Win the Argument

“First you win the argument, then you win the vote”
–Margaret Thatcher

Victory made conservatives weak. Somewhere around the Republican victories of 2002 and 2004, and probably renewed by the 2010 midterm elections, conservatives suddenly felt a false affirmation of their beliefs from the electorate. Then? We stopped reading. We stopped learning. We stopped thinking. We stopped winning. The electorate no longer responds to our arguments because we’re making arguments that persuade us, not arguments that would persuade others. There are many examples, but the one I want to point out here is the “but that’s unconstitutional” argument that I’ve been hearing nonstop for five years.

Conservatives hold the Constitution as sacred. That’s how conservatives are, we like to preserve the old order. There’s nothing wrong with that, but we must understand not everyone holds the old order as sacred. Liberals don’t, that’s basically the definition of a liberal ["someone who does not hold the old orders as sacred] and a majority of the remainder don’t either. [Libertarians generally uphold the Constitution as an expression of their values of Liberty and limited government, not because they have any notions of sacredness]

When making an argument, you have to consider your audience first. This is essential. People are interested in how you intend to make the world better for them. Think about the gun debate. Most of my conservative friends are focusing on the “it’s not constitutional” argument, but that’s a really bad argument to make when people are thinking about little elementary school kids being gunned down by some wacko. Liberals are directly speaking to those concerns by suggesting they have the magical power to remove all instruments of evil in the world. Conservatives can address the concerns of millions of parents and win this argument. It takes a man with a gun to stop a man with a gun. It’s very simple. And we have empirical evidence on our side, gun ownership has skyrocketed in recent years, but crime and murders and the like have not. Guns are neutral. Wayne LaPierre was right when he suggested we should put armed guards or police in every school. That would basically end the ability of an armed gunman to kill scores of children. It would be expensive, and there’s some concern this would be another step toward a police state, but at the very least it addresses the concerns of people more worried about their children than some piece of paper.

Personally, I prefer allowing teachers with carry permits to have their pistols with them at school. Heck, I’d even support a marshal program, where some teachers are given heavy background checks, given lots of tactical training, then are made federal agents (in a very limited sense) who are allowed [and expected] to confront a school shooter directly, with their sidearm. [They don't have to be federal agents, I'm just modeling this on the airline pilot "Flight Deck Officer program]

These are just examples, my primary point is think about your audience and win the argument. Politics really can be just that simple.

It’s not the diagnosis, it’s the prescription

Something liberals are great at is pointing out problems. Inequality, potholes, global warming, murder, pain, suffering, illiteracy, debt (when their guy isn’t the one causing it), etc. The world is never quite good enough, there’s always something that could be better. And this is fine, there’s nothing wrong with this, and if you’re a reader of the current evolutionary chic, you can see this is a necessary component of natural selection. (Liberalism and conservatism both provide evolutionary advantages and disadvantages, which is why both forms of survival persist.)

It’s not the liberal penchant for diagnosis that frustrates me, it is the predictable liberal prescription. “Let me guess, the problem you noticed needs to be answered with more taxation, a regulatory body and obedience. I’m so surprised.” There’s no creativity, just linear thinking using the two or three tools available to the leviathan state.

Take global warming. There’s scientific consensus that temperatures have gone up and that there’s some human component to this process. There are consequences to this process, both good and bad. The real concern is the process might continue indefinitely, and this might result in some catastrophic result. But there’s little consensus on if or whether or when any of this will happen. Therefore, the liberal mind suggests a worldwide carbon tax at a cost of ten trillion dollars (or more) to the world economy, effectively shutting down all economic growth across the world and spreading the ills of poverty into places where it hasn’t existed in many years. And we need CFL bulbs, that will save us too.

It’s downright stupid. (If you’re interested in some real solutions on global warming, read the final chapter of Superfreakonomics (discussed here) or the book Cool It by Bjorn Lomborg).

Conversely, what frustrates me most about conservative commentators is the absolute denial of the diagnosis. Over the last four years, I have seen conservative pundits consistently deny the ills of poverty or the problems with our healthcare system in this country. This lack of engagement is very unhealthy, since conservatives have, because of our skepticism of the state and our knowledge of the dangers of unintended consequences, the inventive solutions that can make the world a better place.

(If you don’t believe that statement,at the very least you can probably believe that a conservative is much more likely to say “has anyone done a cost-benefit analysis on this?”)

I believe, as a reader of the current evolutionary social-psychological chic, that conservatism and liberalism are complementary systems that need each other.  I’m just foolish that way. Liberals are at their best when they’re not treating their ideology as a religion, and conservatives are at their best when they engage in a meaningful way.

Related articles

• Global Warming: It Causes Everything! (powerlineblog.com)

There is no future, apparently II

First, read this article in its entirety: Can Republicans be saved from Obsolescence?

So, can the GOP be saved?

The short answer is, of course. Nature abhors a vacuum, and a political system dominated by a single party will soon collapse. Something will happen to create a balance; it might be a resurgence of the old GOP, or the creation of a third-party, or a thousand years of darkness. Whatever. Most likely there will be some rebranding as the GOP learns to deal with the rising Latino population and popular antipathy toward social conservatism.

There is a broader issue in the article, and that is the fact the conservative movement, particularly in the Republican Party, does not take care of its own. There is no effort being made to create new leaders in the GOP. If anything, the effort is to keep fresh blood out of important posts. The people under 40 who understand the new electoral paradigm are being sacrificed to the old guard that destroyed everything the Reagan movement created.

It’s something I’ve experienced personally. I was an “activist” (I word I now hate) at college and shortly thereafter. Among the people I knew on the right, very few have progressed professionally in the political world. But among my counterparts on the left, almost all of them were able to find regular employment in left-wing political movements. The progressives are serious about expanding the talent base and letting new people into leadership positions. Republicans are not. And that needs to change.

It was clear to me that in 2012 the only candidate in the Republican Party that attracted young people at rates higher than “token” levels was Ron Paul. And this makes sense, the form of conservatism most attractive to young people is more libertarian and economic based. Ron Paul’s attitudes on war are also more attractive than the “when in doubt, go to war” attitude of the hawkish neocons. Many of the leaders in the Ron Paul campaign were younger, and there were many opportunities to move “up” and take on more responsibilities.

I’m not suggesting a personality cult will be the future of the GOP, but there are other lessons to be learned here moving forward. If we so choose to learn them.

Don’t Watch Political Speeches

I was a political addict for a very long period of time, and one of the symptoms of political addiction is watching every POTUS speech. From about 1995 or so through around the end of Obama’s first year in office, I watched every State of the Union speech, plus whatever other speeches and press conferences I could.

It was a total waste. Could I tell you anything about any of those speeches? No, with the exception of Bush II’s “Hear all of us soon” speech at Ground Zero. Otherwise, nothing. Political speeches, especially in America, approach the theoritical limits of vapidity.

The State of the Union of especially insipid. Anyone can produce a laundry list, throw in some glittering generalities and enjoy the applause of the sycophants who belong in your party. Antonin Scalia gets this right, don’t watch, don’t bother with the State of the Union. I take this even further and tend to avoid paying any attention to the rhetoric of any politician, regardless of party. And this has changed my life for the better. I feel just as informed as before (I still read the news, as long as it has some substance to it) and I don’t feel any pressure whatsoever to let some suit-wearing confidence man sell me intellectual smegma.

Government Rule by Statistical Studies

David Brooks, NYT columnist, has been writing a lot lately about statistics and all the studies being churned out by social and psychological researchers. And, based on an earlier column of his I read this year, he is going to spend a lot more column space on these topics in the future. He is just one member of a growing movement of data-based-decision makers, or “quants”, who intend to use statistics in every corner of their lives, and subsequently in every corner of ours.

There are plenty of reasons to oppose this sort of philosophy from the libertarian or conservative perspective. The lack of freedom and destruction of tradition in the name of statistics is still upheaval and oppression, even if it’s supposedly good for us. It hurts seeing this from a guy like Brooks, who is from the right and with whom I agree more than disagree, but I admit the idea of a “statistically perfect” life is alluring to some, including me. While the “philosophy of data” might help us in our understanding of why we behave the way we do, we need to tread carefully, it’s not all that effective. And the more you use “studies” to try to make changes in the real world, the less effective it will be.

One of the studies Brooks’ cites in his column was research showing changing the shape of a glass can get people to drink less while thinking they drink more. It’s basically an optical illusion, but the study showed people who used very tall and narrow glasses consumed less than a control group using standard glasses, but they (the tall-glass people) ‘felt’ they had consumed more liquid than they actually consumed. And the liberal fascist immediately thinks “hey, we should make a law saying all carbonated beverages should be consumed in these tall and narrow glasses, certainly this will end our obesity problem.”

It won’t, because these little effects disappear at the macro level, over the longterm.

I used statistical evidence for a long time as I tried to gain control over my weight. I knew the research and did my best to use small plates (a study showed people eat less when using small plates), I never allowed myself to be distracted while eating (another study), I took smaller bites (another study), drank a big glass of water before eating (another study), always ate breakfast (another study), and did some other things that were supposed to help me control my eating. And none of it worked, because my body knew how much it was eating, even if my brain thought I was eating enough because my plates were small and I always waited 20 minutes after eating before having a dessert.

The research I was using was fine, it wasn’t fraudelent, it’s just the effects found in those studies didn’t have staying power. Most of the time these studies are done over very short periods of time (it should be obvious the tall/thin glass effect and the small plate effect weren’t going to undo a billion years of evolution telling us to eat as much as we can now because tomorrow we might not have any food); it’s common sense, but common sense is the first thing lost when using data to make decisions about your life.

I’m not saying data is bad or that the studies are meaningless. But I am saying that studies try to control all the factors to find an effect, but it’s impossible to control all the factors in the complex system (real life) where you’re going to try to enact the changes you found in the study. Life is complicated, lab research is simple. It’s as straightforward as that. Use data when you can, but understand its limitations. (What’s truly ironic is you have to be very statistically savvy to understand exactly why you should skeptical of every new ‘study’ that’s thrown around the popular press, but that’s a topic for another post.)

We’re going to see more of this in the future. Why? because it works. People feel better about anything when the “science” label is put on it, and the left has now claimed the “science” ground even though they have no more claim to it than anyone else (it doesn’t help that some conservatives have abandoned science to the left, to the detriment of conservatism.) The best cure is to learn as much about the scientific method and as much about statistics and probability as possible. Science doesn’t belong to any political movement, and no more than a few decades ago statistics was considered a “right-wing” way of looking at the world because it was devoid of liberal values like compassion. If liberals can have data and keep their values of compassion, there’s no reason why conservatives can’t embrace the same while still adhering to our values of tradition and freedom.*

[One interesting area where statistical research has changed my life is shopping. I once read research showing that if a person touches something, they are much more likely to purchase the item. I try to be frugal, so every time I touch an object while shopping, I reflect on this research and re-evaluate whether I really need the object. I even made a rule, if I touch an object and I don't absolutely need it, I put it back. Sometimes I come back on another trip and buy it, but not normally. From the opposite side, whenever I'm selling something (I normally work retail), I always find a way to get the customer to touch the object.]

*Yes, I know there’s tension between freedom and tradition, but it’s not as severe a divide as some people would like to think. Again, a topic for another post.

Postscript:

From where does the word “Statistic” originate? Wiktionary says:

“From German Statistik, from New Latin statisticum (“of the state”) and Italian statista (“statesman, politician”). Statistik introduced by Gottfried Achenwall (1749), originally designated the analysis of data about the state.”

So we shouldn’t be surprised, and in fact it’s been a common force in left-wing thinking, that statistics will be used as a rational for growing The State. Statistics, both real and otherwise, will always be used to help The State in its growth into the leviathan.

Where did everything go wrong?

Just as my liberal friends are on a high, my conservative and libertarian friends are on a low, particularly in Minnesota.

In reality, we right-of-center folks shouldn’t be too depressed. If you look at elections as four-year cycles instead of two-year cycles, the electorate actually shifted to the right since 2006/2008. Most people seem to forget there’s a natural difference in turnout between midterm and presidential elections. So we should never compare the 2012 result with the 2010 result, we need to compare presidential elections with presidential elections, and midterm elections with midterm elections. So, between the midterm elections of 2006 and 2010, there was a dramatic shift to the Republicans. And, despite the fact Romney lost in 2012, Obama’s margin of victory was significantly smaller in 2012 than it was in 2008. Right now, just from a historic standpoint, the Republicans are favored to take the Senate in 2014, so all is not doom and gloom.

That said, the last six years of political history have shown us a Republican Party completely ill-equipped to discuss political issues in a realistic and compelling way, to win important elections, or to form winning coalitions to push policy (at least on the national level). The first step towards a cure is simple: fresh blood. The Republican Party is going through a long cycle where  one generation is being replaced by another, and this is always uncomfortable. It’s also necessary. The new political landscape is not one concerned about communism (here and abroad) nor are we talking about going to the moon anymore or whatever people worried about before Reagan. The conversation has changed, and new people are necessary to communicate not only that there are the “permanent things” of Russell Kirk, but that the permanent things are still permanent even in a secular world of irreligious people who spend a lot of time playing Angry Birds.

The second step is just understanding where we went wrong. Here are some of my ideas:

- Forever War; one day the Republicans are openly criticising President Clinton for sending troops into the Balkans, and six years later Republicans are openly defending two major land wars in foreign countries. War is part of The Fall; war is unavoidable, but war does not need cheerleaders or blind allegiance. Conservatism should always be about a “return to normalcy” and not about revolutionary changes and nation-state experimentation.

 - Willingness to lose elections; the Tea Party is wrong.Losing is Losing. How losing became so popular, I will not understand. Losing on principle is still losing. I don’t care if it’s losing in Delaware, or losing in Michigan, or losing in Colorado. Picking a bad candidate over a good candidate because of, what in reality would be, a difference of a few votes each session is stupid. And stupid is the quickest way to losing. And losing is for losers.

- Mexicans are our friends, immigration is good. Seriously. Becoming obsessed about what is in essence a bureaucratic issue (“hey, you forgot to put a cover letter on your application for a work visa”) may have permanently damaged conservatism in this country. Hispanics are the fastest growing demographic in the country because America is awesomer than the alternative. Our goal should be to keep America awesomer, not get freaked out about whatever it is about Mexicans the immigration-obsessed losers get freaked out about.

- Gay Marriage; regardless of your particular view on the subject, gay marriage is the cause de jour of the Millenials. Using gay marriage as a GOTV tactic in the aughts was a mistake since the issue will be used the same way in the teens. Our best hope is for activist courts to strike down gay marriage bans so we can all get on with our lives.

Of course, I may be wrong.

Related articles

• A Very Early Look At The Midterms (dish.andrewsullivan.com)
• Forecast projects small Democratic gain in House in midterm election (sacbee.com)
• Borger: The new GOP reality show (cnn.com)
• Democrats Unlikely to Take Back House in 2014 (politicalwire.com)
• GOP’s Obsession With Guns Stands To Drive Women Vote In The 2014 Election: Poll (tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com)
• Republicans Push Hispanic Recruitment Amid Immigration Rifts (bloomberg.com)

Personal Update

I’ll be taking a bit of a break after the election. My pWP stat did great, it was over 94% accurate in predicting the races where I was keeping track, and that’s a higher percentage than the model itself would expect. The model only failed to be predictive in races where there wasn’t regular polling (North Dakota). I’m hoping to write a long and detailed analysis of the 2012 election and codify all the lessons I learned in using pWP to create a guide for future elections. But I’m going to start a new job here very soon, so I may not get to any of that at all. There will be a few posts on here, from time to time, but for now I have some other big projects to get to. I’m still working on the final draft of a novel, which should keep me plenty busy. Thanks everyone for your interest in my pWP stat, I hope my Republican friends learn to embrace polling as another tool in winning future elections.

Related articles

• Nate Silver: Obama’s big win doesn’t mean the 538 guru is an electoral genius (slate.com)
• Republican Rick Berg concedes to Democrat Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota … – Washington Post (blog) (washingtonpost.com)
• Nate Silver Went 100% on Election Day: Super Accurate Statistical Analysis or Luck? (dailyfinance.com)

One Last Little Graph…

Ohio and pWP Graphs

Obama pWP: 52%; Ohio pWP: 73%

Anything in the 40-60 range is a tossup as far as pWP goes, so I can’t predict who will win the popular vote. However, Ohio is strongly leaning in Obama’s direction. Romney has to win Ohio and one other swing state, so I would say there is a one in eight chace Romney wins. Again, this is just based on polling data. I have a gut feeling Romney is going to do better than what the polls are suggesting, but I can’t quantify that.

Here are a bunch of graphs and tables: