“Anytime emotions are involved, you cannot come up with an impartial and objective assessment of any given problem.” Benigno Aquino III
“The Sixth Amendment secures to persons charged with crime the right to be tried by an impartial jury reflecting a fair cross-section of the community.” Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“There is no such thing as an impartial jury because there are no impartial people.” Jon Stewart
When it comes to my kids and grandkids, I constantly engage in subjective partiality. In my eyes, they can do no wrong. Well, most of the time. But even when they occasionally fall off the pedestals I have put them on, I’m guilty of quickly blowing up my inflated images of them.
I recently listened to David French interview Stephanie Slade, the senior editor of Reason magazine who has extensively covered the New Right, on the Ezra Klein show. The interview rekindled my belief in the importance of impartial objectivity and how it appears we are finding it more and more difficult to achieve. Partiality and subjectivity increasingly dominate our beliefs and decision making.
Of course I believe, with all of my impartial objectivity, that the New Right is far more partial and subjective than those of us on the left. In my mind, there is no equivalency. This post explains why.
According to the research Stephanie Slade has done, the New Right consists primarily of young, white, uneducated, macho men who are angry that elitists are imposing their views and values on them, and, in their minds, denying them the futures they expected for themselves. Think about the demographics of the January 6 insurrectionists. What’s so ironic to me is that the voices they listen to are the elite of the elite. The loudest protagonists of the New Right come from highly prestigious schools as this chart demonstrates:
|
New Right Leader |
Undergraduate Education |
Law Degree |
|
Josh Hawley |
Stanford |
Yale |
|
J. D. Vance |
Ohio State |
Yale |
|
Marco Rubio |
University of Florida |
University of Miami |
|
Ted Cruz |
Princeton |
Harvard |
|
Ron DeSantis |
Yale |
Harvard |
Note that Yale and Harvard educated the “leading” voices.
The maddening experience for those of us on the left is that feelings trump facts. We are trying to present an intellectual substantiation for our positions in a context in which emotions rule. The more eloquent the prognostications on the left, the more enraged the reactions on the right. When the left doubles the evidence, the right doubles down on emotion. Why? Because the New Right essentially sees most decisions as a zero sum game in which every advancement in civil rights or social justice is a setback for them. While the left sees a path to collective growth, the New Right sees a pit of personal take-aways. When the left promotes inclusiveness, the right defends exclusiveness.
How will all of this play out in the 2024 elections? I have no idea, but here’s my attempt at an impartial and objective analysis of the situation.
The problem is that the 2024 election will be decided by about 10% of the people in 10 swing states. The combination of an electoral college that favors minority views, egregious gerrymandering that reduces representation, and aggressive voter suppression that unfairly undermines liberal constituents makes it impossible to predict what’s going to happen with the 10% of undecided voters who will decide this election. Throw in 3rd party campaigns from Robert Kennedy and Cornell West and sprinkle it with last minute revelations about Hunter Biden and bad economic news and you have another disastrous four years . . . . . or more.
The biggest challenge is that the Trump organization has a very effective marketing operation. It has accurately identified the target audience (New Right +), has tapped into their rage and fears, and has positioned Trump as “Your Retribution.” Trump has done a brilliant job of freeing, fueling, funneling, and fighting for his base. He has freed his supporters to unleash their anger, bias, and grievances; fueled their fears and fury with reckless rhetoric and inflammatory lies; funneled all of their emotions (and money) into his campaign; and convinced them (with no evidence) that he will fight for their “rightful” place in society. He has created a cult of personality with the only outcome being The Trump Brand. It’s all emotional. Facts don’t matter. Trump has effectively tapped into the deep undercurrent of fascism that could easily overflow the eroding river banks holding it in. And that’s why we have a problem.
To be clear, the Dems have their own set of issues. They are so wrapped up in their own cocoon of righteousness and liberal orthodoxy that they are unable to wage an effective campaign. They are also struggling with impartiality and objectivity, though not to the same extent as the GOP.
To me, the solution, in addition to building institutional trust and advancing social justice, is to stop intellectualizing, over-identifying and condescending. I’m wondering right now if this post is an example of all three. Yup, habits are hard to change. Most importantly, we need to do a better job of listening to the feelings being expressed, owning our role in those feelings and doing the right thing in the moment. Oh, so simple.
Which brings me back to impartial objectivity.
As Beningo Auino III said, “Anytime emotions are involved, you cannot come up with an impartial and objective assessment of any given problem.” Aquino was the 15th President of the Philippines. During his rule, the economy grew at the highest rate in decades. He was known for creating the Rising Tiger economy and for confronting China on its claims in the South China Sea. He must have been able to keep his emotions in check sufficiently to be impartially objective regarding economic issues and foreign policy. Sadly, he was replaced by Duterte. Ugh.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her typical fashion, noted that “The Sixth Amendment secures to persons charged with crime the right to be tried by an impartial jury reflecting a fair cross-section of the community.” Unfortunately, a less than partial jury replaced her with a Supreme Court judge notoriously driven by subjective partiality.
As only Jon Stewart can express, “There is no such thing as an impartial jury because there are no impartial people.” Nothing like being provocative and blunt. You gotta love him. Sadly, he is probably right. As I shared at the beginning of this post, I plead guilty to being partial and subjective when it comes to my kids and grandkids. When Matt Gaetz somehow gets the biggest microphone in the Republican Party for a moment in time, however, there is no equivalency. Gaetz is the ultimate result of subjectivity and partiality – extreme partisanship and performative emoting.
I recently read the book, The War Came to Us: Life and Death in Ukraine, by Christopher Miller. It was the most objective and impartial view of the war in Ukraine that I have ever read. It was hard. Gruesome reality. Death and disability. Brutality and cruelty. Jarring facts. While it was extremely difficult to read, I believe it represented the truth. We could benefit from an equally honest accounting of what actually happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. Impartial objectivity means we seek to tell the truth independent of the discomfort it might cause.
I’m not sure where all of this is heading, but I’m hoping we can all be a bit more conscious of times when we are less than objective and impartial. And I’m hoping that, in the end, reason prevails. May it be so.
Also published on Medium.
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We’ll done as always Ricky-thank you!