President Donald Trump and his opponents obviously are talking past one another. This by itself is hardly surprising: Seldom has the nation been so sharply divided on so many issues at once. ..
In short, many progressives have embraced so much abstraction in their discourse as to render much of it delusional. The president and his supporters, in turn, are so hostile to abstraction that even concepts like law and objectivity have no place in much of their political speech.
Speakers dismiss political objections if she or he believes an available rejoinder that would “win” in such a trial or seminar. Secretary Clinton’s supporters, for example, brushed aside the political vulnerability her private email server created because reasoned explanation could quiet voters’ doubts.
Similarly, voters’ worries about losing their current health insurance are dismissed because Medicare-for-All is, in fact, the superior health care financing arrangement. And we are told not to worry about voters’ hesitance about socialism because the ideological difference between Soviet-style socialism and democratic socialism is clear.
This mode of discourse is comfortable to progressives, who have relied heavily on social change litigation. And a great many progressives, like me, find seminars comfortable and familiar. Many voters, however, regard the seminar room as an inhospitable place where progressive elites threaten humiliation to any daring to disagree. …
The power of the president’s communication is that it both conforms to and shapes the core narrative of a community. His speeches and tweets reinforce his leadership by echoing his movement’s values and grievances. They then leverage that leadership to identify those whom his followers should regard as untrustworthy. Progressives find his fury at those he appointed embarrassing for the president, especially in light of his promise to hire “the best people” into government. From the perspective of members of his “team,” however, apostates’ disloyalty is the worst moral offense.
When athletes are penalized for misconduct, fans rally around them as a matter of loyalty. President Trump‘s interventions on behalf of Roger Stone and his other friends similarly looks to them more like loyalty than corruption. In contrast to progressives’ abstractions about adhering to “proper” roles, the president’s supporters bypass complex ethical ideas to focus on simple moral imperatives like defending one’s friends.
Loyalty, then, is the key to cutting through this narrative.