Although I’m not a particularly sociable individual, I have friends all over the U.S and a few in other parts of the planet. I have friends of various interests and complexions and ethnicities and ages and of both (or all) the genders. Although religion is said to be great divider, and I’m not in any sense a believer, I have maintained rewarding and intimate relationships with people who are regular churchgoers — even with some who are devout beyond ordinary devotion. But there’s one class of people with whom I share no friendships — I have not a single friend who is a Republican.
I don’t that think it’s merely a question of opportunity or proximity. I think that there are such fundamental differences between the way Republicans and Democrats see the world that it’s nearly impossible to create a basis for friendship between the two groups. A while back, we traveled to Bulgaria. There were some thirty people in the group, who, within a day or two, had sorted themselves into two distinct clans. In the bus: Repubs together, Dems together. In the restaurants, same thing. Walking, talking, visiting the museums and archaeological sites — the same. It was a clear case of mutual affinity and mutual repulsion.
There were no overt political discussions, no debates on the issues. What, then, were the cues to which we (and everyone else) responded?
At heart, I think, It’s the difference between those who see the world as necessarily competitive and those who think that it can be cooperative. The crucial sign is the way that people think of money and taxes. As soon as someone started to talk about his money, I became wary. When the same person complained about his taxes, I knew that he was never going to be my friend.
A Republican responds positively to a candidate who announces that he’s going to let people "keep more of their own money in their own pockets." The phrase "your own money" gives me the willies. I don’t think that anyone makes money on his own — he makes it because there’s an enormous public investment over many hundreds of years that has created the opportunity to "make money." Our taxes have supported this titanic effort. I think that the standard of living of many Americans — certainly of those who can afford to travel to Bulgaria — is high enough that they can think about improving the living standard of others, and stop thinking first of their own pockets. People who have enough and yet continue to prioritize their pockets are simply selfish.
It’s the difference between a Hobbesian universe — a war of all against all — and a universe in which competition is no more real than altruism. Republican electioneering is designed to appeal to the worser side of human nature, not the better, the more community-minded side.
Hobbes believed that men were so depraved and competitive that they required authoritarian government to keep them in check. Is that why Republicans are so tolerant of government intrusion into their personal lives? And why they profess liberty but continue to fall in love with simplistic heavy-handed nationalists?
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