against and disadvantaged, thus making them an obvious target for sympathy and government help. The populist concerns (above) deserve more serious attention, though, since they do represent the reality of life for these populist voters. Any “healing” of the divide between sides must include government efforts to remedy the jobs situation. Pointing to “economic indicators” to prove that our economy is doing well does nothing to address the daily living concerns of the MAGA/populists who have difficulty affording groceries and gasoline, since those economic indicators relate more to the economic well-being of citizens in the financial sector of the economy.
There is no doubt that many persons in this essay’s grouping of populists are racially prejudiced, but not all of them are. The same is true of Trump voters in general—many are racially prejudiced and are attracted by Trump’s veiled racial critiques, but many of them are not. This essay focuses not on all Trump voters but on those who were reasonably satisfied with the country twenty years ago but who now feel left-behind and demeaned. (Blacks in this country also feel left-behind but have felt that way for far longer than the current populists!)
Since our politics seems to be carried out largely in opposition and fighting, no leaders have emerged to help society think more broadly about the populist concerns above. Everything is couched in fighting terms (fight, struggle, attack, defend, overcome, war, insurrection), so the majority that elected Mr. Biden are not prepared to take these populist concerns seriously, and our media (both liberal and conservative) purposely use challenging, provocative headlines regarding sensational issues, to garner attention (and money), thus making the divide worse (intentionally or unintentionally). We assume that government should work by building giant political parties to fight each other, rather than assuming that political views are equal in value and should therefore be integrated as best we can by seeking useful compromises. We see no public media evidence of compassion and understanding for Trump voters and populists from our main-line churches. In our individualistic society, we have expected people to fend for themselves (find another job), so we are not prepared to see government active in the employment domain. If businesses acted to allay this problem, they could take care of it, but again, we expect people to do it on their own, and capitalism is not known for altruism.
There are good reasons, therefore, for MAGA voters and many other conservative voters to gravitate toward a leader who seems strong and who gives them validation for who they are, such as Mr. Trump. He praises them and talks as if he identifies with them. He promises to stand up for them and bring back their manufacturing and energy jobs. He assuages their fear with his never-any-doubts optimism and his absolute refusal to lose or take criticism. He gives voice to and legitimizes their anger. He projects the strength that they do not feel and seems to include them in his family.
Given their value of loyalty and their lack of alternatives, these voters are unlikely to reject or give up on Mr. Trump or others like him until the system starts to help them with some of the psychological benefits that Mr. Trump gives them (regardless of the fact that as President Mr. Trump did almost nothing for them). The system, unfortunately, feels more punitive than compassionate toward them at the moment, greatly reinforced by the mob attack on the Capitol building just before the inauguration, and mainstream media continue to find sensational “reasons” to criticize them. The mob at the Capitol contained many of the kinds of voters this essay describes but also many members of militias, sovereignists, and end-of-lifers (apocalyptists). Given the one-sidedness of our news outlets (on both sides), it is difficult for many of us to hold in our minds clearly that most Trump voters are not rioters and rarely make political statements at all. They include many middle and lower middle class peaceful but fearful and concerned citizens.
For these voters, loyalty and sticking to one’s values are culturally very important. Further criticizing and demeaning them would simply harden their feelings of victimization. To move forward, the elites and establishment must accept that there will be no healing until some of the populists’ humiliation and fear are alleviated. These populists cannot be viewed as alien or enemies to be shaped up but rather as citizens who have been in difficult straits, both financially and psychologically. It is reality that much of the country has “moved on” from the rural, hometown values and way of life of the populists, to city dwelling and internationalism, and the populists must accept that they will not prosper as much as those in the cities unless they change. On the other hand, if they choose to stay with their hometown values and way of life and if we as a country wish to have a place for everyone in our society, they must still be accepted and valued in the country, and their needs must still be addressed by the urban majority. There will be no healing unless both sides decide to live together amicably if not in harmony.
These current populist discussions have focused mainly on jobs and income, on immigration, and on the perceived arrogance and declared superiority of the political elite, particularly of the Democratic Party even though Republican elites are equally blameworthy in terms of jobs and social status. It is useful to look more deeply into the motivation of populist citizens from a psychological perspective, as above, since every behavior (including all thoughts and emotions) is motivated by something, and human beings are motivated mainly by their needs for survival and to be in a positive or at least a neutral emotional state. We seek and will kill for the means of survival (food, clothing, shelter, protection), and we seek and will even sometimes kill for escaping from a negative emotional state–mainly fear, shame, guilt, disappointment, vulnerability, and helplessness.
For this analysis to have serious implications for how we treat each other, we have to admit that neither side is ever going to “win” the sniping and back-stabbing war that is going on, and we must address the fact that the congressional habit of avoiding everything controversial (so members can be re-elected) will continue until different people are elected, leaving the country dysfunctional and looking silly on the international stage. The two sides are too evenly matched in voting numbers for either to ever be dominant. Therefore, for the sake of the country, we will all be better off treating others with a new and different attitude—that of understanding and basic respect and courtesy. Why change our attitudes?– because the American people will benefit.
THE CHALLENGE OF DIFFERING VALUES AND APPROACHES TO
LIFE
America is challenged by a broad division of citizens into two major camps, differing in value sets and in approaches to living. One group is more traditional and tends to identify as conservative. As explained by Jonathan Haidt in his book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion, this more conservative group tend to value all five of Haidt’s moral dimensions (care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sacredness). They value tradition, order, hierarchy, and small government. The people in this group value family connections highly, and loyalty is a key value (“I can criticize my parents, but if you do, I’ll beat you up”). They prefer hierarchical social arrangements and gravitate toward strong and benevolent leaders (hence the popularity of Reagan and Trump). Many prefer to live in small towns or small cities, and they seek when possible to stay in the hometown and maintain connections with childhood friends. They still go to church (or believe that they should). They idealize the military, and patriotism is meaningful and important. They have a traditional distrust of distant government, and extremists in this group have organized private militias and trained for readiness in the event of having to resist the central government by force. People in the MAGA/populist element of this larger conservative group value belief in God, churches, a literal reading of the Bible, guns, hunting with guns, being openly patriotic, being pro-life, identifying with sports heroes and teams, drinking in neighborhood bars, keeping family close, living near where they were born, and disliking taking welfare The key contributions to division by this group are trying to keep things local, holding back on change, and distrust of people who are different culturally, including intellectuals and experts.
The other major group can be described as liberal or technocratic. Haidt describes this group as placing moral emphasis on care and fairness (and not the other three moral themes), and they tend to value change (progress), autonomy, and larger government. Citizens in this group pursue “modern” approaches to life, including making maximum use of the information opportunities available these days. They tend to live in urban areas and to work in financial, education, service, and information firms. Most have moved away from hometowns and families of origin in order to take advantage of educational and career options. They value expertise and believe that all problems can be solved by science and planning. They are not fearful of change. They are suspicious of emotion-inducing leaders and prefer an emphasis on facts and discussion. They are not religious but may toy with spiritualism. They abhor violence and would never think of physically fighting themselves. They think problems should be solved by central government using information and technology. They are fine with increasing specialization of jobs with higher and higher entry requirements (and pay). They seek prestige through the education they have received and through the size and influence of their employers. The values of the liberals/progressives in this larger group are rationality, seeing guns mainly as weapons used against other humans, animal protection, analyzing our society honestly and objectively, pro-choice, seeing people as basically interchangeable in society, and expecting everyone to be a world citizen. Extremists in this group can violate laws in order to promote their causes (the environment, equality), and they promote what they view as social change for the better (abortion rights, defund the police, protest marches against police brutality, affirming gender care). The key contributions of this group to national division are their assumption that they are right about everything, their righteousness, their pretenses of being objective, and their disdain for the other group.
These differing value sets are all human value possibilities and by themselves are not evil or destructive. To have useful and civil discussions, then, requires accepting that the other person’s values are worth taking seriously. Liberals should be honest enough to admit that order and predictability in society are important, that traditions can be useful for societal bonding and order, and that pondering the sacred can add depth and empathy to life. Conservatives should be honest enough to admit that our society needs some changes if it is to live up to its ideals of equality and freedom. If you are liberal and want to understand others, admit that change is not always good, and tradition is often useful. If you are conservative, admit that change is sometimes good and that too much adherence to tradition can stymie all improvement. Both liberals and conservatives should formulate to themselves how their political philosophy advances the other side’s values and addresses the other side’s needs and not just their own! (Of course, our individual views and wishes are important, and we would prefer if everyone would agree with us (and foolishly think that everyone should agree with us), but this is not reality. Everyone will never agree with us, and there are truths to be found in every political philosophy. If we wish to live together amicably, we must accept that others’ political views may be just as “right” as ours—and that each of them is incomplete.)
One key factor in our country’s divisions is the greater recent interaction of these two groups. In the past these groups could be secure in their separate enclaves and existences because they were unlikely to encounter direct confrontation with the other. With current internet and news opportunities, they now frequently see things about the other group that they don’t like or don’t understand that they would not have been aware of before the internet, and their “natural” reactions are to defend their own ways of being and criticize or demonize the other group. This applies to both sides regardless of the fact that liberals believe that they are objective. If we are to work together better, we will have to understand each other better and tolerate each other with more grace. (See my essays on Bridging Societal Differences on www.livewiselydeeply.com (under “Government/Politics/International” issues) for key adaptive attitudes and specifics for amicable interacting.)
For purposes of discussion, we might even condense these survival and positive or neutral emotional state motives to concerns about security and self-esteem. We crave a sense of security about our survival, and even though our circumstances may be extremely unpleasant, we can tolerate this unpleasantness much better if we also feel secure about the future (even if that future is still seen as unpleasant). (This explains the great importance to many of “knowing” with certainty that there will be a more pleasant afterlife.) We also crave feeling positively about ourselves (self-esteem), since we depend on ourselves mainly to do what is necessary in order to survive and to have a “good life.” The most important factors determining our self-esteem are our feelings of agency (being able to do and accomplish things that we want) and the feelings and actions of others toward us. Self-doubts and negative labeling of self by self or others (idiot, dummy, worthless, stupid, fool, failure, wimp, ugly, “deplorable,” etc.) are quite painful and usually result in obsessive thinking about one’s deficiencies. If this labeling is chronic, it leads almost inevitably to reductions in functioning and status and often beyond that to alcohol and/or drug addiction, loss of family, and homelessness.
Human beings have evolved (or were created) to use status hierarchies, usually based on inherited status (king, peasant, etc.), earned position (mayor, etc.), or wealth to structure society. Acceptance of one’s position in these hierarchies acts to reduce upsets and violence over how resources and rewards are distributed in the total group. People higher in the hierarchy get more pay and adulation, and we tend to believe that they “deserve” it simply because they are higher up on the hierarchy! Unfortunately, we accord more personal value or worth to those higher in the hierarchy, just because they are higher in the hierarchy and for no other reasons, which causes many emotional problems in those lower down. We could moderate the effects of this status tendency by consciously redefining individual value as separate from status, even while we acquiesce to the system of redistribution of goods implied by status.
HEALING OUR DIVISIONS
RELATING TO EACH OTHER
It is a considerable challenge for liberals/progressives to accept MAGA/populists as political equals and as full and honorable Americans, but they must be accepted if our political divide is to heal, and the two groups must abandon their desires to “win” and vanquish the other side (which will never happen) and accept that with America as it is (a nation with many differing groups of people), compromising is necessary on most governmental issues. Our constant fighting in Congress cannot be allowed to continue to be over basic liberal/conservative beliefs (change/no change, small government/big government), as they are now) but must focus on how the best compromises can be reached on every individual issue. So, you liberals/progressives–go to a 4th of July celebration and wave the flag a few times. Appreciate the love of country of the MAGA/populists. MAGA/populists, stop trying to out-contempt the other side and threatening everyone with your guns and acknowledge that sometimes changes in society are beneficial. Both of you—start treating every citizen with respect and courtesy at all times.
Liberals/progressives dismiss the MAGA/populist’s values as backward and bigoted, but they should take an honest and comprehensive look at this. Belief in God is an important constraint against criminal behavior for many Americans (and not just MAGA/conservatives), and we would be foolish to try to remove it from society. Dismissing a belief in God is not “scientific,” either, since science cannot scientifically (and philosophers cannot logically) “prove” that God does not exist. In this sense, it would be better if liberals/progressives were to accept that belief in God (and going to church) are just as legitimate as agnosticism or atheism and have a long history behind them! Similarly, MAGA/conservatives should not put down agnosticism and lack of belief in God, since liberals/progressives treat people just as decently and well as MAGA/conservatives do (and better in some instances). MAGA/conservatives have no reality basis for claiming that belief in God leads to a better life than agnosticism/atheism (with the exception that research indicates that churchgoers seem to feel more secure and perhaps less anxious overall than non-churchgoers). (The underlying and key point here is that MAGA/conservative’s belief in God is not hurting liberals/conservatives, and lack of belief in God on the part of other citizens is not hurting MAGA/conservatives, so we would be better off letting each other be!)
To pursue a goal of including everyone as Americans and working together on our joint problems, we must accept and not attack the value sets of others. They are just as American as we are, and their views should carry as much weight as ours do, if we really believe in democracy! We can disagree on policy and value matters yet still accept others as fellow Americans, as well as treat everyone with respect and courtesy.
DEALING WITH DIFFERENCE
As human beings, we live a life that is uncertain in a somewhat unpredictable environment of which we are largely not in control. The environment does not automatically give us the things we need to survive, so we have to work for them, and sometimes we cannot get them (famine, drought) and must make great efforts to survive. A very important part of being human is predicting the future (or anticipating what will happen next), so that we can avoid harm and prepare for potentially harmful things that may happen. Our predictions are not perfect, though, since we do not understand all of the factors that will determine whether a possible harm or event will take place. For these reasons, we are more comfortable in an environment and around people that we are familiar with (and can predict).
A large amount of human conflict arises from this “difference anxiety,” since our usual impulse is to push the other person away (or even do away with him/her). There are three reasons for the strength of this fear of and discomfort with difference. One is that differences make interactions more cumbersome and difficult, since special efforts are required to communicate and to suppress negative feelings that we are having about the differences while we try to interact. Second, differences make us less trusting, since they make us less able to confidently predict the behavior of the other person. Third, to the extent that we (falsely) associate our security and self-esteem with how we do things, the fact that others do things differently (different language, different beliefs, different customs) is a direct threat to our sense of security and our self-esteem (and makes us want to reject them or make them change to be like us). This “difference anxiety” is responsible for much of our political divide, since the persons on each side of this divide actually know very little about the lives of those on the other side.
We can start to deal with differences (and reduce our divide) by acknowledging that the forms and customs of our lives are only one of many possible ways that things can work acceptably. People could get along just as well grasping each other by both shoulders as a physical greeting instead of shaking hands. It doesn’t matter for relating to others that one culture has young people living at home until they marry while another has them leave home on their own before marrying. There is simply no reason to assume that our way is better—it is simply more comfortable for us. To accept that our customs and ways of doing things are not “sacred” may be galling at first or may lead to some feelings of uncertainty (or even shame), but accepting their reality would lead to greater openness to new ideas and ways of doing things, as well as to greater security within ourselves.
Difficulty trusting and feeling comfortable with those who are different is a difficult barrier to overcome, but if we are willing to see our fundamental similarities with all others, we can learn to trust again. All human beings have the same basic motives and feelings and engage in the same kinds of thoughts in trying to achieve their goals. Everyone wants to survive, feel good at least part of the time, feel good about themselves, feel secure, be accepted by others, create a family, raise children, and have a good life. Exactly how we structure the tools that we use to accomplish these things (language, laws, social patterns, customs) varies, and the rules that we set up for status and priorities among people vary as well, but we can avoid being bothered by these different forms and customs if we see clearly that they aim to accomplish the same things for those other people as our forms and customs do for us. They are simply tools and not talismans.
In response to these fears of those who are different, many people try to get the unfamiliar person to change in ways that will make him/her less threatening (more like the culture that the person who seeks the change is used to), but this is unnecessary if we can accept that difference is not necessarily a threat. The greatest tool of all for reducing “difference anxiety” is simply getting to know the unfamiliar persons. Inquire into the reasons why the person is thinking, feeling, and intending as he/she is, until you understand the experiential and cultural background for the behaviors. Use this opportunity to learn about human beings in greater depth.
DEALING WITH CONCRETE PROBLEMS
In assessing the views of liberals and conservatives about some more concrete issues, we can get a good look at the necessity for compromise in politics. On the issue of abortion, for example, we would be better off accepting the legitimacy of the other side’s views (just as we view our own views as legitimate) than would be trying to force everyone to adopt our own beliefs. Almost all women wish to be in control of when and if they have children, and their wishes are important, since childrearing can take at least a third of a woman’s life and since society does not seem able to provide fostering and adoptions sufficient to care for children who are unwanted. And, no, not wanting children is not a crime or an immoral position. On the other hand, abortions do destroy a human life, and not wanting to take a human life (even a basically unformed foetus) should not be dismissed as a backward view but should be accepted as a legitimate concern. Both sides should accept that the other side has legitimate concerns and work together without rancor to find the best way that our society can respect all sides and carry on. (A ban on abortion after fifteen weeks with exceptions for the physical and mental health of the mother would seem to be an example of an acceptable compromise.)
In regard to guns, ninety-nine percent of gun owners never harm a human being with those guns, so they are not hurting anyone (including liberals/conservatives) with their guns, and there is no convincing reason, then, to ban those guns, which have legitimate recreational and self-defense uses. Instead of banning guns, we could get more done regarding gun violence by figuring out a way to change the conditions that breed the use of guns to harm other humans (suffering, poverty, loneliness, lack of jobs) and not pretend that we can ever actually eliminate gun violence completely, because we can’t. School shootings and other mass shootings are carried out almost exclusively by persons who feel lonely, unfulfilled, and “shafted” by society, and those are things that we could address if we were willing to help our fellow men or at least to spend the money to have other people help our fellow men. Our rugged individualism and disinterest in helping our fellow men has resulted in the current situation, in which we have many people in society who are lonely, unfulfilled, and feeling “shafted” by society. Simply wishing that they would “shape up” is not working! Criminals will always use guns, and we would be better off with respect to guns by reducing the number of criminals as much as possible by improving societal conditions—reducing poverty and lack of jobs.
Jobs are a key concern for many MAGA people. Globalization of economies and off-shoring of many jobs (not just manufacturing) have upended the hopes and dreams of many people (and not just MAGA people), and the government has given little attention to the long-term needs in this area. We have always expected people to find their own jobs, but times have changed, and specialization in jobs and the closing of businesses to move elsewhere have made finding a good job much more difficult. Businesses used to hire and train people, but nowadays they hold out for the cheaper alternative of hiring someone who already has the needed experience, and moving business locations means that many workers are left living in a place where no good jobs are available. It’s easy to say that they should move to find a job elsewhere, but that is an expensive and daunting process. It also doesn’t seem fair to say that a worker with a valuable job skill “should” take a job at McDonald’s or wash dishes and be satisfied with that. (Could you survive a change like that economically?)
The time of letting the “job market” (meaning those unemployed who want jobs) provide a pool of potential employees to employers with no effort or cost to employers may be over. We could have a nationwide network of job-finding offices to help, and we could pay moving expenses (in some cases) for people to move to a job, if we were willing to spend the money. It appears to those who are out of a job due to these modern disruptions that we don’t care, and everyone is more anxious now about the future of jobs, since we can see clearly that businesses don’t seriously care about employees any more. Governments could also give employers a small reward for “hiring American.”
Inflation has made it more difficult for all of us to continue our normal lives, and it is the most difficult for people on the economic margin, usually living paycheck to paycheck. That food costs twenty percent more now is a serious issue for these people, while it is not the same challenge for those who are economically comfortable. Overall, inflation is now going down, slowly, but this is not being reflected in grocery prices, and gasoline prices are not yet back to where they were, and these are what count most for those who are being squeezed the most. Inflation may reflect to some extent increases in costs for retailers and suppliers, but it also reflects opportunistic increases in prices charged, at all levels, as well as the fact that no one wants to end up with less, so businesses say they “have to” raise their prices whenever their costs go up (instead of absorbing any of those increases by making less themselves).
This is, for better or worse, our capitalistic system—people can charge whatever they want for their goods and services, and there is no control on this by government except for certain kinds of “nudging” like the Federal Reserve’s interest rate. Those who are squeezed by inflation think that the all-powerful government should “do something,” but government does not have the power to control prices, so people who are squeezed have to suffer and accept whatever “the market” dictates. We believe that this is a better way to set prices overall than to have government price controls (although we’ve never tried large scale price controls, and perhaps AI could now provide the information needed to make price controls work in a way that simply would not have been possible before). It is misleading for candidates for President to claim that they will do this or that about inflation, since they really cannot do much. Political parties each blame the other party for not doing more, but there is not that much that can be done, given our belief in free markets. Citizens would be better served if candidates would reveal their impotence and explain how the system works, so that at least we might think about better alternative systems.
Those who are economically challenged and/or who feel devalued by society will naturally look for someone to blame for their unhappy status (no good jobs, low pay, few ways to do better economically, crime ridden neighborhoods), and immigrants are easy to blame. It appears to MAGA/conservatives that having more people looking for jobs means more competition among workers for those jobs and hence lower pay and more people without jobs. Economists believe that a certain level of immigration actually results in more economic activity and ultimately more jobs, but this is little direct comfort for people who are marginal and who are desperate for a job with a living wage or who want a better job. (Once again, our system allows employers to pay workers less than the amount it takes to survive in our economy, which has always looked to workers like being taken advantage of.)
The Trump administration found various ways to limit immigration but still allowed millions into the country. The Biden administration allowed more in but in the end had to impose greater limits and yet made no public case for why these changes were better. The parties love to criticize each other on this issue, but neither has made cogent arguments for their different approaches, and neither tries very hard to pass legislation that would guide an administration toward new approaches—the Republicans because it is a useful issue with which to scare voters and the Democrats because they don’t want to be criticized by voters for the relatively open border views of the party’s left wing.
Either party could help the country (and help MAGA/conservatives) by stating a rational plan for immigration and supporting legislation in this area which would allow needed workers in, would revise the definition of asylum so that we could administer asylum decisions quickly and fairly, and would limit all other immigration. They could also help by calling for requiring all immigrants to apply for citizenship within three years of entry, so that we don’t build up over time a greater sense of difference between citizens and non-citizens. Additionally, there is nothing “wrong” with the government formally keeping track of all non-citizens in the country, except for the cost of doing so! Congress should debate how much aid to give new immigrants in terms of monies for food and for getting started in a job. This could ease MAGA concerns about new immigrants being given more attention and help by the government than it gives MAGA voters as citizens.
Some parents dislike the fact that some teachers and professors voice to students a version of morals/ethics that they as parents do not agree with, particularly in relation to race, gender orientation, and sex. Much of this may be unwitting on the part of both liberally-oriented teachers and conservatively-oriented teachers, when the teacher thinks that his/her opinion about things is more like a fact than an opinion. Gay marriage, for instance, may be the law of the land, but it is still a matter of moral/ethical opinion whether it is good for society or not, and the same goes for sex change operations and living as the opposite sex without physical change.
Teachers/professors should in my opinion be careful about how they phrase statements and answers to question in these areas, by thinking in advance about whether something is fact or accepted society-wide or is actually a matter of opinion and by presenting both (or several) kinds of opinions when the matter is a matter of opinion. They should not automatically assume that their own opinions or the opinions of those they favor politically are naturally correct. Things they say should present the values of various stakeholders rather than just their own. A deeper understanding of science reveals that the theory of evolution is still a theory, because it cannot be scientifically proven (even if most scientists and most of the public believe that it is true) and the alternative theory of divine creation cannot be scientifically disproven.
Those who approve of gay marriage might say, “But it’s right to make gay marriage equal to straight marriage, because of our value of equality.” We should, though, look also at the effects on everybody. As a result of legalization of gay marriage, gay people will feel more equal and accepted, of course, but non-supporters feel that basic rules of the universe have been violated and that their own worldview has been denigrated. The fact that it is now legal doesn’t make it moral in the eyes of many. Gay marriage and transgender advocacy both weaken the “rules” that society has assumed for a long time, and that sense of general weakening will result in resentment and in more crime in general, as people interpret the change as indicating that other rules can be broken, too. The point is that while there are benefits of making gay marriage legal, there are also costs in the eyes of non-supporters, and these should be taken seriously. Such changes have also given rise to a reaction of more concerns about law-and-order (because more societal change increases the sense of disorder), including greater pushing for the right of everyone to carry a gun! The negative effects of societal changes should be considered as part of making the necessary compromises to improve life for everyone in society.
MAGA/conservatives are strongly offended by and opposed to governmental corruption in Washington, where lots of politicians mysteriously get significantly richer and it seems that private and back-room deals rule. More transparency could help, such as a requirement that all Congresspersons make a written public statement explaining their vote, at least on all significant legislation. In my opinion all Congresspersons should “vote their conscience” rather than vote the party line, and as I have advocated before, vote-trading should be labeled a serious ethical offense. State and federal candidates could all be required to make their tax records public as candidates and while in office.
We should recognize, too, however, that America is an ethically lax society, where we secretly admire people who evade their taxes and pay little attention to speed limits on the highway. I don’t think either MAGA/conservatives or liberals/progressives obey our laws any more than the other group. Many early immigrants to the Colonies came here to get away from government control, and our history of change and civil disobedience has resulted in a greater feeling of being justified in breaking any law an individual disagrees with.
Again, I want to make a plea for all of us to consider living together amicably as fellow citizens even though we may differ in our moral/ethical and political positions. As long as everyone assumes and accepts that everyone does have a right to his/her opinion (as long as it is not directly harming other citizens), then differing opinions are not a threat to one’s own hopes and dreams for the country and should not be seen as a threat—but just a difference. We must accept, then, that open discussion and voting will determine the country’s direction and trust that that will prove ultimately to be the best way forward. We are a society of differing opinions, and that is OK if we trust that the total citizenry will make good decisions, even if they are not always what we would prefer at the moment.
Given the above analysis, government could help MAGA/populists by (1) respecting them as citizens (and parting ways with any efforts to castigate and punish Trump voters simply for supporting Trump), (2) including them as participants in the government deliberations and actions that will affect them (including in the President’s cabinet and among his/her advisers), (3) taking action to make their economic situations better (infrastructure program? more manufacturing jobs with protective tariffs? large COVID relief package?), and (4) take away some of their survival fears—both economically and psychologically—by providing jobs and by openly valuing some of their values. Bear in mind that people change best in supportive environments, not in those in which power is being used on and against them. Unfortunately, presuming that their representatives in Congress will be working for their benefit leads nowhere, since research shows that, despite the existence in Congress now of a small group of Representatives with explicitly MAGA/populist values, Congress still consists largely of rich, well-educated persons who predictably vote in favor of measures that benefit rich, well-educated persons (of either major party) rather than those less well off. This is true of both Democrats and Republicans!
There is much talk about our democracy being “under attack,” after the Jan. 6 riot, but consider that if a system is not doing what a large number of citizens want, perhaps it deserves criticism and should change, and remember that the persons with the loudest voices in the media in support of Mr. Trump and the persons in the Capitol mob are only a tiny fraction of the millions who voted for him. Most of these were sincere in their populist feelings and their feeling that only Mr. Trump would try to help them. These are fellow Americans who deserve the continued concern of all of us.
The main consequence of group value differences is that the groups with differing values view members of other groups as strange or deficient, but if we can view value sets as all having some value, we can focus on finding solutions to various problems that are acceptable to everyone. The three most important changes that we must make in order to work together without (or with less) rancor are (1) thinking in a balanced way—i.e., seeing and voicing both sides of issues (seeing and voicing both the pros and cons of every position or proposal); (2) dealing in a more informed and tolerant way with differences between us, most especially value or worldview differences; and (3) treating everyone with appropriate respect and courtesy.
THE EVEN BIGGER PICTURE
There are national issues that reveal our level of caring for our fellow citizens and that therefore affect their attitudes about government. Liberals tend to approach solving the country’s problems by having the central government spend money and give things to people (student loan forgiveness is a good example). Liberals see this as caring for other citizens but ignore the damage such giveaways could do to our values of personal responsibility. If we expected the central government to do all that, why should citizens work hard to take care of themselves as much as possible? Once again, it behooves us to find the most workable compromise that honors at least some of the values of both liberals and conservatives (like changing the terms of the student loans rather than simply forgiving them). The alternative is to insist that only one side “win” and for Congress to wait to take action on important issues only when one side has enough votes to “win.” This approach uses demonizing the other side as a tool to “win,” which obviously exacerbates our anger at being degraded and vilified.
It is desirable for every citizen to gain self-value and community value by contributing something to the welfare of the nation as well to their own welfare, if only through working to support themselves. Our society pays a number of “disabled” people not to work, in effect, when many of them could work some jobs for some hours per week. These disability payments prevent recipients from having the good self-esteem gained from contributing, and they foster an atmosphere in society that views work as something to avoid (perhaps left over from times of having to work constantly just to survive, when now we are actually wealthy enough to think of work more in terms of fulfillment and contributions to the group).
Since our society is moving toward needing fewer workers (especially manual workers) due to automation and the change to an information economy while our population continues to increase, it would be good for the emotional health of the country for everyone to have a job of some sort. Our capitalistic economy, as it is, is not doing this job adequately at the current time, and it could be done by government, through supporting work that contributes but that we are unwilling to pay for directly (like adequate street cleaning and other trash removal, attendants at parks and other recreational sites, creating more parks, etc.) and through paying part of the salaries for workers that businesses would like to hire but don’t have the money for. The costs of this service would be paid for, of course, by our taxes. As part of this scheme, those who refused to work would not receive any government support of any kind! This scheme sounds heretical but despite the corruption and manipulations that would ensue to some extent, it could be better for everyone than our current situation.
Another action that government could take that would help MAGA/populists would be to plan for and support to some extent manufacturing sorts of jobs making products that have been off-shored but would be good for us to be able to manufacture ourselves, so that we could maintain their production in times of disruption or war (such as steel and computer chips). These could be supported through tariffs or simply through redistributions from all of us to those workers involved. Naturally these products would be more expensive than those from other parts of the globe, but the country must decide whether to put itself at risk of economic blackmail and shortages due to war by not being able to make them for itself.
A final (again heretical) suggestion to reduce the resentment felt by MAGA/populists (and all other “poor”) for lack of opportunity and wealth inequality would be to augment to some to-be-determined level, through our taxes, the incomes of all workers who are not paid enough in our economy to have a decent life (fast food workers, etc.). This would relieve a great deal of stress and anxiety on the part of those workers and their families and would benefit society at large through creating an atmosphere in which we all have some confidence that our fellow citizens would care for us if we needed it. This is a reprise of the problem of not enough good jobs and the fact that people are “forced” to take these low paying jobs out of survival necessity. Businesses justify this system by saying that if they raised prices and paid workers appropriately, their business would decline so much that they then could not pay the workers appropriately. Perhaps we should take the step of trying this out and finding out how prices actually change with higher wages, and if there is a continuing problem, the rest of us, through the government, could step in for the benefit of both the businesses and the workers. Let’s be clear—the alternative to these adaptations of capitalism would be raw capitalism which is currently creating a larger and larger underclass of people whom businesses choose not to employ, due to automation, off-shoring, increasing job specialization, and increasing levels of training required for new and different jobs, and is further increasing the atmosphere of insecurity and isolation for most workers. Our large homeless problem is a testament to this trend.
Healthcare for everyone guaranteed through the government would help with pain and bodily damage that now go untreated due to low levels of pay and insurance for workers (and end up costing us all more in overall medical expenses when they are dealt with later on). Low-paying jobs in general pose greater risks of physical damage to workers than higher-paying jobs. Healthcare businesses howl at the idea of a single-payer system, but will not themselves change anything in the current system toward providing healthcare for all. Medicare provides good enough healthcare right now to demonstrate how we could have government-supported, good healthcare for all.
Americans of all political persuasions get precious little training and support in having healthy self-esteem. This is evident from the emotional neediness of Facebook users and the anger and hatred of the internet users who are out to hurt other people. The understanding and the techniques are available to have good self-esteem (see my book How To Feel Good About Yourself: Twelve Key Steps To Positive Self-Esteem (2010)). The problem with the self-esteem of most people is that they have been trained to criticize and attack themselves for going against what they have been taught and for acting in their own best interest when someone else’s needs are involved. It would be healthier to recognize that we always do what we believe to be in our best interest but to integrate this with a clear awareness that taking others into account is an important component of determining what is in our best interest. See the book for details!
As I have pointed out several times, two key aspects of the insecurity of Trump voters/white identity groups are (1) job insecurity and (2) the demeaning by liberals of their values and beliefs. Liberals could help by taking the conservative values and beliefs of these groups seriously and viewing them as another legitimate way to seek to achieve our universal human life goals, and by seeing democracy’s project to be mainly finding ways to honor both (all) legitimate approaches to living, in the effort to find useful political compromises. This, of course, would require giving up the political style of attacking and demeaning those with different opinions in an effort to vanquish them and force people to live like we do (instead of how they themselves want to).
Despite the differences, mainstream America still has more similarities to these populists than differences, and there is no reason to perceive these differences in values and way of life as a personal threat or as a threat to the progress of the nation as a whole. People with different ways of life can work together in a country if the groups accept each other (which will require dealing on a large scale with the inherent fear that humans have of people who are different). The populists must accept and not vilify growing internationalism but work with government to make the situation work for them as best it can, while the elites and liberals must accept that the values of these populists (family, independence, hard work, religion) do have value. Neither side can view themselves as “better than” the other if we are to live together amicably. If we can see all of us as honorable parts of the country, then we should be able to take an attitude toward the populists of togetherness, compassion, and forgiveness (uncharacteristic of humans as this might be!).
SUMMARY
The most important point here is that treating people as basic equals and with respect and courtesy will get us more from them than disrespecting them, both because everyone likes being treated with respect as a basic equal, and because you will never convince anyone to see the world just the way you do, since each of us has his/her unique experience on top of our unique DNA. So, you will get more by working together with them than you will by trying to force them to be like you (which would be convenient but is impossible). Some people do like to fight and contest, but they, then, are worse off in life for it.
Individually, in order to heal our divisions or at least reduce them enough so that we can work amicably together—
- We can acknowledge that all citizens should be basically equal in the eyes of government and should be basically equal in having their needs understood (and possibly met). (This implies that we should temper or stop our incessant efforts to get and accumulate more than others.)
- We can treat everyone with respect and courtesy at all times.
- We can acknowledge that all value sets have value rather than seeing our values as being “better.”
- We can use our empathy and experience to understand the needs and beliefs of others better, so that we can work together.
- We can acknowledge that we have only our own opinions and not “the truth” or what is good for everyone else. We can “live” this by stating both the pros and the cons of everything we claim or propose, rather than using our adversarial approach to create two sides of an argument that seem incompatible and unbridgeable simply because of our ardor.
- We can interact and communicate with every other person in a way that establishes comfort and trust and that recognizes the value of every other person. This will enable us to work together to find solutions that benefit everyone.
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