It's The Values Stupid

I'm back from a self-imposed hiatus similar to during the start of the Iraq war. I get tired when all there is politics, politics, politics. Ironically what follows is also political but has a philosophical/theological bent. That's a lot more interesting to me.

Now that the devastating defeat of the Democrats is coming in, everyone is doing a post mortem. So far, I've seen them be almost exclusively issue-oriented. On the other hand, I believe Senator Christopher Dodd nails it.

"On those sets of questions, more than anything else, is where we ended up losing these races," Dodd said in a conference call. He also announced he would not enter a fight to be-come minority leader of the U.S. Senate.

"We better understand that you got to connect with people, not just on issues, but on values as well," said Connecticut’s senior senator, who easily won a fifth term Tuesday.

Dodd, 60, said he was "fearful that we are conceding too much of that ground and assuming that people will vote with us because they agree with us on our plan, but don’t see us as connecting with them on cultural and social and value issues."

You cannot treat values as an issue. Values are above the issues just as metaphysics is above physics in Aristotle. Values are the ousios (essence or substance) of Red State political thinking. Issues are the accidental outworking of the substance of values. You can disagree even violently on the issues but if you have common value systems or worldviews then you get support from Red State America.

So, you can have Cheney and Bush disagree on how to deal with gay marriage and this causes no stir because Red State America is convinced they both value marriage. Also, you get a divide between Bush and Kerry even though their policies concerning gay marriage are almost indistinguishable. This is because Kerry failed to show that he valued marriage. I'll explain why below.

For Blue State America, what is necessary is for the candidate to have the right catalog of issues. Values are doing. Since President Clinton supported the right programs, he was considered virtuous. On the other hand, for Red State America values are defined by who you are. Good works are the outworking of being a good person. To use the Biblical metaphor, a good tree produces good fruit. President Clinton cheating on his wife made him not virtuous independent of the policies he supported. There is no compartmentalization in Red State moral thinking.

So, how do Democrats address this way of thinking?

1. Make sure your value systems are coherent. For example, if you say life begins at conception then the policies you propose need to be consistent with it. It is better to say you believe life begins at birth and be pro choice. This latter view is respected far more by Red State America.
2. Don't impute motives. Assume that Red State America supports a policy because they believe it is right. They support the ban on gay marriages because of supporting families, not out of hate of gays. Because the Democrats didn't understand this, they failed to understand why Kerry's comments concerning Mary Cheney were so offensive. Red State America values families. Kerry attacked a family. It had nothing at all to do with any issue including the gay marriage amendment. It was not political. It was personal. The same thing goes for the Swift Boat Veterans. Kerry offended their honor and never rectified it. That's why this had legs.
3. Don't belittle faith, but leverage it. Democrats treat taxes as an issue. They should treat it as a value. When the Alabama Governor argued that raising taxes was a Christian duty, Alabamans raised taxes. The loyalty of Red State America is to their Biblical values and not necessarily to any particular issue.
4. Avoid worldly sophistication. The worldly part is important. When nuance is used as an excuse for incoherent and relativistic thinking it will be uniformly rejected. On the other hand, if you properly work through a complicated ethical dilemma, Red State America will cut you some slack. For example, when dealing with stem-cell research Bush walked through how he tried to value current life when it conflicted with saving lives in the future. Red State America gave him a pass. The reason was that he confirmed his dedication to the principle of valuing life. Even when he reached different conclusions from those who thought he should have used the exiting lines, he still got a pass. The moral thinking must be without guile and grounded in absolute principles, however. If it reflects relativism or post-modernism it will be dismissed as self-serving "spin".

Democrats are failing miserably on the list above. In fact, they are doing something far worse than just missing it. Because they fail to understand Red State America, they move on to insult it. They call it stupid and simple. They insult the basis for the moral reasoning, the Bible. There is nothing that would necessarily connect Red State America with conservative politics. The reason why conservative politics has resonated is because only conservative politics affirms moral absolutes but wisely leaves the set of those absolutes undefined. Only the conservatives argue tu quoque with Red State America. They start with their values and then argue the policies. Democrats start with the policies and then belittle and insult Red State America for disagreeing with them. No business would ever think of doing this because it is bad business. It is also bad politics.

Comments

[Jason]

I agree with that assessment, but I think that the democrats failed on more levels than just that. On gay marriage and the Iraq war Kerry neither consoled the opponent nor invigorated his supporters. He was no different than Bush in far too many issues. Instead of being John Kerry the leader who was going to lead us into some bright future he presented himself as Bush 2.0. For many people it was same policies different person and party and less experience. No real motivation to change. The only gay vote he got was from people who thought Bush was slightly worse.

He could have explain how he felt gay marriage was a moral right, and I think he would have gotten more support from the population in general than to be against it but not against it strong enough for the gay haters in the south. The democrats who supported gay marriage in Mas. Were all reelected and two of the eleven admin. Against it failed. Call me a helpless optimist, but that was a promising sign. It means that there is at least a kernel of morality left in this country.

I think people respect politicians who have views more than they respect politicians who seem to only listen to polls. I also think that people expect the President to lead and if that means taking an unpopular stance from time to time so be it.