Tea And Honey

As a political pundit, Stanley Fish is a great Milton scholar.  His latest New York Times piece keeps up his record of being different without necessarily being right.

It's on the Tea Party movement.  He believes treating them with contempt plays into their belief in an unanswerable, condescending ruling elite.  What to do?

Mayor Bloomberg may be right when he says (in explaining his endorsement of Cuomo over Paladino) that “anger is not a governing strategy,” but it sure is a campaign strategy and it is one the Tea Party and the Republicans it has tutored know how to execute. [....]

Don’t sling mud down in the dust where your opponents thrive. Instead, engage them as if you thought that the concerns they express (if not their forms of expression) are worthy of serious consideration, as indeed they are. Lift them up to the level of reasons and evidence and see how they fare in the rarified air of rational debate where they just might suffer the fate of Antaeus.

It’s at least worth a try, because the way things are going we may soon be looking at Senator O’Donnell, Governor Paladino and, down the road a bit, President Palin.

The funny thing here is in allegedly appealing to our higher selves, he's being just as condescending as the people whose tactics he's questioning.

He simply can't see that the Tea Party movement is no more angry or emotional than any other political group that wants change.  For years the left was more likely to take to the streets, and if there were any editorials, they were more likely about how refreshing it is to see the people speaking their minds.

If anything, the Tea Partiers seem less angry than most opposition movements.  Doesn't Fish remember the widespread, intense hatred of Bush?  And there was plenty to go around for Clinton, and the elder Bush, and Reagan, too.  For better or worse, this level of debate is politics as usual.

Fish honestly seems to believe his side (which sure ain't the Tea Party) is the reasonable side, with the better arguments.  Thus 1) it's their duty to raise the level of debate and 2) once the debate is on a higher plane, they will naturally win.  But both sides here believe they're the rational one, and it's the other side that will lose in a fair debate.  Truth is the differences aren't merely based on misunderstandings, but more fundamental disagreements.

So if you really want to stop sneering at the Tea Partiers, then stop pretending one side stands for reason and enlightenment, and the other simply doesn't understand what's going on but wins because it fights dirty.

Finally, note this is just strategic advice.  Fish considers a Senator O'Donnell or Governor Paladino so self-evidently horrible that he doesn't need to explain why (or, more to the point, why they'll be worse than many of the polticians we've got now).  But Fish admits his advice may not work.  And if it doesn't, guess it's time to go back to treating them with richly-deserved contempt.