The Way A Conservative Strategist Thinks About Politics

Conservative Rick Wilson, author of the 2020 book, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--and Democrats from Themselves, argues that democrats don't know how to campaign. In an interview with Trevor Noah, Wilson asserts that he is strongly anti-Trump. He argues that the GOP no longer exists because it has been corrupted and lost its bearings as the party of small government, individual liberty and constitutional government.[1] Wilson is a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an effort to defeat the president in 2020. He characterizes GOP members of congress who support the president as “liars and cowards” who are afraid of the president and have “given themselves over to a cult.”

Democrat's inability to campaign 

Wilson criticizes democratic candidates as incapable of running an intelligent, effective political campaign. He says that over a period of 30 years, he and other conservatives like him built “a very smart, very sophisticated system to wreck the hell out of democratic candidates, and we did it all over the country.” He asserts that over the 20 years before the president came to power, their system took about 2,000 seats from democrats in state legislatures and congress. That success was built on being better able to do ‘root politics’ and running very tough ads in support of GOP candidates who fit their locality. Those candidates were not all hard core Evangelical conservatives.[2]

Wilson argues that democrats require ideological homogeneity[2] and try to win arguments, while republicans try to win elections by not caring how the win happens, including coming right up to the edge of what is legal. Republican campaign tactics include (i) not saying what’s on a candidate’s mind when it is inconvenient, i.e., deceiving the public, and (ii) don’t make ideological promises based on detailed plans. Democrats say things that scare a lot of people, e.g., medicare for all, so they lose elections. When there's a long policy paper, Wilson hires people to go through it and find all the things that will scare people. Then he runs attack ads based on the scary things.

Wilson says it is far better to wear a hat that says build the wall than it is to put out a white paper describing how to build it. That rings true. Obama had his Hope and Change and millions of people read their own meanings into what it meant as needed.

Exactly what is Mr. Wilson saying?

Given his history as a master of conservative republican political attack ads riddled with dark free speech,[1] what Wilson seems to be saying is something about like this: “Holy crap! We've created Trump the monster and have lost control of it. We never thought conservative politics turn in this direction and corrupt the fundamental anti-government, anti-tax and regulation utopia we were building. We didn't mean for our lies, deceit and sleazy smears and lies to lead to this mess. We wanted our own kind of mess where we had control, not where the looney-toon Trump had full loose cannon power and subverted the whole radical libertarian right ideological shebang. WTF!!! . . . . Democrats help us regain power!”

I believe that is more or less just about what Wilson is saying. Of course he cannot say it that bluntly or honestly, but he made his tactics and complaints perfectly clear: Win at all costs, the ends justify the means including lying, deceit and illegality and those liars and cowards should belong to us, not to Trump.

In adroitly side stepping his own culpability for helping to create the monster, Wilson walks a very fine line with polished expertise. He isn't the only conservative to has expressed regrets at their role in the rise of the monster. Some others on the right who for years fomented disrespect, distrust and contempt for truth and logic have come to see the soil they worked so long and hard to work turned out to be the home for Trump brand incoherence and hate instead of the home for Wilson’s own radical extremist brand of disciplined ideology and hate.

What should democrats do, if anything?

If Wilson is right, democrats should stop talking about details of policy so that Trump minions have fewer scary policy statements to misconstrue and attack them with in 2020. Instead, they should limit their policy statements to what can fit on a baseball cap, e.g., Make America Great Again or Hope and Change. There's nothing scary in any of that. Stay the hell away from details and just say positive, uplifting things like, “No New Taxes”, “America First!”, “Gimme  More!” or “Impossible Burgers for All!” that will fit on a baseball cap.

Oops, we forgot the herbicide

Of course, it’s too late for that. Democratic policy statements are already out there. Even if they are retracted, they will still be used to win hearts and minds in endless attack, smear and scare ads in 2020. The beauty (ugly?) of the monster that Wilson and other conservatives created over the decades is that attack ads can be based on absolutely nothing real at all. Attack ads can be 100% fabrication and still be legal and effective. The political soil that conservatives worked so hard to till and fertilize is the perfect place for stink-cabbage like Trump to grow. They forgot to make some herbicide in case of a political emergency. Oops!

What about pragmatic rationalism?

More importantly than concern for democratic candidates, is the questions raised by what Wilson’s obvious intelligence and professional experience reveal about the human condition and politics vis-à-vis pragmatic rationalism. At this point, a refreshing quote from two political scientists seems appropriate:

“. . . . the typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field. He argues and analyzes in a way which he would readily recognize as infantile within the sphere of his real interests. . . . cherished ideas and judgments we bring to politics are stereotypes and simplifications with little room for adjustment as the facts change. . . . . the real environment is altogether too big, too complex, and too fleeting for direct acquaintance. We are not equipped to deal with so much subtlety, so much variety, so many permutations and combinations. Although we have to act in that environment, we have to reconstruct it on a simpler model before we can manage it.” Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels, Democracy For Realists: Why Elections Do not Produce Responsive Governments, 2016

That’s sobering, to say the least. Evolution didn’t give us enough data processing bandwidth to deal with politics rationally, especially in the stink cabbage-friendly soil that Wilson and his colleagues created. That’s not a statement of stupid. It is a statement of biological and behavioral fact. Don't forget, Wilson’s soil is heavily and constantly fertilized with copious amounts of dark free speech (win at all costs, the ends justify immoral means). It is unfair and unreasonable to accuse people of being stupid, when they have very little help in wading through a pitch black cesspool full of dark free speech and alligators.

Also sobering are the tactics and political system that Wilson helped develop in the process of blowing about 2,000 democrats out of office over 20 years. Both Wilson and Achen and Bartels suggest that pragmatic rationalism cannot work, at least under the current political circumstances that Wilson helped create. Achen and Bartels correctly say that people have much mental baggage, i.e., cherished ideas and judgments that are fact- and logic-resistant. Wilson accepts this biological-social truth and deals with it by telling candidates to shut up and just put their policies on baseball hats. 2,000 dead democratic candidates backstops Wilson’s advice.

Things look bleak for team Dissident and its vaunted pragmatic rationalism. They are up against Wilson and colleagues and the constantly fibbing, constantly golf-playing president (86 out of 365 days at a golf club in 2019 🥴)they helped bring to power. It’s time for team Dissident to put on their rally hats with a suitable positive message, e.g., “Hey! I’m not lying”.

Questions

1. Do things look bad for team Dissident with its star player pragmatic rationalism?

2. Does this OP miss the mark in describing what Wilson’s politics are like, and instead he advocates something different and much more positive?

3. Is it too late for democratic presidential candidates to back off the wonkiness and go with the baseball hat strategy?


Footnotes:
1. Concepts such as small government, individual liberty and constitutional government are all essentially contested. That means they mean what is in the minds of individuals or groups of like-minded people and disagreements cannot be resolved by facts, truths or logic. Resolution usually comes about by compromise or coercion-force, but very rarely by minds changing to come into mutual agreement.

Wikipedia: Essentially contested concepts involve widespread agreement on a concept (e.g., "fairness" [also, small government, individual liberty, constitutional, etc.]), but not on the best realization thereof. They are "concepts the proper use of which inevitably involves endless disputes about their proper uses on the part of their users", and these disputes "cannot be settled by appeal to empirical evidence, linguistic usage, or the canons of logic alone".

2. Those assertions are confusing to me. The GOP has been herded into a little tent and ideologically cleansed by years of RINO hunts, while democrats are like cats meandering in their big tent in all sorts of directions.

3. Dark free speech: Constitutionally or legally protected (1) lies and deceit to distract, misinform, confuse, polarize and/or demoralize, (2) unwarranted opacity to hide inconvenient truths, facts and corruption (lies and deceit of omission), and (3) unwarranted emotional manipulation (i) to obscure the truth and blind the mind to lies and deceit, and (ii) to provoke irrational, reason-killing emotions and feelings, including fear, hate, anger, disgust, distrust, intolerance, cynicism, pessimism and all kinds of bigotry including racism. (my label, my definition)