Mary and Ann agree on the following five judgments
1. Bernie would be a better president than HRC
2. HRC is more likely to beat any Republican candidate than Bernie
3. Trump would be a less awful president than Cruz
4. Trump is more likely to lose, and more likely to lose big, against either Dem candidate than Cruz
5. Because of coat-tail effects, the most important thing is the biggest possible Dem win in November.
They vote in an open primary State. The polls are all over the place, so there is no reliable information, and both think it is best to vote on the assumption that both races will be close.
Mary will vote for Bernie, because she believes in voting for what you actually prefer and believe in.
Ann plans to vote for HRC, because she is a strategic voter and believes you should vote so as to have the best chance of producing the best outcome. Mary claims that the logic of Ann’s position is that she should not vote for HRC, but for Trump.
I’m not interested in debating any of those assumptions, some of which seem plausible, others very dubious, to me. Please accept them for the sake of argument. I want to know whether Mary is right about what Ann should do (given Ann’s view about the ethics of strategic voting) and why, if she is right, so few people I know who hold Ann’s view, and accept the above assumptions, will vote for Trump in Wisconsin today.
Reading Samuel Freeman’s review of conservative philosopher Roger Scruton in the latest NYRB, I had a mini-realization about my own work on conservatism, which features Scruton a fair amount.
In the mid-1970s, conservatism, which had previously been declared dead as an intellectual and political force, started to gain some political life (its intellectual rejuvenation had begun long before). As it did, conservatism began to have an impact on liberalism. Politically, you could see that influence in the slow, then sudden, retreat from traditional New Deal objectives, culminating in the election of Bill Clinton. What that meant was a massive turnaround on economic issues (deregulation, indifference to unions, galloping inequality) and a softer turnaround on so-called social or moral issues. While mainstream Democrats today are identified as staunch liberals on issues like abortion and gay rights, the truth of the matter is that in the early 1990s, they beat a retreat on that front (not only on abortion but also, after an initial embrace of gays and lesbians, on gay rights as well).
Among liberal academics, the impact of conservatism was equally strong. Not only in the obvious sense that conservatism became an object of increasing scholarly interest, particularly among historians. But also in a deeper sense, as the categories of traditional conservative concern, like religion, came to assume a greater role in scholarly inquiry.
The impact was especially dramatic in the world of liberal political theory. [click to continue…]
Even the Grainud obit underestimates him, I think. Sometime, before too long, I am sure that Radio 4 Extra will carry that lovely play from a couple of years ago about the relationship between the two ronnies. Til then, here Desert Island Discs. If anyone can find a clip of him on Crackerjack… please!!!!
