Nothing Personal

[irked_indeed]

Reading this tweet finally crystallized an essay I've been meaning to write after a couple of recent conversations.

Namely: why, to so many liberal Americans, is politics such an intensely personal matter?

Comments

[arcticwolf489]

Might this be, in part, dependent on who you talk to? I personally know a few people who dismiss the President and anything he does offhand because he's a foreigner/Muslim/probable-Antichrist/liberal. I've been through Sunday school lessons detailing liberal and gay agendas (evidently one gets a card and a five-year plan in the mail as soon as he decides his political stance or sexuality). I've heard talk-show hosts mocking CNN and NBC as hard as I've ever heard against FOX News. I know people who cannot talk about gun control or abortion from a level other than personal. It's always the Liberals and the Other People who ruin everything.

Or: it doesn't really seem fair to compare reasonable conservatives with terrible liberals when there are plenty of each in both parties.

I'm all about not trusting the government to fix everything, though. ^_^

[irked_indeed]

Oh, certainly. Hence the disclaimers - it's not a universal descriptor. There are conservatives for whom it applies and liberals for whom it doesn't.

But I think there's evidence for a trend. Three of the top six articles on Reddit Politics at this moment are essentially Romney insults; nothing on the front page takes a swing at Obama. Anecdotally, I definitely hear a lot more Conservatives-are-personally-evil Democrats than Liberals-are-personally-evil Republicans. I know of several professors of varying political stances who have observed something similar

[arcticwolf489]

I think part of that is that the louder demographic-celebrities (and writers or other sorts of mini-celebrities that you or I might follow), young computer professionals (who can Googlebomb and develop infographics and informative websites), the majority of news networks, &c-tend to fall under the liberal demographics. More conservative venues (including churches) will probably be more likely to tell you that the liberals are destroying America (or whatever

[irked_indeed]

That's a valid point.

I think the related issue that we maybe hitting at is that a lot of Christians aren't really conservative - like you note, for many the underlying philosophy is still, "Daddy Government will save us, if we just pass the right laws/elect the right people/whatever," with all the accompanying disappointment and suspicion. They're, philosophically, liberals who happen to not like abortion, homosexuality, etc., but who are absolutely fine with government interference on behalf of whatever their pet cause is.

[engelhardtlm1]

Interesting idea.

I kind of wonder how much this can be chalked up to differences in personalities, though. Might liberal ideas be more attractive to a different personality type than conservative ideas? If so, that very well may play a role in who is more likely to take things personally.

[irked_indeed]

Hm, I hadn't considered things from that direction. That makes sense, too - but it could just be another way of expressing the same thing. If your personality is such that The Theory appeals to you...

[jd3000]

I don't think either political bent leads to higher susceptibility in taking things personally, I think it is a difference in avenues of communication and personal perspective. I've known plenty of conservatives who both become emotional and personally aggrieved at even simple dissent.

-JD

[ladyarkham]

Right, but I think Irked's point is that it's more common on the left than on the right. It may be that those who are more susceptible to taking things personally tend to go to the left - personality leading to political leaning - or whether it's inherent in the liberal ideas - political leaning leading to personality trait.

"I know a X with characteristic Y" doesn't say much about how common Y is among Xs, but here we're pointing out a *trend.* Many more liberals villainize conservatives than vice-versa. The existence of "Obama is the antichrist" conservatives doesn't mean that the trend the other way doesn't exist.

[jd3000]

I forgot to get back here right away, only to find that Amelia made pretty much every point I was planning to make in her first two comments. :)

-JD