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October 21, 2006

Tribalism Strikes Again

In my essay on tribalism a few weeks back, I tried top explain why it is that political change comes so slowly in this country. Much of that comes from the difficulty people have separating themselves from their parties. Once a person has belonged to a group, he tends to develop strong feelings towards that group, generally protective ones since he was part of it. He will also develop strong feelings towards groups hostile to that group, and those feelings are likely to remain with him even after he breaks with the group that inspired them.

That is certainly the case for me. Objectively, there are good reasons for me to dislike both major political parties in this country. They are both heavily statist, and while the particular freedoms they want to suppress vary from the Democrats to the Republicans, the fact is that with either of them in power, I can rest assured that there will be attempts to suppress certain liberties. Yet, even though it has been well over a decade since I called myself a Republican, I still tend to view the Democratic Party more harshly than I do the Republicans. Those feelings were a large part of the reason for my votes in 2000 and 2004: I had no particular brief for George Bush, but I really didn't like Al Gore or John Kerry.

This is not uncommon. Yesterday Glenn Reynolds revealed his vote for the Tennessee Senate seat that Bill Frist is vacating, where Republican Bob Corker and Democrat Harold Ford Jr. are competing to replace him. Although Glenn has seemed pretty warm to Ford, when push came to shove, he voted for Corker.

I liked Harold Ford, Jr. when we interviewed him, and I wouldn't shed any tears if he were elected; he'd raise the caliber of the Democrats in the Senate. But when push came to shove, I voted for Corker. I liked him, too, and ultimately the combination of Ford's "F" rating on gun rights and the sleazy "outing" behavior of the Democrats was such that I just felt I had to vote Republican in this race. (In our interview, Corker said he'd look favorably on federal legislation to require states to recognize each others' gun-carry permits.)

As I mentioned before, the Republicans don't really deserve my vote -- though as Bob Corker hasn't been in Washington that's not really his fault -- but nonetheless the Democrats have blown it again. Not long ago I was thinking that a Democratic majority in Congress wouldn't be so bad; but the sexual McCarthyism from the pro-outing crowd, coupled with the Dems' steadfast refusal to offer anything useful on national security, has convinced me that they just don't deserve a victory with those tactics. That's not Ford's fault, either, really. But I just don't think the Democrats are ready for a majority right now. We'll see how many other voters agree.

Note the phrasing in the first sentence of the second paragraph: "the Democrats have blown it again." While Glenn does have a lot of libertarian instincts, ultimately he identifies with the Republican Party because he believes they are more serious about the war. And because he is in that tribe, he will tend to find reasons not to vote for members of the other tribe. In this case, a deciding factor is the ugly 'outing' of Senator Larry Craig, but I suspect that if that had not occurred, something else would have been sufficient. As Radley Balko notes, while the current round of gay-bashing by some Democrats is certainly despicable [Update: correction, Radley doesn't pass judgement on the issue, he just notes that it is a Democrat and not the Democratic Party doing the outing.], the Republican Party doesn't have a lot of (well, any, really) ground to stand on when it comes to protecting gay rights. Still, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Glenn ultimately went for the Republican; that is, de facto, his tribe right now.

Which is not to say that things will not change. I certainly cling to the hope that the Democrats will take control of at least one house of Congress on November 7, and things do look good over at TradeSports. But the fact is that, because people hold onto their relationships very strongly, it will be a lot harder for the Democrats to win in November than we expect, because a lot of people who might vote Democratic if the past were erased will instead find reasons to vote Republican when the chips are down.