The Super-Angry Left

James Taranto - OpinionJournal.com

The New York Times reports that political polarization is taking a personal toll for many Americans: "People who once feistily shared their convictions about politics now report biting their tongues around--or even completely avoiding--friends and relatives who disagree, trying to avoid fights over the Bush administration and, specifically, the war." Here's one example:

For years, Sheri Langham looked at the Republican politics of her parents as a tolerable quirk, one she could roll her eyes at and turn away from when the disagreements grew a bit deep.

But earlier this year, Ms. Langham, 37, an ardent Democrat, found herself suddenly unable even to speak to her 65-year-old mother, a retiree in Arizona who, as an enthusiastic supporter of President Bush, "became the face of the enemy," she said.

"Things were getting to me, and it became such a moral litmus test that all I could think about was, 'How can she support these people?' " said Ms. Langham, a stay-at-home mother in suburban Virginia.

The mother and daughter had been close, but suddenly they stopped talking and exchanging e-mail messages. The freeze lasted almost a month.

"Finally, it hit me that if one of us got hit by a bus tomorrow, I don't want my final thought to be, 'She supports George Bush,' " Ms. Langham said. They resumed contact, but have agreed not to discuss the administration and the war, or even forward each other humorous political e-mail messages.

What's interesting about the Times piece, as blogger Josh Treviño notes, is that "every person in the piece who actively rejects a friend or family member over politics is a Democrat"--a fact that reporter Anne Kornblut does not specifically note. Treviño observes:

The American left--which we'll posit as synonymous with Democrats here--is sincerely angry, and the anger goes beyond reason in a surprising number of cases. The conservative view of politics holds that it does not encompass all spheres of human activity. . . . There is no sound reason, for example, to reject association with like-minded parents, or friendships with co-workers, or the company of one's own mother, on the grounds of political disagreements. Yet we see emphatic Democrats doing all these things in Kornblut's piece. Why? We can only hypothesize, with the caveat that perhaps, if the tables were turned, Republicans and conservatives might behave the same way toward their family and neighbors--even if, in the last comparable period, from January 1993 through January 1995, it doesn't seem they did.

A core leftist tenet may be expressed in the old feminist cliché, "the personal is political." This gets muddied a bit by the left's predilection for espousing "privacy," as found in some metaphysical emanation or penumbra of the Constitution; but the net--and discrete--effect of this espousal is not a depoliticizing of the "private" sphere. Precisely the opposite: where "privacy" is invoked, it is toward a definite politicized end, be it the legitimization of arbitrary couplings under the rubric of marriage, or the breaking-down of the social structures necessary for the maintenance of a conservative order. In this context, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to maintain relationships with people with whom one disagrees on political or ideological grounds.

There is an internal consistency here, but it's pitiable nonetheless. The spectacle of a grown woman rejecting her own aged mother over their conflicting opinions on the Bush Administration, to take just one anecdote from Kornblut's piece, is at best an affront to piety borne [sic] of a monumental lack of perspective. To borrow a non-leftist parallel, one is reminded of Ayn Rand's furious fault-finding with those who dared disagree with her. . . . But Rand's group was, and remains, essentially a cult. The Democratic Party is not. Or, I should say, it didn't used to be.

Yet if the Democratic Party--or, more precisely, the Angry Left--is a cult, it is a peculiar sort of cult. It is a cult with no leader, only what we might term an "antileader," namely George W. Bush. And it is a cult whose adherents imagine that there is a cult on the other side. As we noted in February:

There is a sort of Newton's Third Law of politics, which was at work during the previous administration as well. People on the left who reviled Bill Clinton's policies in such areas as trade, welfare and capital punishment nonetheless backed him, and supported him fervently when Congress impeached him.

For most conservatives, Bush is not perfect but he is far better than the alternatives that were on offer in 2000 and 2004. Those on the left who look at the right and see blind loyalty for the most part are actually viewing a reflection of their own blind hate.

Roger Simon makes the case for reviving the old idea that it's impolite to discuss politics in social settings. We're not sure we agree; we often enjoy discussing and arguing politics with friends. But it's a delicate matter, requiring both sensitivity and detachment. If you become angry or demanding when a friend or loved one does not see things your way, there is a good chance you will sour the relationship. If this happens, the personal toll may be heavy; the political payoff is almost certain to be nonexistent.