If you align perfectly with a political group on everything — abortion, BLM, guns, healthcare, school choice, affirmative action, the deficit, tax cuts, etc. — you may not be thinking for yourself.
Good, succinct post on how we feel the need to take a position that lines up with all the others. Groupthink! I’ve been susceptible to this as well.
I also believe that this can apply when someone reverses certain culture war positions, leading them to become tied to the other side instead of merely being a contrarian on a few matters...to the point that they won’t talk about economics. For examples on each end, you could assume in the last few years that Bill Kristol became a major supporter of trans kids, or that Tulsi Gabbard turned against universal healthcare. I’m pretty sure neither are the case and that their views are nuanced, but they have new tribes to speak to. Hell, some of this talk about heterodox politics makes me smirk, because most of them appear to be “heterodox” on the same issues, with the same gripes about left-wing excess and reasons they aren’t all the way to the right. Doesn’t mean the prominent ones can’t be thoughtful, but it does make me think that’s another tribe itself.
Side note that I see: “This consensus-producing machine is how we arrive at a point where there is 1 Democrat in the House who is pro-choice and 212 who are pro-life.” Don’t you mean the reverse, with one pro-life rep in Henry Cuellar?
Good, succinct post on how we feel the need to take a position that lines up with all the others. Groupthink! I’ve been susceptible to this as well.
I also believe that this can apply when someone reverses certain culture war positions, leading them to become tied to the other side instead of merely being a contrarian on a few matters...to the point that they won’t talk about economics. For examples on each end, you could assume in the last few years that Bill Kristol became a major supporter of trans kids, or that Tulsi Gabbard turned against universal healthcare. I’m pretty sure neither are the case and that their views are nuanced, but they have new tribes to speak to. Hell, some of this talk about heterodox politics makes me smirk, because most of them appear to be “heterodox” on the same issues, with the same gripes about left-wing excess and reasons they aren’t all the way to the right. Doesn’t mean the prominent ones can’t be thoughtful, but it does make me think that’s another tribe itself.
Side note that I see: “This consensus-producing machine is how we arrive at a point where there is 1 Democrat in the House who is pro-choice and 212 who are pro-life.” Don’t you mean the reverse, with one pro-life rep in Henry Cuellar?