Elections

Differences Between Left and Right Political Viewpoints

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A friend of mine writes with the following thoughts, which I’ve edited for readability:

This election is highlighting a lot of the distinction between the way people on the Left and people on the Right think and feel. For the people on the Right, this election is about whether there will be a world war, whether the economy will be ruined, whether the southern border will be secured, what material steps need to be taken so that bad things will be prevented and some positive things happen. It’s about policy being implemented and government power being used in positive ways and not being used in damaging ways.
 
The Left is much more about personality and feelings. Identifying with Harris because she’s black and a woman, and feeling that she in some ambiguous but nonetheless important way represents some vague ideal that people care about. I have a friend whose daughter is voting for Harris, and he asked her why, and she said: Because she’s black and a woman and she’s not Trump; I don’t need to know what her policy views are.
 
It’s a completely different way of looking at the world. Frankly, it’s female, and I don’t like it, and it’s destructive if it’s given political power. The idea of this type of female mindset operating a system where people are arrested or people with guns show up at the door is terrifying. Such a system would be based on arbitrary female sentiments, and gestures of submission, rather than some agreed-on set of rules.

Let the Games Begin

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The ancient Greeks gave us “democracy,” a set of rules for candidates to compete for the right to rule. They also gave us the Olympics, a set of rules for individuals, teams and ultimately countries to compete in athletic events. The Olympics outlawed certain drugs, standardized the technology and separated males from females (historically) due to genetic differences, but otherwise there is no favoritism due to race, ethnicity, family history, country of origin, etc. Medals are awarded only to the top performers, gold/silver/bronze (all formerly used for money). Capitalism is a comparable set of rules for competition among individuals, teams and countries. Technology and management differences are allowed, even encouraged, as all contestants share in it over time. Similarly, capitalist competition is the source of virtually all human improvement for winners and losers alike. The US Constitution uniquely established rules for a competitive democracy and competitive market economy, historically the source of US economic growth.

 

The Olympics is a big business, with a history of scandals relating to kickbacks to judges, host country officials or Olympic Committee Members that corrupts the competition. Similarly, politicians who make the rules for a market economy that show favoritism to particular industries, firms or people, i.e., crony capitalism, is the corrupt antithesis of competitive market capitalism.

 

Competing with Olympic coverage in France, ironically under the French banner of “equality,” is the current political competition for the US presidency, which both sides agree is “pivotal” for democracy’s future, but the democracy spectrum runs from a limited government representative republic on the right to a majoritarian “peoples democracy” on the left. Each campaign accuses the other of hate, fear mongering, political pandering and the usual lies and misinformation (political spin). So far it has been an entertaining tag team mud wrestling match (even these have rules and limits).

 

But for over a century the fundamental economic choice has been between competitive market capitalism and egalitarian socialism, growth versus stagnation. The divide has never been more clear, although the Democratic Party eschews the socialist label. In 2020, when openly socialist Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders appeared a certain victor, the Party pulled the candidate, but adopted his “democratic socialism” platform. Current candidate Harris, similarly anointed, has either agreed with or been to the left of that platform on every issue, recent flip/flops notwithstanding. Their radical distributional “democratic socialism” goes beyond “to each according to his needs” to require “to each equally.” Their production ideology, eschewing state ownership, calls for a fair degree of state control.

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What Happened to Serious Economic Policy Debates?

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Economic policy determines whether economies, and hence citizen real income grows nationally and how that income is distributed. The invisible hand of a market economy guides investment to its most profitable, hence most productive uses. Not so for the heavy hand of the state. The Soviet Union saved and invested five to six times as much as the US, but productivity lagged and the economy eventually collapsed. Taxpayers have some control over “public” investment performance at, e.g., the small private level (condo, coop) but voter influence declines as the distance and size of the governing body increases. Making national investment policy even more difficult is the fact that even highly productive public investment may not pay off until well into the future. While rational economic policy would devolve decision-making and funding to the lowest possible level, the federal government’s lack of a hard budget constraint allows it to fund without accountability. The Constitution’s enumerated powers has proven an insufficient constraint on this perverse political incentive.

 

During President Trump’s term, pre-pandemic, real wages rose steadily at about 2% reflecting the steady real economic growth, but fell under Biden by over 2% due to inflation. Black unemployment and poverty fell under Trump, and continued to fall under Biden. While Trump proposed deep budget cuts, the Congress passed essentially the Democrats’ budget under both Ryan and Pelosi. Trump passed what in the ’60s under Kennedy was called a Keynesian tax cut, now called a “voodoo economics” supply-side tax cut for the rich to spur business investment, that worked essentially as planned.

 

Trump takes undue credit for the good performance during his term, for which the main stream media (MSM) accuse him of lying. Biden does the same, for which the MSM cheers. Independent voters favor Trump over Biden by 45% to 34% on the management of the economy. Numerous Democratic commentators have speculated that voter mistrust of Biden reflects FOX fake news popping up on TV sets uninvited to brainwash unsuspecting viewers.

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Quote of the Day

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“Israel’s strategic game of survival”

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Caroline Glick:

(March 15, 2024 / JNS)
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer’s obscene call for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ouster from power on the Senate floor on Thursday was the latest sign that Hamas’s strategy is working. On the “Caroline Glick Show” this week, U.S. Military Academy professor Col. John Spencer, who chairs West Point’s Urban Warfare Studies Program, explained that the terrorist organization’s goal for victory is a concerted political-military strategy.
 
Hamas, he said, knew that Israeli Defense Forces would respond with force to its Oct. 7 assault in southern Israel. “They wanted Israel’s counterattack, and then they wanted to hold in the tunnels and use the hostages just to buy time for the international community—namely, the United States—to stop the IDF in their operations.”
 
“Their only goal is to survive. … It’s all about time. They want to survive Israel’s attack against them, which gives them immense political power. If they survive in any way, they have strategically won the war,” said Spencer…