One of the most intriguing challenges of the Trump era for me has been to explain his ability to attract the vigorous and loyal support of the religious right and working-class White voters in red states. What has been a puzzling observation of many liberal and progressive minds is that much of his behavior and many of his political positions seem to be inconsistent with Christain teachings and contrary to the best interests of a significant number of the people who vote for him. Long before Trump arrived as a candidate in 2015, Evangelicals and the poor and underserved White population in “red states” who may or may not be active participants in churches frequently appeared to be voting against their own best economic interests when they voted for Republican candidates who denied them access to medical care and other social services that would improve the social determinants of health for them and their communities.
The publication dates of two of the most readable explanations for the observations predate Donald Trump’s ascendancy in the Republican Party and lead one to realize that he tapped into preexisting attitudes and preferences that are likely to persist long after he has lost control of the Republican party. I am referring to Johnathan Haidt’s 2012 book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics And Religion, and Arlie Russell Hochschild’s 2016 book Strangers In Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right.
I have reviewed both books in the past. Haidt is a social psychologist who is a Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University Stern School of Business and the author of many scientific papers and three very successful nonfiction books that explain his work to the general public. His main areas of study are the psychology of morality and moral emotions. Haidt’s books are built on a body of structured research and he presents a compelling analysis that leads to an evolving thesis.
Arlie Russell Hochschild is also a social psychologist who spent her entire academic career at UC Berkley. Wikipedia describes her work as:
Hochschild seeks to make visible the underlying role of emotion and the work of managing emotion, the paid form of which she calls “emotional labor.” For her, “the expression and management of emotion are social processes. What people feel and express depend on societal norms, one’s social category and position, and cultural factors.”
Hochschild’s 2016 book is experiential. She actually lived in Louisiana for extended periods of time with the people she wrote about. If her 2016 book is representative of how she works, she is more like a natural scientist in the field making and recording observations. Her book is based on a five-year experience of living for long stretches at a time among white blue-collar workers in Louisiana. She developed personal relationships with the people she writes about.
Her book reads like an excellent work of fiction. Both books conclude that you will never understand what is going on in the lives of poor and lower-middle-class white voters in “red states” if you apply classical economic theory. People are not logical. They operate by instinct and other defining factors and then try to construct logical explanations for their choices and actions. Both authors conclude that political opinions and affiliations are ingrained instincts that are best understood by examining the values of their family and community, genetic tendencies, and their “tribe” affiliations rather than from an analysis of what their personal economic, or physical best interest would be understood to be in a classical model of economics.
Most “liberals,” myself included, enjoy gathering data that demonstrates why the conservative mindset and political opinions of the religious right and the average red-state voter are wrong. We seek to find areas of shared interest that will lead to bipartisan solutions to the important issues of our time like healthcare, the environment, inequality, gun violence, the prejudice against women in the workplace, and against minorities anyplace. We do not understand why our logic is ineffective and the expression of our best intentions land on deaf ears. To apply an old Southern aphorism, “The harder we try the behinder we get!”
In his recent book, A Promised Land, Barack Obama describes his frustrating efforts to gain bipartisan support for TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) and the ACA early in his presidency. Both laws were critical pieces of legislation that have greatly benefited the country but could have been better with bipartisan support. Obama made genuine bipartisan efforts to pass both laws, but both efforts at bipartisanship were frustrating failures. The ACA was passed without a “public option” to mollify independent Connecticut Senator Joe Leiberman and was substantially modified in the Senate Finance Committee in an attempt to win bipartisan support. Despite concessions, the ACA never won any Republican support on its path to passage. In 2009, the country was still reeling from the Great Recession and need TARP, which was reduced substantially from what was optimal, but still got only three votes from Senate Republicans. Because of a lack of bipartisan support after the 2010 midterm election loss of the House, Obama was reduced to governing by executive order over the last six years of his presidency.
President Biden seems to think that his long history of rich relationships with Republicans in the Senate creates a new opportunity for bipartisanship. If the experience of the 1.9 trillion dollars “rescue” bill that was passed earlier this month is a measure of his ability to win bipartisan victories, the future is bleak. The final votes showed no Republicans voting for the bill although some tried to suggest to their constituencies that they were happy for the relief they would get. It is no wonder that some people believe that the most significant conversation in Washington should be what to do about the filibuster.
I would vote to do away with the filibuster. My opinion is primarily based on the likely futility of achieving much with attempts to rally bipartisanship. My opinion is based primarily on what I have learned from Haidt and Hochschild. Haidt’s work is derivative of psychological experiments and thousands of questionnaires as an ongoing project on his website Moral Foundations.org. His theories are well explained on the website. He introduces the discussion by saying:
Moral Foundations Theory was created by a group of social and cultural psychologists (see us here) to understand why morality varies so much across cultures yet still shows so many similarities and recurrent themes. In brief, the theory proposes that several innate and universally available psychological systems are the foundations of “intuitive ethics.” Each culture then constructs virtues, narratives, and institutions on top of these foundations, thereby creating the unique moralities we see around the world, and conflicting within nations too. The five foundations for which we think the evidence is best are:
1) Care/harm: This foundation is related to our long evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of others. It underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance.
2) Fairness/cheating: This foundation is related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. It generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy. [Note: In our original conception, Fairness included concerns about equality, which are more strongly endorsed by political liberals. However, as we reformulated the theory in 2011 based on new data, we emphasize proportionality, which is endorsed by everyone, but is more strongly endorsed by conservatives]
3) Loyalty/betrayal: This foundation is related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form shifting coalitions. It underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. It is active anytime people feel that it’s “one for all, and all for one.”
4) Authority/subversion: This foundation was shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. It underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions.
5) Sanctity/degradation: This foundation was shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. It underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way. It underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions).
We think there are several other very good candidates for “foundationhood,” especially:
6) Liberty/oppression: This foundation is about the feelings of reactance and resentment people feel toward those who dominate them and restrict their liberty. Its intuitions are often in tension with those of the authority foundation. The hatred of bullies and dominators motivates people to come together, in solidarity, to oppose or take down the oppressor. We report some preliminary work on this potential foundation in this paper, on the psychology of libertarianism and liberty.
My take on Haidt’s findings is that liberals are focused mostly on “care and the prevention of harm” We also value fairness. At this time we see many manifestations of harm and are outraged. We have attempted to be “bipartisan” out of a sense of fairness, but cooperation is not going to happen because the best path to power for Republicans is to resist improvements that violate their values. The liberal sense of harm will continue unless we take advantage of the moment and deliver what the majority of Americans want. They want something done to improve their health, improve their children’s educations, improve the opportunity to find a home, improve the environment, end inequality, end police abuse of minorities, and end poverty “as we have known it.” Beyond those things, there is much repair that needs to be done to our infrastructure. None of this is likely to happen through bipartisan efforts.
Conservatives are more balanced across all six domains with emphasis on personal responsibility as expressed in fairness, loyalty, authority, and sanctity. Homosexuality and abortion are the sine qua non examples of violations of sanctity. “Blue lives matter” and respect for the military would be examples of deference to authority. Unquestioning respect for religion or party despite violations like the demonstration of abuse of children at the border or sexual abuse of children by clergy, or the acceptance of police brutality against African Americans as demonstrated by the murder of George Flloyd would exemplify mindless loyalty to authority. Being able to keep what you earn by reducing taxes and denying services to the undeserving hordes of lazy welfare dependents would be examples of fairness and the loathing of cheaters. Liberals are not nearly as diverse in their moral foundations as conservatives. We care about others and fairness and put relatively less emphasis on the other domains.
When I read Hochschild I was moved by her empathy for others. When I read Haidt, my reaction was to understand that perhaps the concept of “bipartisanship” was futile. That was disappointing but it seemed clear, and others agreed, that Haidt was arguing that logic and reason were not going to be valuable tools in politics. It was all about who held the power. I present Mitch McConnell as exhibit one. The only alternative is to understand who they are and appeal to their sentiments. In his review of Haidt’s book William Saleton wrote:
In “The Righteous Mind,” Haidt seeks to enrich liberalism, and political discourse generally, with a deeper awareness of human nature. Like other psychologists who have ventured into political coaching, such as George Lakoff and Drew Westen, Haidt argues that people are fundamentally intuitive, not rational. If you want to persuade others, you have to appeal to their sentiments. But Haidt is looking for more than victory. He’s looking for wisdom. That’s what makes “The Righteous Mind” well worth reading. Politics isn’t just about manipulating people who disagree with you. It’s about learning from them.
My response is, “Yes that process will work when pigs fly.” Until then we are likely to remain a deeply divided country with each side convinced of their moral superiority. It is hard to understand, but many of the people who attacked the Capitol on January 6 thought they were patriots doing the right thing. I doubt that any of them would accept their motivation as consistent with criminal intent. Between now and the magical moment when the “lion lies down with the lamb” our policies are likely to be derivative of which mindset is in power. It is the control of political power that makes our current indecision over the filibuster and voting rights such important subjects. Since Haidt’s ultimate thesis is that there is a defined “moral basis” for both liberal and conservative positions, progress will depend on understanding the person whom you are trying to convince that they are wrong. Their position is well defended by their values, and their values reach back to the beginning of time and have had evolutionary value. I think that this will be a multigenerational process, and we have issues that will compromise our survival within one generation.
My thoughts were turned to the work of Haidt and Hochschild because of two very surprising columns in the New York Times over the past few days. The first article was David Brooks’ column on March 18 entitled “A Christian Vision of Social Justice: Social change can be pursued with mercy and hope.” The second article was by Nicholas Kristoff and appeared on Saturday. It was entitled “Progressive Christians Arise! Hallelujah!: With a churchgoing Democrat in the White House, faith becomes more complicated in America. Thank God.”
If the term “Progressive Christians” is unfamiliar, confusing, or sounds like an oxymoron to you let me digress to explain the term and confess that I am one. My church, The First Baptist Church of New London, New Hampshire, where I am the moderator, can be seen in today’s header. By history and theology until recently, Baptists were a “big tent.” Like the country, we were a gathering from the far right to the far left. That culture still exists at my church. Evangelicals with fundamentalist leanings worship side by side with people whom some would derisively call “secular humanists.”
Progressive Christianity has slowly evolved over the last century or so as a concept, but I would argue that it has been a minority opinion that can be traced back for several centuries. Over the last thirty years, liberal theologians have attempted to understand the historical Jesus and to focus on what his message was. I was first introduced to these ideas by reading the work of Marcus Borg. Currently, many of the same concepts are expressed by Jim Wallis, the editor of the Sojourner, and from my point of view by the Franciscan friar, Robert Rohr, the founder of The Center For Contemplation and Action who says,
“There is a deep relationship between the inner revolution of prayer and the transformation of social structures and social consciousness. Our hope lies in the fact that meditation is going to change the society that we live in, just as it has changed us.”
I have heard some people say that progressive Christains don’t focus as much on what they believe as they do on what the message of love that comes from Jesus compels them to do for the less fortunate in this world to make it better for everyone. You might say what is the difference between Progressive Christianity and Secular Humanism. My answer is that I embrace secular humanist and any others who seek to reduce harm to all life and the planet.
Progressive Christianity is not a new “Christain denomination” it is a philosophy that appeals to many Christians who cringe at the possibility of being stereotyped as “evangelical or fundamentalist.” There are progressive Episcopalians and progressive Catholics. The United Church of Christ (UCC) may have the largest percentage of Progressive Chirstains within their numbers. Believe it or not there are even progressive Christains still within the Southern Baptist Church. There is no defined orthodoxy but eight general principles are accepted by most of us who are looking for a new religious home that is consistent with our understanding of the world and the message that Christ brought to the world.
Most Progressive Christians are Christians who….
- Believe that following the path and teachings of Jesus can lead to an awareness and experience of the Sacred and the Oneness and Unity of all life;
- Affirm that the teachings of Jesus provide but one of many ways to experience the Sacredness and Oneness of life, and that we can draw from diverse sources of wisdom in our spiritual journey;
- Seek community that is inclusive of ALL people, including but not limited to: Conventional Christians and questioning skeptics, Believers and agnostics, Women and men, Those of all sexual orientations and gender identities, Those of all classes and abilities;
- Know that the way we behave towards one another is the fullest expression of what we believe;
- Find grace in the search for understanding and believe there is more value in questioning than in absolutes;
- Strive for peace and justice among all people;
- Strive to protect and restore the integrity of our Earth; and
- Commit to a path of life-long learning, compassion, and selfless love.
One quick conclusion if you read the list is that a progressive Christain accepts other religions as equally valid in their search for the wisdom and mystery that we call God. If you are cynical you might also say that Progressive Christianity is the Green New Deal in Religion. If you read closely you understand that progressives believe that The Bible contains truth but it is not fact or command. Progressive Christianity does not depend upon accepting that Jesus died for your sins. Most people do not realize that “substitutionary atonement” is a doctrine that did not take its present form until the eleventh century. Progressive Christians are more interested in improving this life for everyone than positioning themselves for the next life.
Kristoff may or may not have been precise in his use of the term, but he got the intent to a tee. He begins with a tongue in cheek statement:
Young and middle-aged Americans could be forgiven for thinking that Jesus was a social conservative who denounced gay people and harangued the poor to lift themselves up by the bootstraps, until he was crucified for demanding corporate tax cuts.
Kristoff then digresses by identifying the religious orientations of many progressive democrats including AOC, Vice President Harris, Cory Booker, and Secretary Buttigieg. After lining up the teams, calling Jesus the original progressive Christain, a point of view that I share, he makes the discussion worthwhile with his conclusion:
…if the public face of faith becomes less dominated by right-wing figures, it may become easier for the country to heal its fissures. In the past, secular liberals sometimes stereotyped Christians as intolerant bigots, and conservative Christians sometimes stereotyped liberals as working to suppress freedom of religion. But when the religious/secular divide doesn’t neatly overlay the political divide, it may become a bit more difficult for either side to demonize the other.
“‘Right’ and ‘left’ aren’t so helpful here,” said Father Greg Boyle, who runs highly regarded Catholic programs for gang members in Los Angeles. “The more reverent we become, we see things not as black and white, left or right — but complex.”
Hallelujah for complexity! It might lower America’s political temperature, I pray.
Brooks’ column deserves some background. Brooks is my favorite conservative. He entered the public consciousness as the bright young guy from Yale working for Willaim Buckley. We know now him as the slightly conservative political commentator, author, and observer of societal currents on PBS and in the New York Times who seems to be drifting leftward against his own best efforts to describe himself as a conservative. I found his book, The Second Mountain, to be incredibly hopeful because of his willingness to examine his own failures as a human being. Father Robert Rohr has a somewhat similar book Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life.
Many of us are interested in the world views, preferences, and philosophies of those we admire. Because of Brooks’ demonstrated understanding of Christianity and the fact that he is now married to a Christian journalist, some people have questioned whether he has “converted” from the Judaism of his family to the Christianity of his wife. An interview with The Washington Post in 2019 resolved the question.
“…in the last few years, the New York Times writer, author and D.C. resident has attracted attention among a certain subset of readers for a specific reason: They wonder if the Jewish writer has become a Christian.
In his best-selling new book, “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life,” Brooks, 57, one of the most prominent columnists in the country, traces his spiritual journey alongside his relationship with his second wife, his former assistant who is 23 years his junior and attended Wheaton College, an elite evangelical school.
“I really do feel more Jewish than ever before,” he said in a recent interview. “It felt like more deepening of faith, instead of switching from one thing to another.”
He has no plans to leave Judaism, he writes, calling himself “a wandering Jew and a very confused Christian.”
That works for me and meets my definition of a progressive worldview. Take truth wherever you can find it. No group has a lock on God. What we can see if we take off our “team jerseys” is that once again there is more that makes us alike than different. To remind you, the column that Brooks wrote last Thursday was entitled “A Christian Vision of Social Justice: Social change can be pursued with mercy and hope.” He focused on the work of Professor Esau McCaulley who is an African American contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and an assistant professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, a traditionally conservative Christain institution. McCauley wrote “Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope.”
Brooks says that he is writing to describe a worldview that he learned while reading McCaulley:
This vision begins with respect for the equal dignity of each person. It is based on the idea that we are all made in the image of God. It abhors any attempt to dehumanize anybody on any front. We may be unjustly divided in a zillion ways, but a fundamental human solidarity in being part of the same creation.
The Christian social justice vision also emphasizes the importance of memory. The Bible is filled with stories of marginalization and transformation, which we continue to live out. Exodus is the complicated history of how a fractious people comes together to form a nation.
Today, many Americans are trying to tell the true history of our people, a tale that doesn’t whitewash the shameful themes in our narrative nor downplay the painful but uneven progress — realist but not despairing.
Brooks continues on to describe racism as a sin but points out that no sin is beyond redemption. He implies that the road to redemption is a long journey:
A struggle against a sin is not the work of a week or a year, since sin keeps popping back up. But this vision has led to some of the most significant social justice victories in history: William Wilberforce’s fight against the slave trade, the Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s and the Confessing Church’s struggle against Nazism. And, of course, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement.
Near the end of the piece after quoting McCauly he writes:
He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love,” King wrote. “We can never say, ‘I will forgive you, but I won’t have anything further to do with you.’ Forgiveness means reconciliation, a coming together again.”
We can never give up the vision of equality and harmony that Dr. King described in his “I Have A Dream Speech” but we must realize that there is a long road ahead and that some of our errors have created debts that will come due long before Dr. King’s dream, which is a dream of bipartisanship within a diverse population, is a reality. That reality brings me full circle. Haidt concludes that you can’t win the hearts and minds of people without attempting to understand what makes them tick. I can think of no more important place for that process to begin as a pilot for all to observe than in healthcare where we have an idea of what better might look like. Better would be the Triple Aim which definitely bears some relationship to a progressive worldview.
Great! Thanks! More later!