The fifth column on the US left

The "Don't Vote Democrat" club appears to be made of two groups of people. The first, larger group consists of clueless dupes who delude themselves with the idea that some "third" party responding to the will of "da people" is a real possibility. It is not and never has been - third parties of any kind failed to attract popular support beyond single digit numbers, but this does not stop these folks from fantasizing about it. It is, in my view, an outgrowth of American-brand religiosity that borders on magic - if you pray hard enough it will happen.

The second, smaller group consists of the fifth column players whose role is to sabotage Democrat voting deep behind the front lines. To understand the role of this fifth column, it useful to consider a model of the bi-partisan system in the US stipulated by the Hoteling's law.  In short, this law says that in competitive duopolies, the center of gravity for both sides will fall close to the center of gravity of the whole system. That is to say, positions of both sides will be closer to each other than to positions of fringe supporters on each side.

This model implies a two fold electoral strategy. One is frontal assault to control the center, the other one is the "fifth column" to sabotage the territory deeply behind the front lines where main electoral battles are fought. The frontal assault is intended to sway the "median voter" to vote for party A rather than party B, and consists mainly by portraying the position of each side as being closer that that occupied by the "median voter." This is poli-sci 101 and should not be a surprise to anyone with a brain.

However, the frontal tactic to control the center has little effect on guys deep behind the front lines - both the "core" supporters and fringe radical even further removed from the center. It is clear that these guys have no other place to go and no tactical maneuvering to control the center will sway them to vote for the other side. This is where the fifth column strategy comes into play. It purpose is to sabotage voting deep behind the enemy lines among the core and radical supporters who are already far away from the gravity center from voting, a phenomenon known as "splitting the vote."

The fifth column strategy typically operates on the principle of increasing transaction cost of voting. Voting is a low transaction cost - low benefit activity for individuals. I will not benefit if I vote or lose much if I don't, but it does not cost me much to go to a polling station and cast the ballot. Since my transaction cost is low, I may be inclined to vote for emotional reasons even though I know that I will not benefit from voting in any meaningful way. However, if my transaction cost goes up, I may decide not to vote for "my" side of bipartisan divide or not to vote at all.

To accomplish its goal, the fifth column of the "Do not vote Democrat" club creates a subterfuge to increase the real or perceived cost of voting Democrat among its core or far-left supporters. A common tactic, often used by the Republican storm troopers, is increasing the transaction cost of voting, e.g. by requiring proof of registration, ID, or by limiting physical access to polling stations. This tactic can be used by those whose affiliation with the Republican party is no secret to anyone. A second tactic is more subtle, however. It aims to convince potential Democrat voters that voting Democrat has some hidden cost, for example that Democrats are "sell-outs" "turn-coats" or "traitors" so voting for them will make things worse. To be effective, this tactic requires that the identity of the messenger is fake or at least concealed. This advice must come from someone who appears to be on "our" side to be taken seriously. Nobody would believe it if it came from a known Republican hack.

So here comes the fifth column of the "Do not vote Democrat" club on the left. Some of them may be false flag operators, republican functionaries posing as radical lefties. But most of them are probably not - more likely they are useful idiots who willy-nilly play into the hands of the Republicans. They may be genuinely disgusted with the politics of compromise, lack of proper zeal among Democrat politicians, or just the general way things are going. They may be swayed by the idealism of the first group in the club who believer that this country is a populist democracy and casting votes is all that it takes to change the deeply ingrained institutional structures. Or they may be waiting for a savior and when someone who looks like one appears, they may put all their hopes in him, and if those hopes fail to materialize, they become disillusioned and bitter and demand a crucifixion of the "fake savior."

Whatever their motivation, their passion and their convictions are genuine and that is what makes them perfect fifth columnists. Nobody will suspect them of being a false flag operation for the enemy. They are genuine radicals sincerely fighting for the cause. The fact that their efforts help the enemy does not typically enter their consciousness where ideological purity and moral convictions reign supreme and reason has  been relegated to the periphery where it is only a tiny bit away from treason. 

On Clueless Rationalism

I resent the ubiquity of throwing invective - "stupid", "libtard" "bigot" "racist" "fascist" etc. - on other people on the internet. It is a sure sign of intellectual laziness that has become a norm of the discourse these days, not just on the internet but in general. More specifically, it is an act of avoiding the difficult task of trying to understand motivation behind other people's thoughts or behavior in favor of simplistic demonization of them. Someone says or does something we dislike - we judge him a bad person because it is much easier than making an effort to understand the reason behind this behavior.

Take for example, the Left's favorite blood sport of posting quotes by conservative politicians and media personalities and treating them as evidence of ignorance, stupidity, racism, bigotry etc. There is double irony here. First, this practice of publicly deriding "stupid" or "bigoted" figures enormously boosts their public outreach beyond their original audience. That reason alone is sufficient to explain why these politicians and media personality say such things. Any rational person in the business in which his/her success critically depends on his/her popularity would use attention grabbers to expand that popularity. And what is a better attention grabber than saying or doing things that you know will outrage people your perceive as your enemies?

But the second layer of irony lies much deeper than attention grabbing gimmicks. A lot of what people say or do does not have only a utilitarian function - communicate an idea or obtain some utility - but a ritualistic-expressive function as well. This means that people often say or do things to express who they are where they stand in society. In such situations, their choice of words or acts is governed by this ritualistic-expressive function rather than the truth function of what they say or the utilitarian function of what they do. What they say may be patently false and what they do may serve no utilitarian function whatsoever, but they say or do it anyway because it serves the ritualistic-expressive function.  An obvious example is people saying things that may stretch the. truth or be even patently false to bond with their spouses, children or friends.  A kid flunks school because he is lazy, skips classes, and gets zero parental support.  All his family and friends know that darn well, but will tell the kid that it was bad teachers, bad schools and "racist" society that failed to provide him with proper education.   This is not a statement of fact, but a statement of social solidarity.

This is what the rat-choice folk, which includes most of the Left, fail to understand. They hear something they find not only patently false i.e. irrational but also objectionable, but in their reaction to it they focus only on the rational aspect of it (truth function) while totally ignoring the emotive aspect (ritualistic-expressive function). And since the irrationality of what they hear is obvious on its face, they easiest explanation these rat-choice folk can find is that the person saying it is ill-informed or, using the vernacular, "stupid" "bigoted" "racist" and so on.

But this is also a wrong explanation, because the chances are that things in question were said not to communicate the logical truth function, i.e for rational reasons, but to express the social identity position of the speaker- i.e. for ritualistic emotive reasons. If I see myself as a folksy homeboy in the "heart of America," this defines not only who I am and who are my peers are (i.e. my "ingroup") but also who I am not and who are not my peers (i.e. my "outgroup"). Consequently, a lot of what I say or do will serve ritualistic-expressive function to mark who I am and who I am not. Wearing a plaid shirt, driving a pickup truck, avidly watching NASCAR races, carrying a gun, and believing certain common-sense platitudes serves that ritualistic-expressive function because it effectively distinguishes the "in-group" of "homeboys" from the "out-group" of "city dwellers" or "liberal elites."

What is more, this ritualistic-expressive function is likely to be evoked more often when the identity of the "in-group" is being threatened. In such situations, speakers often resort to hyperbole as a more forceful way of marking their social identity and status. If the "homoeboy" identity is threatened by economic and cultural changes, people espousing this identity will likely use exaggeration to mark that identity. This entail conspicuous displays of identity symbols, like pickup trucks, guns, etc, as well as conspicuous displays of markers that differentiate them from out-groups, such as saying or doing things that out-groups consider outrageous, e,g, disparaging comments about minorities and women, disdain for the environment, or various expressions of anti-intellectualism.

This explains the nonsense that politicians and media personalities say - it is designed to mark their in-group affiliation to gain popularity among their target audiences. In the same vein, "converting" to radical Islam, Judaism, Hinduism etc. is a social identity and status marker to differentiate the respective in-groups from out-groups, such as Western liberals, secularists, etc. The extremism of these beliefs is proportional to the sense of threat the believers feel from the out-groups. The greater the threat the more the belief or action would differ from those accepted by out-groups. If the outgroup professes modernity, the ingroup would espouse going back to medieval times. If the outgroup professes equality, the ingroup would espouse extreme inequality. If the outgroup espouses rationality and science, the ingroup espouses extreme-anti-intellectualism. If the outrgoup rejects physical violence, the ingroup would engage in extreme acts of such violence complete with public executions and beheading.

The greatest irony in it is that the folks who engage in these seemingly irrational and barbaric forms of speech and behavior show a greater understanding of their enemies than the rat-choice folk who find their behavior and ideas repulsive. The former understand what motivates their enemies, what makes them like or dislike things, what makes them toe the line, and what makes them cringe, and guide their speech and actions accordingly. The latter, otoh, fail in this difficult intellectual task of understanding their enemies, and cover up their ignorance, or perhaps intellectual laziness, with simplistic demonization.