Brennan and Lomasky’s expressive voting model tries to explain why politics is largely about style and stories, not substance and numbers. Long story short: Political entertainment is a private good; political results are a public good. As a result, political systems primarily yield entertainment, not results. Jonah Goldberg nicely illustrates these insights in a recent column. Highlights:
For instance, during what was supposed to be the debate period for President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, which spent plenty on non-pandemic Democratic priorities, the Republican National Committee was silent on it. The RNC did release two statements about it — but only after the bill passed. Yet plenty of Republicans found time to decry the “cancellation” of Dr. Seuss.
He continues:
We tend to define bipartisanship as both parties openly agreeing with each other in a gauzy spirit of civic cooperation. But there’s another kind of bipartisanship — when each party cynically and tacitly agrees to take turns doing things they denounce when the other party does them. That’s what the parties do on spending and debt (and Supreme Court nominations, gerrymandering and a host of other issues). The cumulative effect is a political culture that says you can do whatever you can get away with. Why should voters care about deficits when most politicians only claim to care about them when it’s the other party increasing them?
But here’s the catch. Political parties need to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Neither Republicans nor Democrats can run on the vow, “There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between us and the other party.” So what does that leave? Culture-war stuff.
Application to immigration:
[I]mmigration is a perfect example of what I’m getting at. It’s an important issue regardless of where you come down on the specifics of immigration policy. But there’s a reason Republicans and Democrats often invest so much more in the issue than it warrants. It taps into, among other things, questions of race, national identity and the relationship between wealthy elites and average workers. Democrats love the issue because it lets them demonize Republicans — often but not always unfairly — as rank nativists and bigots. It lets Republicans rail about Democratic animosity toward the working class and indifference — real or alleged — to American culture.
I can’t recall if Jonah and I discussed immigration in this interview, but in a sense I agree. If massive deregulation of immigration is on the table, it’s the most important issue in the world. But if we’re only arguing about whether borders should be 98% closed or 99% closed, there’s little reason for either side to get excited.
P.S. My main disagreement with Jonah, strangely, is on Dr. Seuss:
For the record, Seuss wasn’t actually canceled. His estate announced it wouldn’t continue to publish a handful of his least popular and allegedly racially insensitive works.
The estate will cease publication of some books because they’re worried someone somewhere might take offense where none was intended? That’s virtually the definition of “cancelled.” Furthermore, when I actually looked up the list, I discovered that two of cancelled works – If I Ran the Zoo and To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street – were personal favorites. Indeed, I routinely use the expression “if I ran the zoo” when people query my precise policy preferences. So yes, while the budget is objectively a million times more important, I’m still unhappy about what happened to the noble Dr. Seuss.
READER COMMENTS
Kevin McGartland
Apr 20 2021 at 10:02am
For the life of me, I’ll never understand the argument that because someone didn’t intend to be racist, the act isn’t racist. The pics draw on quintessential racist political cartoon depictions of Asians. That’s racist, even if he didn’t mean to be. Our understanding of the term changed and companies are adapting to it.
Tyler Wells
Apr 20 2021 at 11:34am
The definition of the word “racist” doesn’t mean what it meant when I first read Dr. Seuss. There was a time that, in order for something to be racist, it had to have an antagonistic or negative connotation. Now it means any depiction of a person of another race that might possibly cause discomfort or be upsetting to someone who shares the race of the character being depicted. In effect, it is a ban on drawing or describing a person who has different characteristics from the author.
Andrew_FL
Apr 20 2021 at 11:55am
I take it neither of you are familiar with Seuss’s career as a World War II era political cartoonist and creator of pro-FDR propaganda-including Pro-Internment propaganda.
JFA
Apr 20 2021 at 12:28pm
Often times “possibly cause some discomfort or be upsetting” and having a “negative connotation” is a distinction without a difference. My general rule of thumb is if it is something that is merely being used to ridicule or in some way disrespect a group of people based on their race or ethnicity or cultural characteristic, it’s probably racist. Does that mean we can’t have cultural humor? No, I think you can engage what might be considered “racist humor” but it usually is not one-sided and denigrating and usually is drawn from deep introspection. Just saying, “Hey… look at those people eating with sticks… they’re weird because they eat with sticks,” is probably properly labeled “racist”.
Referring to white people from the southeastern United States as “those redneck, Billy-Ray-Cyrus-loving, mullet wearing, one-toothed good ole boys” would be in a similar vein as “look at those people eating with sticks”.
TMC
Apr 20 2021 at 4:10pm
I think many Southerners would find offense to ‘redneck’, ‘mullet wearing’, and ‘one-toothed’. Possibly ‘Billy-Ray-Cyrus-loving’?
Very few Asians would be surprised to learn they eat with sticks.
Ghatanathoah
Apr 20 2021 at 2:55pm
Some of the depictions in some of the books are racist or resemble racist caricatures. It is not clear that that is a good reason to pull them from circulation. I suppose you could alter the artwork in the next edition, Seuss already did that himself in Mulberry street, the Chinese man was originally even more of a caricature in the original edition.
But people are acting like it’s possible the images in these books might cause some kind of actual harm. That seems fairly absurd to me, racist imagery seems more like an epiphenomenon of racist attitudes rather than a cause of them. It’s like worrying that reading kids a book about King Arthur will make them want to bring back monarchy. Or that reading them the Wizard of Oz will make them want to bring back literal witch trials.
Floccina
Apr 20 2021 at 4:42pm
The drawing of he white guy who ran the zoo does look like Michelangelo’s David either.
JFA
Apr 20 2021 at 10:55am
I first read Mulberry Street a couple of years ago. I got a compilation of Seuss stories, and it was one of the included stories. The Rajah (who rides the elephant) with curved, pointed slippers and a turban is a bit stereotypical, but the “Chinese man who eats with sticks” is reminiscent of Rooney’s portrayal of Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I read it to my kids once, saw that, then just skipped it from then on.
There are many ways to introduce children to different cultures in a respectful manner, and some Seuss books (I only have experience with Mulberry Street) fall wide of the mark. I mean… I’m not gonna show my kids the Looney Tunes with black people going crazy over watermelon. I also won’t put up with my dad calling people from eastern parts of Asia “slanty-eyed fellas” (yes that actually occurs). Sometimes it’s okay for things to get “canceled”. Some things are better encountered in cultural history classes rather than bedtime stories.
MarkW
Apr 20 2021 at 5:29pm
…but the “Chinese man who eats with sticks” is reminiscent of Rooney’s portrayal of Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
But how would you depict the Chinese man in a line drawing? Can’t draw Asian-shaped eyes (racist!) or European shaped eyes (even more racist!). Can’t include chopsticks (stereotypical & racist!) or a traditional Chinese hat (ditto). Would there be ANY woke way to draw a Seuss-ish caricature of a Chinese man doing a characteristically Chinese sort of thing on Mulberry Street…without setting off the woke alarms?
Ryan McPherson
Apr 20 2021 at 7:10pm
Exactly. It is a bit like banning caricature drawings at the fair. There is nothing inherently disrespectful about accentuating differences, especially in a true melting pot where all people are treated equal. That we are no longer capable of knowing the difference between mockery and the simple pointing out of differences is pathetic, and it inevitably leads to bad results. Keep in mind, also, that mockery is still a-OK if it’s coming from the right people, and directed at the right people. You can say whatever horrible things you want to about Christians and nobody will ever call you a bigot, even if you very clearly are. Listen to black comics talk about white people. It could even be funny, but for the fact that anything even remotely close to putting the shoe on the other foot would be met with intense outrage.
“fairness” and “sensitivity” have now become a sort of parody of themselves, where everyone is forced to walk on eggshells. “Racism” is now defined in such a way that the definition itself is the perfect example of what actual racism consists of. Depending on the color of your skin, you’re automatically considered a racist … and if you’re a different color, literally anything you do is excused.
JFA
Apr 21 2021 at 8:42am
The caricature is not just the eyes but also the imagery that the dude had just come off the rice paddy and is exotic because he eats with sticks. As Ryan McPherson points out, there’s a difference between mockery and pointing out differences. Sometimes there’s a fine line between those things.
But here’s the thing, kids pick up on a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle cues in their environment. If their introduction to Chinese people is the repeated imagery in Mulberry Street (because kids have you read books over and over to them), then perhaps… perhaps… that might skew (at least for a little while) how they see people from another group.
Is it being overly sensitive… man, I don’t know. But kids repeat just about anything said to them and mimic the way adults behave. It’s not so crazy to think that showing a bit of sensitivity to how other cultures are portrayed might be more beneficial than telling people to get over it.
MarkW
Apr 21 2021 at 10:17am
The caricature is not just the eyes but also the imagery that the dude had just come off the rice paddy and is exotic because he eats with sticks.
The book was published in 1937. At that time, many (perhaps most) Chinese were poor villagers who wore traditional peasant clothing. And for most Americans in 1937, seeing somebody eat with chopsticks was pretty unusual (especially right there on Mulberry street!) So, yes, it would have been an ‘exotic’ sight. But so what? I mean, wasn’t that the point of including it in the list of surprising things? And, BTW, watch your racist language — it’s not woke to use ‘exotic’ anymore (the word is being expunged from cookbooks)
JFA
Apr 21 2021 at 11:41am
I think so long as you use “exotic” in a way that denotes something as problematic, it’s still okay. 🙂
I figured you would have dinged me for the rice paddy comment!
All I’m saying is that times change, and if something needs a lot of historical context for kids to understand some imagery or phrases, best to leave it for when they are older.
Plus, why so much focus on these “canceled” books, when Yertle the Turtle and The Butter Battle Book are obviously the ones the kids should be reading anyway.
Ryan McPherson
Apr 21 2021 at 12:31pm
But again, none of this has to be mockery, and it generally isn’t. Kids playing cowboys and indians has always involved stereotypes, but it’s stuff that they find cool. They’re not making fun of anyone.
Consider this- my own kids get a pretty big kick out of the whole “eating with sticks” thing. When we go to a Japanese restaurant, they only eat with chopsticks, and they struggle through it (my youngest always asks the waiter to make him a pair of “trainer sticks”). They think it is awesome, and the waiter loves talking to the kids about his culture. He is proud of those things we find “exotic,” and my kids think it is awesome. That some negative stereotypes find their way into the way we think about other cultures isn’t even necessarily a bad thing. We should think negatively about the way people in the middle east view women. We should think negatively about general attitudes toward human rights in places like India or China. As we grow up and mature, we learn to behave like adults, and we do that by understanding that we treat everyone as individuals (even if many other cultures do not!) and that stereotypes, while true in a broad sense, and often informative, cannot dictate the way we view individuals.
I think we do great harm by overcorrecting and insisting on sameness, and defining virtually all observation of differences as racism, sexism, or some other -ism. I have 2 boys, and the culture tells them that there is no difference between women and men. That is a dangerous trend if they actually believe these things… in our home, we celebrate these differences and point out that it is this actually diversity that makes mom and dad such a great team. And same with cultures. Your friend from China has a lot about him that is “exotic,” just like your friend from Tennessee has a funny accent… We don’t do anybody any favors when we randomly assign to some differences the tag of “racism” while at the same time claiming that “diversity” is such a great thing, that culture is to be appreciated, and so forth… at the end of the day, “be a decent person” is a much harder message that takes longer to teach, but it is far, far better than these idiotic rules of wokeness that we create around everything, based on no consistent definitions or standards, but seemingly arbitrary.
Steve Fritzinger
Apr 20 2021 at 11:08am
I’m surprised you feel into the trap of calling government programs “public goods”. Obviously, you meant that in the colloquial sense, not the economic sense. Still it reenforces the misleading and politically convenient usage.
Matthias
Apr 21 2021 at 6:20am
Where did he call government programs public goods?
I only see him calling political results public goods.
Andrew_FL
Apr 20 2021 at 11:51am
It’s fine to be more personally upset about the Seuss books than the budget, but it’s not fine at all that an entire political party cares more about a few books written by a life long member of the opposite party, and a master propagandist for that party at that, than about being a meaningful policy alternative to them.
Alexander Turok
Apr 20 2021 at 2:47pm
The silence on the budget is likely due to a very simple matter: COVID goodies are broadly popular with the public. Whereas the Seuss cancellation isn’t. Bit I wish they would actually take action on the latter. Reducing copyright terms is an easy one. Another possibility is to pass a law that anyone who attempts to use copyright to suppress the public distribution of material forfeits that copyright. After all, copyright is supposed to incentivize the public availability of creative works, not suppress it. This has been suggested to deal with Church of Scientology, which copyrights its religious materials and then attempts to use copyright law to shut down any “schismatic” attempts to practice the religion outside the official church. Determination would be somewhat subjective, as copyright holders could set the price artificially high and claim to be motivated by profit, judges would have to handle it on a case-by-case basis.
Julian
Apr 21 2021 at 2:01am
Both agree and disagree. On certain issues, it seems that the two parties are converging; among them, immigration, trade, reckless spending. But on others, it does matter which party is in power; for example, red states are much more light-handed when it comes to Covid requirements regarding businesses, schools, etc. than blue states, and this directly affects people’s lives. Same goes for state and local labor regulations, or tax rates and certain regulations on the federal level.
But even with spending and immigration, I think either party is just waiting to have a comfortable federal majority to do something with it.
Regarding immigration, I’m pretty sure if Democrats gained a comfortable majority, they’d pass a new law raising quotas and issuing amnesty to the undocumented.
As to spending, once we get to a point where borrowing becomes too expensive and too much of a drag on the economy, and where politicians are faced with the binary choice of either raising taxes or cutting spending, believe me, you’ll wish Republicans were fully in charge to lean more on the latter than the former. The only reason the GOP doesn’t seem to care about the spending that much is that we’re still not to that point of crisis yet, and they don’t want to be seen to be cutting spending “for no good reason” (as the public would perceive it right now).
Matthias
Apr 21 2021 at 6:23am
People in the different states have different preferences and get different politics.
That doesn’t automatically imply that there’s much of a difference between the parties.
(The common example compares a New York Republican with a Texas Democrat to illustrate that the differences between states often outweigh the differences between the parties.)
Mark
Apr 21 2021 at 8:51am
A debate about whether borders ought to be 98% or 99% closed still becomes the dominant issue in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. What other government policy affects people so greatly? The vast majority of policies, even multi-trillion dollar ones like the stimulus, does not impact people beyond four-figure financial impacts. So immigration is still among the most important issues even though it’s a debate between 98% and 99% closed.
Weir
Apr 21 2021 at 7:22pm
Let’s say you start a Mutual Disarmament Party that’s completely neutral and doesn’t tilt the board one way or another.
A party without clients is at a huge structural disadvantage to all the actual parties that exist and have supporters.
This short-lived liberal party wouldn’t be able to deliver trillions of dollars in bailouts to its supporters. It wouldn’t be able to pay off farmers for having the correct melanin levels. It wouldn’t even be able to protect the president’s son when he gets caught breaking his dad’s laws about guns and then lying about it on a sworn affidavit.
Aren’t gun laws the more perfect example of culture-war trolling? I don’t mean the specific law that Hunter Biden violated, but some recent ban on some piece of plastic that hunters fix to their rifles. I’m fuzzy on the details, like the legislators themselves.
The legislators have people who walk beside them carrying guns, but the legislators don’t personally have any experience of the things. It’s a whole different culture, and they pass these laws without stopping to speak to anyone from their personal security force to find out what all the foreign words are supposed to mean. I don’t know what any of the words mean, myself. It’s all Greek to me, but these Solons quote the language like they know what they’re talking about.
And none of it has any effect on their clients in the murdering community or in the armed robbery community. Gun violence in the cities is unaffected because the point is to troll the woman who can field strip a moose in Alaska.
Or another example. Biden’s Department of Justice has sided with Harvard and Yale in their policy of discriminating against students with Asian-sounding names. So that policy continues but it will be combined with speeches denouncing anti-Asian hate. The Party’s clients on campus get rewarded and the Party’s victims get speeches.
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