[lbo-talk] evangelical antipathy to taxes / governemtn

[Wojtek S]

Shag: "e can listen to me all day long and agree with me, but he
thinks he's supposed to be a republican because the men in his family
are a certain way. And once in that milieu he falls for the bullshit
hook, line, and sinker. Not entirely, of course, because he comes to
me to get a reality check on some stuff. But the fact is, he lives in
a certain milieu, the conservatives have a loud voice, and it
influences him, how he thinks, and how he acts in the world."

[WS:] Yup.  For most people politics is the matter of in-group
identification and out-group rejection rather than a political
philosophy or rather political economy.  Thomas Frank got it right in
"What is the matter with Kansas"

The lesson I draw from it is that the only strategy to win these folks
for the liberal-left wing causes is to reclaim the in-group identity
concepts, such as family, freedom, patriotism, etc.  It may sound
paradoxical, but the way to go it to convince these folks that being
republican means being liberal and socialist (akin to the way the
Brits redefined their nobility status rather than rejecting it
altogether.)

-- 
Wojtek

"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."