To the Left, to the Left ...

How about if we start out with a bit of Beyoncé ...

A few years ago I came up with the following philosophy about contemporary U.S. politics: Most Republicans are jackasses, most Democrats are dumbasses, and most third-party and independent candidates try to be smartasses. And when you've got a bunch of asses, what they produce is a bunch of crap.

It was an attempt to be pithy, though more recently I'm thinking it may be too crass and generalized. It certainly suggests some things about my own ideological assumptions. That said, I still think there is something to the basic sentiments it's trying to suggest, and I think a recent situation involving Sarah Palin is a good example of this.

Apparently, Palin made a series of attempts on Twitter to comment on the proposal to build a mosque near the World Trade Center site in Manhattan. In the process, she said "refudiate," which is not actually a word. Some on the left have picked this up as a reason to make fun of her, suggesting or implying once again that this is further evidence that she is quite intellectually challenged.

Now, I am far from a fan of Palin. I think she has been embarrassing in her lack of eluctionary abilities, her apparent lack of even fundamental knowledge of things about which she speaks, and her continued use of simple rhetorical constructions that lack merit, consistency, and coherence. So, I can understand frustration that she has become a prominent political figure in this country. On the other hand, I think focusing energy on her use of "refudiate" is silly, petty, and actually damaging.

I make speaking mistakes all the time. Few, if any, people don't. In fact, during the 2008 election, when folks pointed out the many articulation flaws of Palin, many individuals on the right and in the media would then suggest how Joe Biden isn't perfect either, with reference to gaffes he made. This always frustrated me because making speaking blunders here and there differs significantly from consistently being unable to articulate much of anything with coherence. The former is entirely forgiveable as part of being human; the latter is typically a sign of incompetence. Joe Biden, I believe, fit the former; Sarah Palin, on the other hand, has consistently seemed to fit the latter. Perhaps she will improve. She may gain understanding of issues, learn the nuances of positions, and develop her elocutionary skills. Indeed, an appearance with William Shatner on The Tonight Show a while back actually impressed me. In the meantime, I believe that many of her recent statements and comments show that she still has a long way to go.

And this, I think, gets me back to the political philosophy with which I began. That philosophy called Republicans "jackasses" because so many of them seem so willing to use anything to gain and maintain power. They're effective at it, and they can be downright ruthless about it, not seeming to care about the consequences or consistency of the rhetoric they espouse. As conservatives, they also have power already on their side. The rhetorical concept of burden of proof suggests that in a debate the burden of proof lies with the party trying to challenge what is already assumed. Those arguing from what is already assumed enjoy the privilege of resting on that assumption until it is challenged enough to be questioned or overturned. Conservatism, by definition, has this power of assumption, and conservatives today quite readily use it, even when the things they say are ultimately inconsistent and incoherent.

Meanwhile, when Democrats get power or get good opportunities to use power, they screw it up over and over again. While freely admitting that this is tied to my own ideological leanings, I tend to think that the left has better ideas. No one's ideas are perfect, but when weighed rationally and with nuance, I think generally the left's arguments tend to have more depth. Indeed, that's actually something Republicans play up, though in a different way, with anti-intellectual rhetoric about leftist elites. In other words, pointing out logical inconsistencies and articulating nuanced positions become devalued, as if doing these things constitutes a problematic view of the world and a means of oppressing other people. Notice, though, that I say "the left," not "Democrats" when I mention these ideas. Two reasons account for this. One is that I think that for the most part the Democratic party in this country isn't really on the left politically. The second is that many of the Democrats I hear don't really go about making arguments for good ideas or don't go about doing it effectively, so I can't group them here. In other words, they're dumbasses.

Making fun of Sarah Palin seems like another instance in which Democrats and others reinforce that assessment. And, ultimately, I think it plays right into the hands of the likes of Sarah Palin and her supporters. Picking on instances like this provides fuel for Palin to continue to identify herself as a victim of the left and of the "lamestream" media, as she likes to call it. (And, by the way, I would argue that the media does have a liberal bias, as so many claim, but I would add the caveat that it's a liberal bias within what is already a conservative frame, which makes it essentially a moderately conservative bias.) Palin does have a long pattern of consistent inability to articulate herself that suggests a lack of competence. Maybe in some way using the word "refudiate" reflects that, but it's such an easy, everyday kind of blunder to make that I don't think it's a big deal, and I don't think a big deal should be made of it. There are plenty of much more potent examples to use to show Palin's apparent lack of competence that the argument does not need examples like this to make that case. To do so seems like it aids the narrative that she (along with her political advisors) has constructed for herself, and it allows her and her supporters to shift attention from the actual content of her statement, which I think is very problematic and the much more important issue here, to her image as victim of the media and the left.

Palin may be incompetent when it comes to solutions and complex explanations of contemporary social, political, and economic issues. She may be becoming more competent as she is learning more about those issues. She appears to be relatively competent at promotion and public relations, recognizing an audience to which she appeals and finding a way to keep appealing to it. Certainly, both of these types of competence play roles in contemporary U.S. politics. I think, though, engaging more with the ideas she promotes as much as possible would be the much more effective and much more humane path for the left. Perhaps, though, that's the problem with the contemporary left. In Ancient Rome, Cicero called rhetoric the combination of eloquence and wisdom. Perhaps the left needs to learn how to focus more fully on consistently stating any wisdom it has in more eloquent terms to make their statements more impenetrable from the anti-intellectual attacks of the right. Petty squabbling over use of the pseudo-word "refudiate" seems anything but this. Indeed, it makes one look like many Democrats look of late (i.e., like a "dumbass") or look like an elitist who engages in attacks on other people's lack of cultural capital as a means of humoring herself/himself (i.e., like a smartass). And whether it's Palin levelling it against Muslims or her detractors levelling it against her, I'm tired of all of the crap.