A pox on both of your houses

Why I'm not particularly down with either the far left or the far right

But not this one. This is our house, and our house is a very, very, very fine house. It was a long winter, but spring touchups have begun. I love May and June in Idaho.

Writing a column from roughly the center of the political (and social) spectrum has some disadvantages. The first is that those who are dug in on the far left and far right sides of the ideological spectrum don’t much like you. It’s all or nothing with them.

Again, my normal proviso when writing about our current political spectrum. I do not think that liberals (or progressives) are the same thing as the far left, in the same way that I don't believe that conservatives are the same as the far right. I know far too many thoughtful and fair-minded conservatives and progressives for that. Highly principled people on either end of the spectrum can still be aware of what freedom means.

But let’s focus on the extremists. In many ways, quite paradoxically, ideologues despise people who almost agree with them more than those who are clear over on the other side of the ideological spectrum. The far right disparages “rhinos” at least as much as they do liberals. The far left thinks that anyone in their own camp who’s not completely onboard with their evidence-free flights of postmodern fantasy is either stupid, a bigot, a fascist, or all of the above.

In my own (anecdotal) reckoning, about 40% of this country resides near the extremes of the ideological spectrum. Roughly 20%, both ways. These folks are generally unpersuadable because they don’t much care about data, reality, or anyone else. They care only about what they want. They are always dead sure that they are right, and the other 80% of the country that, to some extent, disagrees is not only wrong but morally bankrupt.

You have to, as much as you can, forget about people who are impervious to a persuasive argument. It’s not worth your time trying to reason with a brick wall. You are much better off presenting your case to those who will listen to sound arguments and accept solid evidence. The good news is that those folks comprise substantially more than half of the country. You’ll have your work cut out for you, but the numbers are on your side.

That’s the problem I have with the many nascent, hopeful political movements that attempt to bridge the “partisan divide.” You are not going to get ideologues from the left and right to agree on very much simply because they see the world in fundamentally different ways. Both sides are loathe to move away from what they think is true, no matter what arguments are presented to them.

A couple of years ago, I volunteered to be a state coordinator for one of these groups. One of the first things that I tried to do was facilitate conversations about bridging political divides. To do this, it’s my belief that you have to acknowledge that people have the right to view the world differently than you without moral hazard. It’s OK to disagree, even intractably, as long as you don’t want to obliterate others just because you disagree. Viewpoint diversity is a good thing.

These conversations, conducted via Zoom, did not go well. The deepest that we ever got into one was about five minutes before someone got angry and the name-calling began. I think that this might have taken 10 or perhaps 15 minutes face-to-face. But it would have still happened with this group. Respect for other views is not a strong point for ideologues.

Here’s the more salient issue: Our current binary political system caters to ideologues. If you want to fix the broken political discourse in this country, fix the political system. Yes, I know; now I’m just being plumb silly. But if you want change, that’s where we need to go.

A move in this country to a more parliamentary political system might just cure what currently ails us. Parliamentary maneuvers are what House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) very adroitly employed in getting the recent debt-limit deal through the House of Representatives—a master class in political strategy and tactics.

Kevin McCarthy may be one of the most underestimated politicians in Washington. He survived 15 votes to become Speaker of the House; he’s got a right flank of Freedom Caucus members after him just about as much as the Democratic minority. He has to maneuver in very narrow political lanes. Yet Speaker McCarthy managed to accomplish something that’s not been done by either party in DC in years: to put some brakes on runaway spending. As far as I’m concerned, he’s to be acknowledged and commended for that.

I happen to agree with the Freedom Caucus members who don’t think that the concessions from the Biden administration to raise the debt limit were enough. But politics is the art of what is possible, and a big part of that is compromise. The debt limit deal, while imperfect, is surely a step in the right direction. Take enough of those steps, and you can eventually get pretty darn close to where you want to be.

I, like many of you, am politically homeless. I’m conservative on some issues (like debt, the 2nd Amendment, and government overreach) but liberal on others (separation of church and state, reproductive rights, controlled legal immigration).

Conservatives won’t have me because I think, for instance, that families should make their own medical decisions without coercion from the government or activists. I’m for limited government across the board. I believe in free speech, even when it’s inconvenient. I’m against compulsory ideological indoctrination, be it DEI, ESG, or religion. I’m for agreeing to disagree, “live and let live,” and leaving others alone unless they insist on dragging me into their business.

Progressives, by the way, won’t have me for almost the exact same reasons.

I’m an equal opportunity dissenter from the concept of having my arm bent up behind my back by ideologues using the government as their enforcers. The left and right are both guilty of this. The left is just currently more hypocritical about it.

Two years from now, I think that Florida Republican governor Ron DeSantis has a very good chance of becoming a two-term president who turns Capitol Hill red in the process. DeSantis puts points on the board. If he can get around Trump in the Republican primaries, I think that he will team up with Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) and clean Joe Biden’s clock.

I make this prediction not entirely based on what I’d like to see but on what I think will come to pass.

I generally like DeSantis, and I think that he’s a very effective politician, but I do think that he goes too far in fighting the culture war. I’m not for banning or eliminating DEI, ESG, or any other acronym for social causes. I’m for eliminating only their compulsory components. If these ideas are forced to actually compete with other ideas on an equal footing, I’m confident that they’ll quickly be found wanting and fade on their own. That’s the way it ought to be.

In some ways, ESG is more outrageous than any other facet of wokeness, and I’m actually glad to see DeSantis after it. I’ve sat down with investment advisors dozens of times in my 35-year investing career, and every time that advisor has shown me options for socially conscious investing. A small part of my portfolio is set aside for just this purpose. But I was not coerced; I volunteered to make these investments. I tailored them to my needs. That’s the way it should be.

Every public corporation in America has a board of directors with fiduciary obligations to shareholders. Your job as a board member is to make money for us, not to support your personal social causes. When the Biden Administration recently put their thumb on the scale with regard to this, it was unhelpful, but not, I think, in a permanent sense. I think that the dam currently holding back lawsuits over this is about to burst.

We recently bought an EV because it made sense for us, not because the government is trying to ram these down our throats. You drive what you want. Let the markets decide what makes sense and what does not. People are perfectly capable of sorting things like this out for themselves without any help from ideologues who attempt to legislate laws of physics and economics to support their social causes.

I rant here frequently about the liberal ideological takeover of the media, academia, the government bureaucracy, and many corporate boardrooms. I would rant just as much if conservatives were as successful at doing this, which is why my support for DeSantis is a bit tepid. I think that DeSantis’s principal political value is as a fearless and ruthlessly effective counterbalance to wokeness—something that is very much needed.

My hope, however, is that he’s a bridge to a better place. If the 60% of Americans who are not particularly ideological can ever muster the wherewithal to seize the day, that’d be just fine by me.

Note to subscribers: I’ve been slacking off on videos lately, something that I intend to amend. Spring is busy time here at Chez Hackworth motorcycle, bicycle, llama, and guitar ranch. I’m going to try to do a video with a live chat in a few days. Stay tuned. And again, thank you for subscribing and supporting Howlin’ at the Moon.

Associated Press and Idaho Press Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding bicycles and motorcycles, and arranging and playing music. Follow him on Twitter @MartinHackworth