Chauvinism, triangulation and it's hack/exploit of party loyalty
Chauvinism is about loyalty that enables illogical and excessive loyalty to one's group.
To be on this board you can't argue against Democratic nominees. One of the most common expressions of acceptance and loyalty found on DU, especially during campaign season is
"Our candidates are ALWAYS better than their candidates. I'd take a dem before a republican, any day."
It's accepted, without much thought as it fits easily into the zeitgeist. At times disagreement with it has been pushed as a litmus test for banning DUers
But that meme has become a hack/exploit of good and decent loyalty against what is usually based on shared values.
Values, you know? The goodness associated to shared principles and beliefs. That meme is a tool available for use by politicians and groups of politicians who would exploit loyalty of the base, and yet be completely free of the values the solidarity is built around.
Rahm Emanuel's uncontrolled cheekiness of calling the base fucking retards with no where else to go IS NOT an example of how our leaders are ALWAYS better than theirs. It's an example of a person who shares little value with the people he derides.
In the US vs THEM game the meme replaces consideration with unthoughtful chauvinism. Why would we need to question or criticize anything? No matter the outcome, We are always argued to be better then the THEM.
But we and them are people. And people are more or less untrue to principle. We construct principles not only to guide us toward social things yet attained, we construct principles to -maintain- good things that society has accumulated.
If the shared PRINCIPLES are involved and evaluated against our shared values, it might be argued that OUR principles _are_ better than theirs...say something like the better qualities of Keynesian economic management as opposed to unregulated laissez faire free markets. But of course our SHARED VALUES are the standard of goodness of that comparison.
Everyone, including every politician may not agree with those shared values, the values become fetters.
Triangulation and the demands of campaign financing inevitably moves it's practitioners away from principles and toward either the opponents position or the opponents sources of campaign support.
For people who think that at least some principles really matter, it's possible to see unfettered pursuit of political success as containing an inherent potential for alienation. Said simply it's possible to see that unprincipled drift in positions can go too far. Connection through shared value can't be sustained.
Yet, Triangulation -requires- such freedom to pursue of what's working for the other team. It requires simultaneously freedom from principle and unquestioning loyalty or it won't work.
Not surprisingly one side of DU spends a -lot- of time worrying about solidarity and arguing in strained descriptions of reality condemning those who would 'make what's good the enemy of perfection'.
The meme that dems are always better than r's is an exploit of loyalty via the kernel of truth that together we are stronger than when we are apart. It's a hack when politicians, the unfettered type using triangulation who can be anything they need to be, don't share fidelity to the values the loyalty and solidarity is based upon.
Let's be honest, democrats as a whole, and I mean from top to bottom, from left to right, aren't recognized by the loyalty we share to particular persons, or tactics for campaigning and raising money. We are recognize because we have recognized affinity with the values we share.
Let's recognize our vulnerability to the hack and exploit pushed by campaign advisers and fund-raisers and be loyal to people who do share our values and can use those values to guide policy making to create a future in which those values bear their fruits.
