Category: Politics

Texas’ power infrastructure collapsed in the face of a winter storm, leaving many Texans in the frigid darkness. Ted Cruz infamously fled Texas in search of warmer climes, ensuring his ongoing success as an ideal Republican politician. You might expect that Texans would have responded to this disaster by addressing the underlying problems. You might, if you did not understand the Republicans of Texas.

During the crisis, the leadership of the state engaged in what seems a standard Republican response to a real crisis: they lied and blamed others. For example, one dishonest talking point was that renewable energy sources were the primary causes of the blackout. This untruth was advanced by Greg Abbott, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and Dan Crenshaw. While the failure was complicated, the facts are clear. First, while renewable energy is part of Texas’ energy infrastructure, it is not the dominate source. Second, even in the case of renewable energy, the problem was not that the energy sources are renewable. The problem was they were not properly winterized. After all, wind turbines are reliably used in Alaska. As to why they lie, the answer is that it works for the GOP. They know that their base does not care about the truth, is in on the lie, or is unwilling to critically assess their claims. They also know that truth would hurt them; so, lying is a win and the truth is a loss. They have no good reason to tell the truth about the Texas power failure, other than to solve a real problem.

While Texas lawmakers took some action, it seems that they did not do enough to address the problems. This also seems to be a general Republican strategy: do little or nothing to address real problems. Given that the blackout was a disaster for many Texans, there is the question of why the leaders did not seriously address the problem.

One reason might be that they forgot that they made the Kool Aid. That is, they now believe their own narrative about the situation and hence are not taking action to address the real problem because they do not believe in the real problem.

A second reason could be ideological: Republicans profess to be anti-regulation (except when they are regulating what they dislike), small government (except for expanding what they like), pro-free market (except when they do not like the results of the free market), and pro-business (except when businesses do things they dislike). A small-government, pro-business, anti-regulation, and pro-free market approach would be to the situation would be to do little or nothing (except offer tax cuts for and government handouts to businesses). As such, they are acting in accord with their professed ideology. Staying the course will mean that they will sail into another iceberg in the future; but then they can lie about it again.

A third reason is that while some businesses did lose money during the disaster (for example, Vistra is estimated to have lost around $1 billion), many companies profited. Macquarie Group made at least an extra $213 million from the blackout. CFO Roland Burns, of Comstock Resources, provided a clear explanation of how his company did so well in what would seem to be a disaster: he said, “we were able to get super premium prices.” The company was able to get such a great payoff from the disaster that inflicted great suffering that Burns said that the devastation was “like hitting the jackpot.” He did have to apologize for that statement later, since gleefully profiting from large-scale human suffering can be bad for the brand.

While companies that lost money during the disaster do have a financial incentive to act, companies that profited would benefit should the situation occur again. As such, they have a financial incentive to maintain the status quo. When an unprepared Texas is plunged into darkness once more, they will hit the jackpot again. This also exemplifies a key Republican (and mainstream Democrat) value: prioritizing short-term profits of the rich over the basic well-being of millions of citizens. But this has been working very well for them in Texas and hence they have little reason to act; aside from whatever concern they might have for the citizens of Texas. Which they clearly lack.

In the context of the war on “cancel culture” Republicans professes devotion to the First Amendment, freedom of expression and the marketplace of ideas. As noted in earlier essays, they generally frame such battles in disingenuous ways or lie. For example, Republicans raged against the alleged cancellation of Dr. Seuss, but the truth is Dr. Seuss’ estate decided to stop selling six books. As another example, Republicans went into a frenzy when Hasbro renamed their Mr. Potato Head product line to “Potato Head” while keeping Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head. In these cases, the companies were not forced to do anything, and these seemed to be marketing decisions based on changing consumer tastes and values.

While I oppose these made-up battles over free expression, I agree with the Republicans professed principles about free expression and the First Amendment. I believe in a presumption in favor of free expression and hence the burden of proof rests on those who would limit this liberty. I go beyond most Republicans and hold that this liberty should also protect employees from their employers. While the Republicans, as I have argued elsewhere, have advanced bad faith arguments about tech companies and free expression, I think the power of corporations and the wealthy to control and dominate expression needs to be countered by the state. I favor free expression even when I disagree with the expression. That is, obviously, what it means to be for freedom of expression. In contrast, Republicans do not seem to believe in free expression (though there are some individual exceptions). Some clear evidence is that Republicans have been busy passing  laws banning teaching critical race theory in public schools and imposing their ideology on higher education using the coercive power of the state to destroy the free market of ideas.

Critical race theory arose in United States law schools in the 1970s and gradually expanded. It is the view that laws, regulations, and values should be critically examined to determine if they have different impacts on different racial groups. Given the truism that people in different groups will often be impacted in different ways by the same thing, this theory seems reasonable. Since it is a broad academic theory, people do disagree about the particulars. Academics is, after all, a place for debate and rational disagreement. Or for ideological conformity, depending on what one thinks of academic freedom.

Critical race theory also contributed to the development of diversity training and has implications across academic disciplines. Being exposed to critical race theory can incline a person towards being critical about matters of race, such as considering how a law might impact people differently depending on their skin color. It can also influence people to be critical about American history and make them less inclined to believe the often-dubious historical narrative advanced by the right. As such, it is hardly surprising that Republicans  worked at “cancelling” critical race theory.

On the one hand, one could make a liberty-based argument in favor of these efforts. Students should have the freedom to choose their own values, so schools forcing students to “affirm, adopt or adhere” to an academic theory would be morally wrong. An obvious reply is that professors are already not supposed to do this to students and a student can justly complain if they are compelled to affirm, adopt, or adhere to the tenets of a theory.  For example, if I started compelling my students to affirm trope theory, then the administration would put a stop to my metaphysical misdeeds. Thus, this sort of law can be seen as another example of Republicans addressing problems that either do not exist or are already adequately handled by existing mechanisms.

On the other hand, there is a reasonable concern that such laws are aimed at banning teaching this theory. This directly conflicts with the Republican’s alleged devotion to free expression, the First Amendment, and the marketplace of ideas. But their actions show they do not subscribe to these principles. Rather they subscribe to the principle that people should be able to express views Republicans at least tolerate and should be prevented from expressing views Republicans do not like. As noted above, the past “cancel culture” examples presented by Republicans are cases where companies made marketing decisions, and no one passed a law to compel them to make these changes. In the case of critical race theory, Republicans use the compulsive power of the state to forbid the expression of specific types of ideas, which seems to be a violation of the First Amendment. Their base generally either does not recognize the inconsistency or does not care. As such, it is a clever move on their part: they can praise free expression out of one corner of their mouth while calling for censorship out of the other corner.

In terms of cancelling mandatory diversity training, it can be argued that this does not interfere with freedom of expression: such training can be offered, but people can opt out.  Having been compelled to take a such training over the years, I am sympathetic to the liberty to refuse training. However, there are obvious problems with allowing people to avoid training. One is that people who need the training might skip it, to the detriment of the school and it is reasonable to expect people to be competent at their jobs and learn the values of the institution. As such, it is not a matter of freedom from mandatory training in general or even mandatory values training, but a very specific sort of mandatory value training, values that Republicans dislike. Arguments can certainly be made against specific types of mandatory value training on moral grounds. For example, if a school mandated that students be trained in fascist values or Western supremacy, then a solid moral case can be made against that. In the case of diversity training, the challenge is to show how teaching people to be tolerant of those they must work, learn, or live with is morally wrong.

In closing, Republicans obviously do not subscribe to their professed principles of free expression, their claimed love of the First Amendment, and their alleged devotion to the marketplace of ideas. If they did, they would not be doing what they do. They would, rather, let the marketplace of ideas sort out the good and bad ideas, something that they always say when they defend ideas of the extreme right. But they are operating in bad faith and disregard their professed principles when it suits them.

In addition to being evil, bigotry also tends to be repetitive. For example, racists and xenophobes have relentlessly claimed that migrants are diseased job stealing criminals. This has gone on so long in the United States that descendants of migrants who were subject to these bigoted attacks are now using them against the latest wave of migrants. Another classic is the “what about the children!” tactic.

The gist of the “what about the children” tactic is to claim that allowing something, such as library books that include non-traditional characters, will harm children. Therefore, it should not be allowed. Since people tend to care about children, this tactic has emotional power. After all, only a terrible person would favor something that would harm children, such as lax child labor laws. While its emotional power comes from concern for children, it also draws from good moral reasoning. After all, if something would harm children, then it would usually be morally wrong under a broad range of moral theories. While using this tactic in good faith is reasonable, it has been weaponized for bad faith use over the years.

Using this method in bad faith usually begins with asserting, without evidence, that something would harm the children. In many cases, the claims about the harms are not only unsupported but false. Naturally, people can make good faith arguments out of concern for children and be mistaken; but that is another matter. Bad faith “what about the children!” arguments are often used to “argue” against expanding civil and political rights or to restrict them.

In the United States, some arguments advanced against women’s suffrage focused on how voting would harm reproduction and harm the children. One odd claim was that women would ignore their children in order to vote, thus doing terrible harm. What makes this an absurd claim is that elections do not happen often, and voting generally does not take long. Obviously enough, women being able to vote did not harm the children.

During desegregation, school segregationists advanced arguments that allowing black girls into the same bathrooms as white girls would expose the white girls to venereal diseases. This was of great concern because venereal diseases were said to be especially harmful to children. This was an absurd argument for many reasons known at the time. One fact is that venereal diseases are not transmitted through restrooms; so such fears were and are unfounded. As bathrooms have been desegregated for a long time and this claim has been thoroughly  disproven. Although, once again, people knew that these claims were untrue when they were made.

Not surprising, “what about the children!” was also used against gay men. My adopted state of Florida was a “leader” in this, and the impacts are still felt today. While gay men were presented as a general threat to children, the narrative was that they prowled bathrooms for their victims. I remember being warned about this when I was a kid and when I moved to Florida as an adult, people still told me to be careful if I used a park bathroom while on a run. But, of course, this was fear mongering. Eventually the idea of the gay male bathroom predator faded, and the focus shifted to how same-sex marriage would harm the children. These claims were unfounded and there is some evidence that children raised by same-sex couples do better in school.

A recent version of “what about the children!” is aimed at trans people. Not surprisingly, the focus was initially on bathrooms: the new imaginary predator of the restroom is the trans person. This was used to “argue” for a slew of bathroom bills. Somewhat ironically, past focus on alleged bathroom threats seems to have reduced the effectiveness of this fear mongering as the prophecies of danger never come to pass. So, the bigots have shifted focus from bathrooms to sports.  Those pushing the new anti-trans agenda profess they just care about fairness and are worried about the children. But, as I have argued elsewhere, they are not concerned about fairness, otherwise they would also be passing bills addressing actual unfairness, such as in wages. They are also not very concerned about the children. If they were, they would be passing bills addressing such matters as child poverty, inequality in public education, and children’s health. They would also be addressing the leading preventable causes of death among children. Not surprisingly, the states that are most anti-abortion and anti-trans also have higher infant mortality rates; yet they do not seem to think about this. One must infer that they do not care about the children, but are just using them as weapons against groups they wish to harm.

The bad faith “what about the children!” argument of the bigots keeps getting reused, often with a special focus on bathrooms. Even worse, while they push bad faith arguments and bills, they do little or nothing to address the very real dangers and problems children face. In some cases, they pass laws and implement policies that are actively harmful to children, as exemplified by Flint, Michigan. I am certainly not claiming that the bigots do not care about their children; but they do not seem to care about the children.

If a person dies in the United States and is not in the care of a doctor, then any investigation into their cause of death will probably be conducted by a medical examiner or coroner. To qualify as a medical examiner, a person must be a physician and are often board qualified in forensic pathology. In contrast, most states have only two qualifications for coroner: they must be of legal age and have no felony convictions. Coroners are often elected while medical examiners are usually appointed.  The editors of Scientific America have argued in favor of eliminating coroners in favor of medical examiners. While I do agree with their position, this matter is worth considering within the context of political philosophy.

From what seems to be a neutral standpoint, the editors are correct. If the job of the death determiner (coroner or medical examiner) is to correctly determine the cause of death, they should be experts. This would require adequate medical training and a lack of bias. But it can be argued that this standpoint is not neutral. After all, this position is based on a value judgment about what the death determiner should be doing. By the standards of other values, the purpose of the job could be different. This can be illustrated by considering two value laden contexts: COVID-19 deaths and deaths caused by law enforcement.

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump and his fellows responded in accord with their lack of interest and lack of competence: they downplayed and lied. With some notable exceptions, the right chose to politicize the pandemic to isolate and energize their base. They also weaponized the pandemic against minorities, women and the lower economic classes. Honest and accurate reporting of COVID-19 deaths would have undercut the downplaying and exposed the lies. As such, it makes sense that the undercounting of COVID-19 deaths was greatest in pro-Trump areas of the country.

While medical examiners can be politically biased, the fact that coroners are often elected entails that they would often match the ideology where they are elected. Hence, pro-Trump areas would tend to have pro-Trump coroners who would tend to conform to the right’s position on the pandemic.

For those who see the proper job of the death determiner as advancing their political goals, then the death determiners should be elected coroners, preferably without medical training. This is not to say that medical examiners cannot be politically biased, just that having a favorably biased coroner is more likely than having a favorably biased medical examiner.

There are, however, two possible problems with this approach. The first is that favoring coroners would allow the left to elect left leaning coroners. The second is that death determiners who lack medical training are likely to do worse at their jobs when determining the true cause of death is necessary and political agendas are not a factor. As would be expected, those concerned with correct determination of cause of death will disagree with this approach and argue that objective and competent medical examiners are critical to protecting society from harm. The second illustration is deaths involving law enforcement.

One concern that has been raised about coroners is that they can be too closely linked to law enforcement and in some cases the coroner can be a law enforcement official, such as a sheriff. Those who think that the proper job of the death determiner is accurately determining the cause of death tend to think this is a problem and would prefer to have a medical examiner who is independent of law enforcement handle cases involving deaths caused by law enforcement. The reason is that such death determiners (be they coroners or medical examiners) can be biased in favor of law enforcement. They might even be inclined to lie about the cause of death to protect law enforcement. It is due to such concerns that families who can afford to pay for an independent autopsy or forensic examination often do so in cases when a relative is killed by the police. There is the reasonable concern that a forensic examination conducted by someone associated with law enforcement or who is otherwise biased will not be accurate. The George Floyd case provides an example of how this can occur. While replacing coroners would not completely solve this problem, it would be a step forward. Those who believe in just and fair policing favor this approach based on this value. But there are clearly those who hold to other values.

For racists and those who benefit from racism, having the death determiners biased in favor of law enforcement is advantageous. Having medical science serve white supremacy is a common practice and advantageous to the white supremacists. As such, they would see the purpose of the death determiner to assist in maintaining the existing order by classifying deaths in ways that protect the police. As such, the proper job of the death determiner is a matter of value. Those who value truth, public safety and justice will want death determiners who are competent and unbiased. Those who value the triumph of the white right will favor death determiners who are biased in their favor.

With a few notable exceptions, Republican politicians backed Trump’s big lie about the 2020 election. Now that Trump is back in office, the big lie has faded into the background. While most Republicans did not deny that Biden was President, they were reluctant to say that Biden won the election. They also used the big lie to “justify” passing new restrictive voting laws. As such, they claimed the election system was badly flawed and needed extensive fixes. Yet Republican politicians (other than Trump) did very well in 2020 and Trump won in 2024. All this leads to a logical problem for the Republicans; so, it is fortunate they seem immune to logic.

In a democracy, the legitimacy of an elected official depends on the legitimacy of their election. To the degree an election is flawed, its legitimacy is undercut. For the sake of argument, let us assume that the Republicans are right: the election system of 2020 was deeply flawed and allowed for widespread voter or election fraud. The flaws were so severe that extensive changes were needed to correct this deeply flawed system. This does entail what most Republicans professed: the legitimacy of the election and Biden’s presidency would have been in question. Let us also suppose that things are as bad as some Republicans claimed: there was so much fraud that the 2020 election is completely illegitimate. This would also call into question previous elections using the same flawed system. At this point, things would seem to be going just as the Republicans wished. And it would be if we stopped here and ignored what this entails.

If the election of 2020 and earlier elections were illegitimate because of the flaws that elected Republicans were attempting to fix with their restrictive laws, then it would follow that Republicans elected under that flawed system would have been as illegitimate as Joe Biden. After all, if the defects of the 2020 election sufficed to take away Biden’s legitimacy, then they would suffice to take away the legitimacy of Republicans elected in that election and earlier elections with the same defects. This would entail that the Republicans who passed laws to restrict voting are illegitimate and that citizens are thus under no moral obligation to heed their illegitimate laws. And now the dilemma.

If the Republicans claim they are legitimately holding office, then they must assert that the elections were legitimate and thus the restrictions they created are not necessary. The elections worked properly, and such extensive changes are unwarranted. This does not mean that the system cannot be improved, just that there is no justification for the “fixes” they are imposing on non-existent problems. But if they are legitimately holding office, then the elections went as all the evidence shows: correctly and securely. Hence their claims about the election are false and their “fixes” were not justified.

To use an analogy, this is like a victorious athlete claiming the system they are competing in is and needs to be fixed because the real winner of the biggest event was denied victory. And, at the same time, they say that their victory in that system was legitimate, and they should be the ones to re-write the rules of competition.

The obvious counter is to claim the Democrats were behind it all and hence the Republicans are legitimate. The easy and obvious reply is that there has been no evidence of widespread fraud and Trump and his fellows fared exceptionally badly in their lawsuits. And  things did not go well for the conspiracy theorists. There is also the fact that if the Democrats were engaged in rigging the election, they would have rigged the election, and the Democrats would have done much better in 2020.

While it would be morally irresponsible to do, the left could have claimed the Republicans were the fraudsters. Interestingly, this has more plausibility than Republican claims. First, the Republicans did very well in the 2020 election, so a conspiracy theorist could claim it was rigged by Republicans to get rid of Trump while allowing Republicans to do well down ballot. After all, while Republicans are backed Trump, they almost all expressed loathing for him before he won in 2016 and he was a deeply unpopular president. But the fact that Trump won in 2024 would undercut both the hypothetical liberal conspiracy theory and the actual Republican big lie.

Second, leftist conspiracy theorists could also point to the fact that Republicans are a numerical minority and should have done worse in a fair election. 49% of adults 18 and older claim membership in or leanings towards the Democratic Party. In contrast, only 40% identify as Republicans or Republican leaning. I don’t think this is true; Republicans hold office disproportionately to the electorate because of things like voter suppression and gerrymandering rather than other forms of election fraud.

Third, it is Republicans who have been accused (with evidence) of or caught committing fraud. In Wisconsin, 10 Republicans were accused of committing voter fraud. North Carolina also featured an interesting election fraud case involving a Republican. While a conspiracy theorist could use a hasty generalization or anecdotal evidence fallacy to “argue” that Republicans are committing widespread fraud, that would be absurd. While Republicans do seem to be the ones most likely to be engaged in fraud, these cases are still extremely rare, and the perpetrators are caught.

Obviously, I think that the election of 2020 was legitimate within the context of the established system. But this legitimacy entails that there was no need for the Republican laws restricting voting, aside from their desire to win elections. Again, they are in a dilemma: if the election was illegitimate and their laws are needed, then they are illegitimate and lack the right to make laws. If the election was legitimate, then there is no need for their restrictive laws.

While it is tempting to think of politics as the art of lying, I content it works best when done in good faith. This is based on my conventional political philosophy. As would be expected, I accept that the legitimacy of the state rests on the consent of the governed. As thinkers like Locke and Hobbes have advanced better arguments than I can provide, so I simply steal from them. When it comes to consent, I agree with Socrates’ remarks in the Crito. For a person to consent to the rule of the state, they can neither be deceived nor coerced.  People must also have the opportunity to provide this consent; in a democracy (or republic) one means of providing consent is by voting and this is why easy and secure voting is essential to the political legitimacy of a democratic state.

Lying in politics undermines legitimacy. If people make decisions based on lies, then they are not providing consent. After all, their decision might change if they knew the truth. For example, consider the election lies advanced by Trump and his followers. While many people are going along with what they know is a lie (and thus consenting), there are some people who support voter restrictions only because they believe the lies. If they knew the truth, they would not consent.

The obvious counter is to argue that all that matters in politics is winning. While this does have some appeal, it rejects the notion that legitimacy depends on the consent of the governed. Which is something too many politicians have accepted.

Like Locke and many other thinkers, I also accept majority rule. Once again, I defer to the arguments offered by Locke and other thinkers. Because of concerns about tyranny and oppression, I also accept the notion of rights against the state aimed at protecting people from the dangers of majority rule. Naturally, I also largely agree with J.S. Mill on the danger of the tyranny of the majority: each of us needs protection from all of us to enjoy our liberties and rights.

Majority rule requires good faith, since voting is a matter of consent and requires an absence of fraud and force. If rights and liberties are to be protected against tyranny, then honesty is required. If, for example, a politician lies about the negative effect of their bill on free expression, then their law could be accepted due to this fraud. This would make the law doubly bad; it would be accepted based on fraud and would harm to the rights of citizens. This, as one would suspect, is why those who want to restrict liberty and rights lie about their intentions and the consequences of these restrictions. For example, Republicans in Florida have passed an anti-protest law by pitching it as an anti-riot law. This law seems to infringe on the First Amendment, but I am not a lawyer. Morally, however, it is wrong because it is aimed at suppressing free expression through the threat of coercion.

I also agree with Locke’s that the purpose of the state is the good of the people. While there is debate about what the good is, this notion does require good faith in politics. While not all interests are morally legitimate, everyone has legitimate interests that need to be considered when determining the good of the people. While this entails that we are obliged to listen when people state their interests, it also entails they should be honest when doing so. One reason is that if someone lies about their political interests, then consent cannot be given as their fraud precludes it. Another reason is that a false interest is not a real interest. So when a person lies about their interest, they sabotage the process of achieving the good of the people. After all, the rest of us cannot consider a person’s interests when they are lying about them.

As would be expected, people often lie about their interests when they think others would see them as wrong or at least unreasonable. While it can be difficult to sort out a person’s true political interest, the usual test is to examine their actions. For example, various states rushed  to pass anti-trans bills that politicians claim are based on their interest in fairness in sports. While fairness is a laudable interest, there is the question of whether these Republicans acted from this interest. The easy way to check is to investigate the laws. What can often be more telling is to look at what they have not done. For example, Republicans in Florida claimed to support their anti-trans bill based on an interest in fairness, yet if they really cared about fairness for women then they would have, for example, ratified the ERA. As such, their profession of an interest in fairness would seem a lie. Rather, their interest seems to be signaling that they also hate and fear trans people. Obviously, if they presented their real interest in good faith, that would make them look terrible. Which is why they do not operate in good faith.

Being honest about the facts is also important in the context of interests. After all, if the alleged facts are lies, then consent is not possible. Also, if lies are advanced to support a political interest, then that interest will not be supported. One example of this is the big lie advanced by Trump and his fellows about the election. While Trump and his fellows do have a legitimate interest in the election, the claims of widespread voter fraud are untrue. As such, Trump tried to serve his interest with lies. To tie it all together, I will now turn to a non-political analogy.

Imagine that Doug, who loves meat, is on a softball team with the vegan Karen. After a big game out of town, the team is going out to dinner. Karen loathes Doug and wants to “own” him by making his dinner as awful as possible. Karen knows that if she is honest about this, some people on the team will not vote with her. So, she is careful to conceal that and just says she wants what is best and fair for everyone.

Karen knows that the Angry Carrot restaurant is completely vegan, crazy expensive, and serves microscopic portions. It also does not serve any alcohol. Karen knows that her teammates want large portions at a good price, that many of them like meat, and that most of them want alcohol. So, Karen lies about all this. She says the prices are great, the portions huge, there are many choices on the menu and that the beer will flow like water. She neglects to mention that Doug’s ex-girlfriend will be there as well, singing in the band Meat is Genocide for the entertainment of the vegans.

To ensure she wins, Karen also makes sure that the vote is conducted while those who would vote against her are absent. The team members present vote based on Karen’s lies and she wins. The team arrives at the Angry Carrot and many of them are dismayed by what they find: vegan only fare, microscopic portions, high prices and no beer. Doug is also shocked when his ex-girlfriend jumps up on the table and screams “meat is murder!” at him and then breaks out into a song about how meat eaters all go to hell.

While some of the team grumbles, Karen’s buddy Tucker reinforces her lies. He gushes about the diverse options on the menu, says that the portions are huge and amazingly cheap, and tells everyone that the water is beer. Some teammates, who also dislike Doug, go along with the lies since “owning” Doug makes it all worthwhile. A few teammates believe Karen and Tucker and somehow getting drunk on the water. Doug and most other teammates have a terrible time and when they complain, Karen and Tucker point out that they voted to go here. When Doug points out that some people were kept from voting and that Karen lied about everything, Karen replies that “elections have consequences”, and that Doug should go along with her otherwise he is dividing the team with his hate. She adds a bit about Doug being woke and then accuses him of trying to cancel her. Disgusted, Doug leaves in search of beer and BBQ.  While this has been great for Karen, it has been awful for Doug and bad for most of the team. Bad faith in politics works the same way.

Since the United States has only two major parties, each includes people with very different political philosophies. For example, Harris differs greatly from Bernie Sanders. The Republican Party has become more ideologically homogenous, but it also contains some degree of diversity. Although the anti-Trump Republicans have been assimilated or purged.

Some might be tempted to dismiss concerns about political philosophy as misguided, perhaps due to a broader view that all philosophy is useless. One might dismiss political philosophy by asserting that politics is a practical matter of deals, power, money and lies, so philosophy is pointless here. But such a view, that the practical is all that matters, is a political philosophy and usually a simplistic one.

Politics is a construct of the human mind and built from and upon ideas. As such, even the simplest version of politics requires a political philosophy. At the very least, a justification of authority is needed, even if it is based on the philosophical view that “might makes right.” Those engaged in politics also need to have goals and means to achieve them; this requires considering values and weighing them. Even if one just focuses on the simple goal of power, that is to have a political philosophy.

While some people are honest about their goals and methods, politicians are notorious for professing laudable principles that they do not believe or are willing to jettison in favor of what they value more. As such, sorting out the political philosophy of the Republican party using their words will certainly result in an erroneous understanding of their real political philosophy.

Both parties profess to embrace the political philosophy of the founding fathers. When they wax philosophical, they have sometimes referred to thinkers such as John Locke. Sometimes they accuse each other of subscribing to extreme philosophical views, such as Marxism, anarchism, and fascism. In some cases, these accusations hold true.

While the Republican Party has long engaged in efforts at voter suppression, the triumph of Trumpism saw the party embrace the big lie of widespread election fraud. They used this lie to push laws aimed at restricting voting and this is an explicit rejection of democracy in favor of securing power through non-democratic means. One could argue that this is consistent with traditional values, at least the tradition of Jim Crow and other anti-democratic efforts over the course of United States history.

Traditional American political philosophy has emphasized the importance of loyalty to the Constitution and the country, as opposed to obedience to a specific person. While the United States has seen some cults of personality in the past, Trump has shaped the Republican party into the party of Trump. Now one rises or falls within this political system based on one’s usefulness and fealty to him. Thus, the Republican party has embraced an anti-democratic authoritarian political philosophy with both their words and their deeds.

Republicans typically profess to embrace a traditional conservative political philosophy, and the current party does act on some aspects of that philosophy. However, pressures have revealed large cracks between their professed views and their actions. A good example is the traditional Republican philosophy of business. This has manifested in lower taxes, free market capitalism and deregulation. However, when corporations have acted in ways contrary to the interest of Republican politicians, then Republican leaders have been quick to condemn these corporations and threaten them with regulation. A good example is Mitch McConnell’s past threats against businesses that opposed Georgia’s effort to cease to be a democracy. McConnell made it clear that he wants corporations to stay out of politics, except for being in politics by making campaign contributions. These “cancellation” threats might seem ironic given that the Republican party’s major focus is on fighting “cancel culture.” But, as I have argued elsewhere, this is not a battle for free expression—it is merely another example of made-up grievances used to energize the base with lies. If the Republican party was truly in favor of free expression, they would not have booted Liz Cheney for making true claims about Trump’s lies. These actions show that the driving political philosophy of the Republican Party is that what matters is power, and they should use any means necessary to acquire and hold that power. Beyond that, all their professed principles seem to serve merely to mask this core principle.

One could, however, point to the Republican Party’s focus on transgender people as showing their principled commitment to conservative values. Republican state legislatures are rushing to pass anti-trans bills, with a major focus on athletics. While Republicans are professing that they are motivated by fairness, this claim is absurd on the face of it. After all, if they were truly concerned with women being treated fairly, legislatures would ratify the ERA and pass laws addressing the array of inequalities women face. But one could take this as advancing traditional values, at least values from a certain tradition.

Fairness requires that I admit that trying to reconstruct a Republican political philosophy from their words and actions is problematic. After all, I am biased and an outsider. What is wanting is a professional political philosopher on the inside who can honestly and clearly lay out the current political philosophy of the Republican party. Surely there must be someone who can step up to that task.

Back when it appeared that being pro-democracy was good for business, companies  such as Coca Cola, Delta and Major League Baseball condemned Georgia’s restrictive voter laws and some even took action by taking their business out of the state. This angered Senator Mitch McConnell and he warned corporations to “…stay out of politics.” Unironically, he hastened to add that this does not include political contributions. This statement exemplified the Republican view that corporations should be paying politicians to do politics for them and not doing it themselves.   

McConnell went on to threaten corporations, asserting that they were acting like a “woke parallel government.” While Republicans advanced the narrative that the out-of-control left was pushing cancel culture, Republicans urged consumers to boycott these companies to pressure them into changing their behavior. They also called for state legislatures to punish these companies using the power of the state.

Some might accuse the right and McConnell of being inconsistent. On the one hand, this does have some plausibility. After all, when the right attacks what they call “cancel culture” they profess to value free expression and contend that the left is acting wrongly by coercing corporations into doing their bidding. Alternatively, they accuse the corporations of being woke and imposing their values on others and thus presumably imposing on consumer choice by restricting or changing products. But McConnell was explicitly threatening corporations with the power of the state. Republicans profess to accept that corporations are people, that they thus have free speech rights, and that money is speech. As such, this violated their professed principles: they were the ones trying to cancel free speech. McConnell also explicitly advanced two inconsistent views: corporations should stay out of politics while making political contributions.  But that is impossible: campaign contributions are political by nature.

It is interesting to compare this past situation with what happened to Tesla. After Elon Musk set out in apparent ignorance and malice to chainsaw the government, Tesla became the target of boycotts and even sabotage. While the right has famously boycotted “woke” companies, Trump claimed that the boycott was illegal and essentially did a commercial for Tesla.

On the other hand, if one ignores the surface rhetoric of the Republicans and McConnell and attempts to sort out their likely principle, then the inconsistency is dissolved. McConnell’s core principle seems to be that corporations should do what benefits McConnell. Engaging in political speech that opposes the Republican agenda of voter restriction was contrary to McConnell and Republican interests, so they threatened corporations to “cancel” their speech. Corporate contributions to McConnell and his fellow Republicans serve their interests, so they wanted the money to keep flowing. Corporate contributions to the Democrats also help the Republicans as Democrats who accept corporate money act in the interests of these corporations, which is what Republicans usually want.

The Republican party has shifted from a traditional pro-business approach to focus more on appealing to the Trump base and this has put them at odds with corporations. But one should not be tempted to think that the Republicans are going leftist and becoming pro-worker and anti-business.

The left has historically been critical of corporate involvement in politics for a variety of reasons. One is that corporations have great economic power and court rulings have enabled them to translate this directly into effectively unlimited political power. The other is that corporations tend to use their economic and political powers in ways that are detrimental to what the left professes to care about such as the environment and people outside of the top 1%. The left has, however, learned to adapt to this corporate power. Some people have figured out that they can influence corporations through consumer pressure and thus, somewhat ironically, sometimes get corporations to support what the right would tend to see as leftist, such as maximizing citizen participation in elections. It is not that corporations were taken over by woke leftists; they were simply keeping an eye on the bottom line: they rely on consumers for their profits and need to ensure that they present the right brand and products to maximize profits. Because most Americans were not on the far right, appealing to most consumers sometimes made corporations appear to be on the left in some ways.

But, as I have argued in other essays, these corporations are do not have leftist policies that would harm their bottom line. Corporations focus on profits and act accordingly. We did not see, for example, Amazon embracing unions. We did not see McDonald’s rushing to raise workers’ salaries and benefits. As such, the alleged wokeness of corporations was mostly just marketing and branding. If they were truly leftist, then they would not have operated as they did. That said, these corporations have done things that Republicans saw as contrary to their interests.

I do partially agree with McConnell: corporate influence in politics needs to be reduced. McConnell gets this when he is the one being harmed. But my view is based on a broader principle: I am not solely concerned with the harm to me; I am concerned about the general harm. When corporations acted in ways McConnell liked, he was happy to allow them unlimited expression. But if they expressed views he disliked, he was quick to threaten to “cancel” them for exercising the powers the Republicans gave them. McConnell’s solution was for the state to use its coercive power to threaten corporations into acting as Republicans wish. But this does not address the underlying problem: corporations have disproportionate power, and this is corrosive to democracy. Reducing that power would still allow the corporate rulers to express themselves, but it would allow others to use their freedom of expression more effectively. As my usual analogy goes, corporate America has a stadium sound system to blast its speech while most citizens are limited to trying to yell over that blast. So, we should not “cancel” corporations, but their power needs to checked and balanced.

Big corporations possess incredible economic power and many on the left are critical of how this power is used against people. For example, Amazon is infamous for putting such severe restraints on workers that they sometimes have to urinate in bottles. Thanks to Republicans and pro-corporate Democrats, laws and court rulings (such as Citizens United)  enabled these corporations to translate economic power directly into political power. This is also criticized by many on the left and they note how the United States is an oligarchy rather than a democracy. This political power manifests itself in such things as anti-union laws, de-regulation, and tax breaks. With the re-election of Trump, America has largely abandoned the pretense of being a democracy and rulership has been openly handed to the billionaire class.

In the past, Republicans favored increasing the economic power of corporations and often assisted them in increasing their political power. This might have been partially motivated by their pro-business ideology, but it was certainly motivated by the contributions and benefits they received for advancing these interests.  As such, it seemed odd when Republicans started professing opposition to some corporations. Social media and tech companies seem to be the favorite targets, despite the efforts of their billionaire owners to buy influence with Trump.

While Republicans profess to favor deregulation and embrace the free market, they were very angry about social media and tech companies and claimed  these companies were part of cancel culture.  I do understand why they are so angry. For years, social media companies profited from extremism—including that of the American right and it must have felt like a betrayal when they briefly took steps to counter extremism. While the narrative on the right is that these companies became woke or that out-of-control leftists took control, this was not the case. These companies acted based on pragmatism focused on profit. When Facebook changed its policy once again in response to Trump’s election, that was also pragmatism. Zuckerberg wants to make money and avoid prison.

Just a few years ago, extremism had damaged the brands of these companies, and they were under pressure to do something. There might have been some concern that their enabling extremism had gone too far. While they were accusations that they had gone “woke” their business practices revealed that they are not woke leftists. For example, Amazon is virulently anti-union, and Facebook is hardly a worker’s paradise. And now they are eager to appease Trump, although he has excellent reasons to ensure that they remain afraid of what he might have done to them.

Republicans did have pragmatic reasons to be angry at these social media and tech companies for acting against extremism and enforcing their terms of service. First, a significant percentage of the right’s base consists of active extremists, and they are very useful to Republicans. Second, the Republican party relies heavily on “moderate” racism, sexism, xenophobia, and intolerance as political tools.

One could argue that such people are not racists, they are just very concerned that brown people are illegally entering the United States to commit crimes, steal jobs, exploit social services, vote illegally, spread disease, and replace white Americans.  One problem with these views is that they are not supported by facts. Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes. While the impact of migration on the economy is complicated, the evidence is that there is a positive link between immigration and economic growth. The old racist trope of diseased migrants is untrue; in fact migrants help fight disease. And, of course, the replacement hypothesis is an absurd racist hobgoblin.

Interestingly, Paul Waldman makes a solid case that Republicans want critics to call their policies “racist” and this is part of their plan. As he notes, “…they know that their political success depends on motivating their base through a particular racial narrative…” If Waldman is right, then it can be argued that the tech companies were helping the Republicans at the same time they were hurting them. After all, while the tech companies “purge” of social media did hurt the right, it also handed them a victimization narrative that they exploited to activate their base. With Trump’s re-election, social media and tech companies have essentially surrendered to him, although one might argue that they are happy to go along with him.

In addition to racism, the right also uses disinformation and misinformation in their political battles. As noted in other essays on cancellation, the cancel culture narrative of the right was built largely on disinformation. At best it is based on hyperbole. The right’s response to the pandemic was also an exercise in disinformation and misinformation. And, of course, the biggest disinformation campaign was the big lie about the 2020 presidential election. This lie was the foundation for nationwide efforts to restrict voting access, most famously in Georgia. Since Republicans rely extensively on these tools, it makes sense that they were angry about social media companies “cancelling” their lies and that Trump set out to capture these companies after his re-election. Trump understands the power of propaganda and its critical role in his power.

While the Republicans did so for narrowly selfish reasons, they were right to be critical of the power of the social media and tech companies as these companies present real dangers. As I have argued elsewhere, these companies control most mediums of expression available to the masses. While they are not covered by the First Amendment, their power to limit free expression is concerning as they can effectively silence and amplify as they wish.

Leftists have long argued that this gives them too much power, and the right agreed—at least when it involved their very narrow and selfish interests. But the right wants social media to be a safe space for racism, sexism, xenophobia, misinformation, and disinformation. As such, while there is a very real problem with social media, the solution cannot be to simply let the far right do as they wish as they would simply spread hate and lies to advance their political goals. This is not to say that the left is composed of angels; harmful activity and lies of the left also need to be kept in check while allowing maximum freedom of expression. As always, there must be a balance between the freedom of expression and protecting people from harm.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MarkZuckerberg-crop.jpg

Back in the last pandemic, the right was busy with their eternal manufactured culture war. Manufacturing this war often involves using hyperbole and lies. Some years ago, the right was outraged about  Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head. The right claimed Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head were cancelled by the left. In my adopted state of Florida and other states, the right has been active purging school libraries and managing educational content to ensure it is ideologically acceptable. It is, one must infer, only cancellation when the left is accused of doing it.

As I noted in earlier essays, Dr. Seuss’ books have not been banned. While the right’s narrative around Dr. Seuss implied that popular books such as the Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham were cancelled,  the reality is that Dr. Seuss’ estate chose to stop publishing six books because they  contain illustrations that “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.” These books seem to have been  poor sellers and most people seem unfamiliar with them.

Politicians and pundits on the right generally did not focus on these six books, and instead mislead the public by implying either that all Dr. Seuss books had been cancelled or the popular books had been cancelled. For example, Ted Cruz sold signed (by him) copies of Green Eggs and Ham and raised $125,000. He claimed that this was strike back against cancel culture. While Cruz has a history with that book, it is not one of the six books that the estate decided to stop selling  making this a bit of absurdist political theater.

At the time, the right was clever to not focus on the six books that were taken out of print. Some of them do have racist content and at the time explicitly defending racist content would have been less than ideal.  However, the right’s base gets the message: the right has not rushed to battle censorship in general, such as efforts to get books removed from libraries. Instead, they focus on defending what seems to be racist and sexist content.

There were also good reasons to use the popular books as their examples: “cancelling” Green Eggs and Ham would be absurd.  By lying, the right can claim that “the left” is crazy and out of control. To use an analogy, consider Coca Cola’s decision to stop manufacturing Tab. Imagine someone wanted to make that into a culture war issue, but realized that most people do not care about Tab and Tab sales were very weak. So instead of talking about Tab, they held up cans of Coke and Diet Coke, implying that these sodas had been “cancelled” despite being readily available. Imagine Ted Cruz selling signed cans of Coke, claiming that he will use the money to strike back against cancel culture. The same thing happened with Dr. Seuss: the estate stopped publishing their version of Tab but are still selling their Coke and Diet Coke.

As I have argued before, when companies change their product lines it is usually because they think doing so will increase profits. If the “radical left” controlled companies to the degree the right claimed, they would use that power in more meaningful ways, such as forcing companies to improve wages, benefits and working conditions. As such, the idea that the out-of-control left is abusing hapless companies is absurd. Now, onto branding.

Some years ago, Hasbro decided to change the Mr. Potato Head brand to Potato Head. Mr. Potato Head and Mrs. Potato Head are still available and sold under those names. The company did make the statement that “Hasbro is making sure all feel welcome in the Potato Head world by officially dropping the Mr. from the Mr. Potato Head brand name and logo to promote gender equality and inclusion.” There is no evidence that Hasbro was subject to coercion or forced to make this decision.

Some on the right claimed Mr. Potato Head had been cancelled but were not clear about what they meant. Some seem to have meant that Mr. Potato Head would no longer be manufactured, which was not true. Others might have simply been angry that Hasbro changed “Mr. Potato Head” to “Potato Head” while maintaining the Mr. and Mrs. versions of the toys. On the face of it, this seemed to be a silly fight: a toy company slightly changed the brand name for a toy line while retaining the toys. A deeper look reveals that it was, in fact, a silly fight.

But from a political standpoint, this was a clever move: by misleading their base about the facts, they generated outrage against “the left” and distracted them away from the fact that the Republicans seem to have little in the way of policies or interest in engaging with meaningful problems. They also do not need to do anything: there is no problem to solve, no results to achieve. There is just an opportunity for unfounded outrage that will feed the base until they can find a situation suitable for manufacturing pointless outrage.

Corporations changing their products and brands does not appear to create any meaningful problems  as they are simply changing to maximize their profits. Consumer tastes and values change over time and that is what happened then and what will continue to happen. There was nothing sinister going on in these cases, no problem to solve, no need of state action. The right is simply manufacturing a problem where none currently exists, other than the “problem” that consumers change over time.