Why We Don't Shoot Back

Drew Westen [1] and Mike Lux [2] both have cogent and persuasive posts up that deftly explain — and raise the alarm about — the timidity that's recently settled into Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Sen. John McCain's shooting live rounds now; and, as usual, the Democrats are refusing to fire back. If that doesn't change — this week, before the Olympics starts — this could all too easily turn into Dukakis-all-over-again.

Progressives have been picking at the whys and wherefores of this pattern ever since Adlai Stevenson lost to Eisenhower. (One of my favorite explanations came from Paul Rosenberg, who dug into the psychology of both sides in this excellent series [3] last year at Open Left.) But there's one fairly simple and glaring factor that I'm increasingly convinced plays at least some role in this — and since I've never seen it discussed anywhere else, I'm going to propose it here.

We've all got our short lists of books that changed the way we look at things forever. One of the ones I keep going back to is Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America [4], published in 1989 by Brandeis historian David Hackett Fischer. Fischer's basic argument -- which he supports with a weighty and richly researched sociological survey that runs to 700 pages plus another 200 pages of footnotes -- is that most of America's most enduring cultural and political conflicts can be traced back to essential differences between the first four groups of English settlers, who brought four very different worldviews with them, and set deep patterns that continue to influence America's identity and choices to this day.

To quickly summarize, the first of these groups were the Puritans, the bulk of whom arrived in New England between 1630 and1650. They were Reform Protestants who brought with them a notion of "ordered liberty." They believed that government authority, including the right to use force, properly belongs not to individuals, but to communities; and that individuals would necessarily need to conform their will to that of the larger whole for society to succeed. In the generations that followed, their descendants spread Puritan culture across the northern tier of the county, into the Pacific Northwest, and down the West Coast to northern California. These are, today, still the most liberal parts of the country.

They were followed, starting in 1660s, by Cavaliers -- Anglican royalists from the south of England who took refuge from the English Civil War by settling up the Chesapeake and the coastal south. They believed that liberty and authority rightly accompany tradition, wealth, and inherited social status; and that government had no right to infringe on the God-given absolute "freedom" of the highest-ranking people to order the lives of those under their authority. If you're poor, you don't deserve freedom. If you're rich, you have a sacred right to do whatever you see fit to whomever you please. The lowland South is still dominated by traditional, hierarchy-oriented Cavalier values, from tidewater Virginia all the way around to New Orleans, and remains one of the most conservative parts of the country.

In the 1670s, the Quakers began arriving from England's industrial midlands. They were working class and middle class, earnest, hardworking, and nonviolent. The most productive and successful of all the British immigrant groups, they introduced the ideas of tolerance and racial and gender equality to the American conversation. For them, people were entitled to freedom to the degree that they were willing to grant the same freedoms to others -- a perspective that gave them a very expansive view of human rights. They valued a rough-and-tumble party politics that engaged everyone in political debate to solve problems. Their ancestors (most of whom eventually converted, and became Methodists or Baptists) spread out across the Midwest, where the plain-spoken, plain-living, deeply egalitarian Quaker way still flavors the culture.

And, finally, in the early 1700s, the Borderers (more commonly known as the Scots-Irish) started arriving from the borderlands of northern England, lowland Scotland, and northern Ireland. The area they came from had been a constant war zone between English and Scottish kings for some 700 years; and the never-ending violence had made them clannish, tough, fiercely independent, contemptuous of all forms of authority, and firm believers in a vision of "natural liberty" -- including the God-given rights of man that were eventually enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Philadelphia Quakers and Charleston Cavaliers took one look at this unruly, self-sufficient warrior society, shuddered, and immediately shipped them far off to their own highland frontiers. When we speak of "pioneer stock," we're talking about the Borderers. Their wandering descendants spread out and settled up the roughest places of the south, west and southwest, and gave us cowboys and country music along the way. Wherever you find populists and libertarians, you're likely among Borderers.

Fischer argues that these four groups formed the original cultural and political matrix into which later-arriving immigrant groups adapted themselves; and their ancient differences underlie many of the regional and philosophical differences Americans still grapple with today. The migration patterns of these four groups have largely determined the geography of civil and women's rights, economic justice movements, and many other social and political trends. And it seems possible to me that these conflicting value systems may also be at the cultural root of the strikingly ineffectual way that Democratic candidates have consistently responded to GOP attacks over the past 50 years.

Fischer noted that the four groups have radically different approaches to conflict. Cavalier and Borderer cultures are extremely honor-driven. A person's good name is their most cherished asset. Any challenge to that must be answered. Anyone who is unwilling to defend his or her honor, or to stand up for his or her own kin, or defend his or her principles, reveals his or her essential unworthiness to lead others. A Cavalier will challenge you to a duel. A Borderer will start a fistfight. A more modern politician will do it with public ridicule, a stirring speech, or a TV interview. No matter. You call these folks out, and you are going to have to reckon with some consequences.

In the southern and western areas that were dominated by these two cultures, many people simply don't understand and won't accept leaders who shy away when attacked. Strength matters. (So do wit, grace, and style in shutting down upstarts. There are big bonus points for doing it in a way that never lets them see you sweat. Ann Richards, for example, did it in a way that was funny, feminine, and murderously effective.) Failure to exercise that strength is fatal. People figure that if you're not even willing to defend your own honor and interests when someone confronts you directly in public, how on earth can we ever count on you to fight for the rest of us on the stuff that really matters?

The northern Puritan and Quaker cultures, on the other hand, have much more measured and careful responses to being challenged. Publicly question the honor of a Boston gentleman, and he probably won't dignify the challenger with any response at all. He trusts that the community will exercise its own judgment, measure his character against that of his opponent, draw the correct conclusion, and quietly defend him by shunning the cad. (Both the Puritans and Quakers relied heavily on shaming, shunning and banishment -- all forms of community discipline -- to deal with people who upset the collective order.) If someone crosses the legal line, he'll let the courts sort it out. In the meantime, he will say nothing on the matter at all. If you ignore ugly, it will go away. Under no circumstances do you take matters into your own hands.

Our gentleman also takes it as a matter of personal honor that civilized people never, ever, ever use force. Fischer writes that you can tell when a New Englander is on his very last nerve when he says something like, "I swear -- I almost hit him!" (Contrast that to Borderers, who will gin up fist fights for fun.) Puritan and Quaker leaders demonstrate their moral superiority by doubling down on their self-control when under fire. Losing it brands you forever as a hothead who's a potential danger to self and others, and who should never again be trusted with any kind of serious responsibility.

In Quaker culture, challenges do get answered -- but since violence is not an option, the community is obligated to come together and frankly talk the matter through until the truth is discovered and the matter resolved. Both groups see confrontation as destructive to the resolution process and a threat to community order and cohesion, and discourage it at all costs.

For one example of this ethos at work, look no further than the last election. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, in true Boston gentleman form, refused to dignify the Swiftboaters with any kind of response at all. He knew his record and his reputation were solid, and believed that any reasonable person would look at that, take his word over theirs, and shun the Swiftees as the shit-stirrers they so obviously were. That's the way it works in New England. But he didn't reckon with the fact that there are 44 states out there that aren't New England, and most of them were full of voters with a value set that interpreted his silence as a withering sign of weakness.

At this point, you can probably see where this is going. As a broad generalization, the roots of American conservatism -- along with the deep culture of much of the country -- lie in two foundational cultures that accept high levels of conflict and confrontation as normal, and take the measure of a candidate on the basis of how confidently and creatively he or she responds to it. On the other hand, the roots of American liberalism -- along with the deep culture of the northern tier of the country -- lie in two foundational cultures that are extremely conflict-averse, and regard returning fire as an incontrovertible sign of personal weakness and poor character.

Unfortunately for progressives, the descendants of the Cavaliers and Borderers far outnumber those of the Puritans and Quakers (who, from the start, had much smaller families); and, thanks to the wanderings of the Borderers in particular, they're far more spread out across the country. Worse: these were joined later by large immigrant waves from traditional Catholic cultures (Irish, Italian, Latino, and so on) that, wherever they landed, also subscribed to the belief that a leader who won't rise to defend his or her own honor or interests is no kind of leader at all.

On the other hand, the Puritans were tremendous builders of social networks and educational institutions -- and to this day, the areas of the country they dominated enjoy a disproportionate share of political and cultural power, particularly on the liberal side. The bottom line is that the "don't fight back" crowd dominates the eastern power establishment -- but they're a distinct minority across the rest of the country. And that's where the fatal disconnect lies.

The persistence of those elites, and the commanding role they play in every election, explains why, time and again, Democratic presidential candidates refuse to engage attackers. Those lingering Puritan/Quaker cultural expectations always come to the fore at exactly the wrong moment, as experienced party heads from those regions, or that ancestry, or those universities do the cool-headed thing and stay their candidates' hands. And the rest of the country -- steeped in very different set of expectations that leaves them eagerly awaiting the glint of a gimlet eye and the deft flourish of a terrible swift sword -- is instead left wondering where their candidate left his balls. (Hillary, to her credit, left no doubt in anyone's mind that she'd had a bellyfull of these people, and was looking forward to taking the fight right back to them. It would have been a thing to see.)

And every time this happens, without fail, the GOP seizes on that moment of hesitation to reinforce the branding that Democrats are effete elites who lack the necessary backbone to lead. This argument works because even yellow-dog Democrats from the south and west are at a total loss to refute it -- at least, not in any kind of way that has meaning in their culture. Their candidate as been publicly exposed as an unprincipled, chicken-livered wuss -- and they know better than anyone that once that happens, the conversation's over. There's nothing left to be said in defense of someone who can't even be bothered to defend himself.

Fischer's thesis suggests this may be why an overwhelming number of the most successful Democratic candidates and political advisers have come out of the south and west. These native sons and daughters understand, viscerally, how badly it plays across the country when a Democrat refuses to respond forcefully to shut down GOP attacks. In their heads they can hear, loud and clear, just what the folks back home would say. Because of this experience, they're able to put up some resistance when the party's elites advises them to rise above it all and ignore the sniping, or find a way to talk it through. Where they come from, that dog don't hunt, and never will.

Look at it this way, and a couple of solutions become obvious.

First, progressives need to acknowledge that the vast majority of the country is firmly convinced that a candidate who refuses to answer challenges from the other side irrefutably proves that he or she is unfit to lead. The electorate has been sending us this message, loud and clear, for over 50 years now — and it's time that the Ivy Leaguers in charge finally sat up and listened.

It won't be easy, because everything in their own cultural training screams at them that rewarding an attacker with an assertive, confident response is the worst possible thing you can do to your own credibility. But the first step out lies in humbly recognizing that this opinion isn't rooted in reality — in fact, the data from recent elections refute it soundly — but rather comes out of a set of cultural norms that, while sacred to them, are not shared by most of the country.

Out where the voters live, you never lose by fighting back. And you never win by holding back. You see this principle at work everywhere you find winning Democrats these days — and another several decades of enlightened examples of New England-style "civilized behavior" seem sadly unlikely to persuade the rest of the country to change on this point. (More's the pity.)

Then, progressive candidates need to recruit — and listen to — political experts who cut their teeth in the South and West, and know how the tackle version of the game is played. It's no accident that LBJ, Carter, and Clinton — our only successful Democratic presidential candidates over the past 40 years — came out of the South. (And the Kennedys were products of bare-knuckles Irish machine politics that didn't pull punches, either.) It's not an accident that James Carville, Lee Atwater, and Karl Rove all came from there, either.

Obama is at his best when he reaches back into his Kansas populist side; but these days, he's no doubt got plenty of old party hands giving him the same fatal advice they gave Gore, Dukakis, Mondale, Humphrey, and even old Adlai Stevenson. (Note that they're all Northerners, too. Gore was a son of the South, but spent most of his childhood in D.C., and went to Yale.) They're going to do him in, too — and in exactly the same way — if he keeps listening. He needs people who know how to stick it right back to the GOP — fast, fearlessly, fiercely, with deadly aim and a transcendently elegant sense of style. (There's no need to give up the high road, ever. You absolutely can do this and stay classy.) And he needs them this week.

We're not going to take back the country by doing things the way they do them in Boston, Philadelphia, or the salons of Georgetown. That low-conflict style of politics is, as the Wellstone people like to say, Not Normal — at least, not outside the Northeast. The pattern is clear enough now that we can bet the movement on it: Progressives win decisively when they acknowledge and directly address the deep cultural ideas about conflict and leadership that abide in the bars and churches and county fairs in flyover country. That's where elections are won — out where vast numbers of Americans of a very different heritage are looking for that firm assurance that their candidate has the guts and wit to fight for his own honor, and theirs, and the country's as well.