A good argument
You can appreciate a cogent argument, even if you don’t entirely agree with it. The effort you make to refute it can be a good opportunity to sharpen your own arguments on the subject. Or, occasionally, that cogent argument might actually persuade you to change your mind — if not entirely, maybe to some degree.
And those occasions we should relish. Because what’s the point of spending energy debating political issues on websites like this one, if there’s no chance folks can ever change each other’s minds, even a little?
The truth is that we can, indeed, sometimes change people’s minds. And to make our case persuasively — whether in an online forum like this, or with folks face to face — we need both a good argument and a good attitude. Seriously. If your argumentation style is to diss the person you’re talking to — what’s the point? You’ll have no chance to persuade them of anything. That isn’t a profound observation, it’s just common sense. So why is dissing so commonplace in our political discourse, even among natural allies here on this website?
Why health care should be free
Matt Bruenig at the People’s Policy Project posted an article called “Why Should Health Care Be Completely Free?” Bruenig points out that many folks are adamantly against cost-sharing in particular cases — yet the very same logic would argue against cost-sharing in all cases.
The egalitarian case against cost-sharing is similar to the egalitarian case for all universal benefits, which is that egalitarians think people should not lead materially worse lives just because they are sick or have more health care needs. Under this principle, a diabetic person and a nondiabetic person who are otherwise identical should have materially equivalent lives. The diabetic person should be able to live in similar housing, wear similar clothes, and go on similar vacations. If you require the diabetic person to drain their personal disposable income on diabetes-related treatment, this will not be possible
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Centrists basically agree with these arguments, but only in certain narrow cases that affect groups with a lot of institutional strength within the centrist tent. The best example of this is birth control. Obamacare required birth control to be completely free for insured people. Republican lawsuits and executive orders have since made it possible for employers to opt out of that requirement. The net result of this is that certain insured people will have to pay around $20 to $50 a month out of pocket for birth control.
Despite the fact that this amount is below what most cost-sharing advocates think the general out-of-pocket maximum should be, the reaction to this development has been very negative.
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It is hard to understand how you can believe that requiring cost-sharing for birth control is unfair, dangerous to health, and financially ruinous while also believing that requiring cost-sharing for insulin or dialysis is fine. Yet that is basically where the centrist discourse is at this moment.
I think Bruenig’s basic case for free universal health care is sensible and morally correct, but I think his argument falters where it comes across as adversarial.
If I had to guess as to the source of this tension, it would be that centrists see gender discrimination when they ponder birth control cost-sharing, but do not see (or care about) diabetes discrimination or kidney failure discrimination in the other cost-sharing cases. Put differently, health care cost-sharing generally discriminates against the sick, but the sick are not an active identity group in the Democratic coalition.
First off, is birth control really the “best example”? Medicaid, for example, which Democrats created and support, affords eligible low-income Americans access to many free medical services — and low-income Americans are not a group that’s confined to a particular identity nor a group we associate with a lot of political clout. The group which Bruenig is referring to — women — of course represents an entire half of America’s population, which has been historically discriminated against. When you’re making a righteous argument against discrimination toward one group (e.g., folks with chronic health conditions), I don’t think it helps to come across as adversarial or begrudging toward the righteous struggles of another historically oppressed group (e.g., women).
Why we should focus more on Trump's classism
I’ve written before about how much I enjoy Briahna Joy Gray’s razor-sharp argumentation skills. She’s always a pleasure to read. If you don’t entirely agree with her thesis, I think you’ll still appreciate the dexterity with which she weaves her case. In ”The Problem With Calling Trump a Racist”, she makes the case for focusing on Trump’s classism.
In failing to incorporate a class analysis, writers and political analysts risk unwittingly cultivating a harmful mythology: that Trump represents the best interests of white Americans.
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In “The Lowest White Man,” [Charles] Blow begins to move in what I feel to be the right direction – recognizing the role racism has played in dividing the poor and preserving power for the wealthy. He even quotes Lyndon B. Johnson’s prescient warning that “if you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket.” But Blow ignores that at the center of President Johnson’s observation is an acknowledgment that those who use racism to accrue power often do not represent the best interests of white Americans, but wealthy Americans. Instead of considering the class implications at play, Blow characterizes Trumpism as “a religion founded on patriarchy and white supremacy.” Dave Chappelle came much closer to the real dynamic in a much-quoted riff from his newest Netflix comedy special: Trump isn’t fighting for poor whites, he observed; “[Trump]’s fighting for me,” a millionaire who, incidentally, is black.
In fact, for all he maligns non-whites, Trump is far from a champion of the white race. Even at his most bigoted, one can tease out the financial incentives that operated in symbiosis with his prejudice. His relentless campaign against the Central Park Five was not only evidence of his callow disregard for criminal justice and the civil rights of the accused, it reflected his personal interest in the greater policing of New York City, the increased safety which most (wrongly) assumed would follow, and the correspondingly higher value of his Central Park-facing properties. The housing discrimination for which Trump is famous was enabled by a lack of fundamental respect for black renters, yes, but it was also likely motivated, in part, by a desire to extract the maximum fees from his properties. Trump wrote off entire nations as “shithole countries,” but while those “shitholes” were uniformly brown, it strains credulity to believe that he would have made a stink about wealthy, non-white nations like Japan or Saudi Arabia. Even Eric Trump’s foot-in-mouth defense of his father’s racism speaks some truth to power: “My father,” he says, “sees one color: green. That’s all he cares about.”
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Until liberals begin connecting Trump’s racism to a class narrative, white Americans, particularly low-income white Americans, will be tempted to see Trump as their white savior, and racism as their last salvo. Let’s provide them an alternative in 2018.
Gray’s article, of course, involves a contentious subject: can we acknowledge Trump’s putrid racism and at same time acknowledge the pitfalls of making it the centerpiece of our case against him?
TRT welcomes and expects cogent critiques of the articles we link to. We hope our comment threads will be a place for insightful and respectful discourse, and thereby a venue where, occasionally, you’ll be able to persuade someone to change their mind — which truly is much more satisfying (and rewarding) than throwing pie in their face.