When President George W. Bush was in office, I was a flaming liberal. I opposed the Iraq War on a host of grounds, not the least of which was the Constitutional requirement that only Congress (not the president) could declare war.

I was critical of Bushian fiscal policies from profligate spending to steel tariffs to farm subsidies. I was bitterly opposed to the PATRIOT Act and other curtailments on the freedoms ordinary Americans enjoy. The various ideas coming out of the Justice Department about the ‘unitary executive' made my skin crawl, and please don't get me started at a party on the problems with torture and the ability to declare American citizens to be enemy combatants.

I voted for Bush the Younger in 2000. I registered as a Republican at age 18, remained a Republican throughout the Bush Administration, and have remained a Republican since. My biggest political influence during my formative years was Pat Buchanan, whose column I read every single day.

None of that mattered to members of my own party. Because I was opposed to the Bush Regime on substantive policy issues, I was a flaming liberal, leftist, pinko, commie. I hated America, wanted us to fail, and was only interested in giving the country over to Muslim fanatics.

Now Mr. Obama is president, and I have completely gone the other way. Now, I am a right-wing reactionary, obstructionist Republican rooting for America to fail to validate my own prejudices. I am also, apparently, a racist, an ignorant redneck, and some kind of religious extremist.

Funny thing is - I have not changed a single opinion in at least 10 years. The only difference now is that a Democrat is in power. Which means, by definition, that all opponents of said Democrat must be conservative members of the vast, right-wing conspiracy.

I'd like to locate a meeting of that conspiracy sometime. They might have cookies or something. I love cookies. But alas, I never do get invited to the good parties with the Oreo Doublestuffs. That's life on the D-list I'm afraid.

What exactly is the moral of this story?

Only this - severely partisan-minded people do not, as a rule, engage in rational policy discussion. Instead, they immediately start calling names in an effort to choke off any discussion before it can really get started. What this shows is politics at its most tribal. It isn't about issues - it's about identity.

Criticize a Democratic officeholder in front of Democrats, and the reaction usually is, "Of couse you think that way, you're a conservative who hates minorities!" Case closed, discussion over. Nothing you said matters.

Criticize a Republican officeholder in front of Republicans, and the reaction usually is, "Of course you think that way, you're a liberal that hates America!" Case closed, discussion over. Nothing you said matters.

Political partisans can't seem to argue facts or use logic to defend their positions. It is as if they are totally blind to the glaring contradictions and inconsistencies of their own politicians and their pet policies.

What do I mean by contradictions? George W. Bush campaigned in 2000 on the promise of a more humble foreign policy that eschewed nation-building. He also was a champion of fiscal conservatism, free markets, and American sovereignty.

How well did all that work out? Not very well. In office, Bush favored policies of protectionism, open borders, amnesty, bailouts, massive borrowing from foreign creditors, and a foreign policy of warmed-over Wilsonianism that made Johnson's little nation-building experiment in Indochina look small by comparison.

Barack Obama won attention in the primaries because of his promise to withdraw our troops from Iraq within 16 months of his inauguration. As president, he's now gone back on that, and we now understand that he will never withdraw American troops from Iraq of his own volition. Best case, he leaves 50,000 soldiers there indefinitely, while ramping up the war in Afghanistan and, possibly, expanding that war into Pakistan.

Nothing will deter him from this course of action, unless our economic collapse forces him to pull back. He also campaigned as a champion of the common man, only to shovel billions in bailout money to Wall Street fatcats. After having been critical of Bush's extravagant spending habits, Obama tripled the deficit in his first hundred days. Obama posed as a champion of civil liberties, only now to embrace many of the Bush-era abuses, even trying to strengthen the ability of police to interrogate suspects in the absence of their attorneys.

This is just a smattering of the various betrayals both men have visited upon their staunchest supporters. This is not new, of course, as politicians have been playing their electoral bases for suckers since at least the Roman Republic. But, despite all that, loyal Democrats are stepping up to defend their guy just as viciously as loyal Republicans went to bat for W. It is almost as if they are unable to recognize that they are backing policies which are exactly opposite of what their guy promised in order to get elected.

What gives with that, anyway? I've pondered that question for years, but finally got some inkling of an answer from a study done during the 2004 presidential election cycle. Researchers at Emory University did a study on both Democrats and Republicans to determine how hyper-partisan individuals processed information.

Researchers asked staunch party members from both sides to evaluate information that threatened their preferred candidate prior to the 2004 Presidential election. The subjects' brains were monitored while they pondered.

What did the researchers find? Essentially, partisan Democrats and Republicans are completely unable to see contradictions on their own side of the fence.

The tests involved pairs of statements by the candidates, President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry, that clearly contradicted each other. The test subjects were asked to consider and rate the discrepancy. Then they were presented with another statement that might explain away the contradiction. The scenario was repeated several times for each candidate.

The brain imaging revealed a consistent pattern. Both Republicans and Democrats consistently denied obvious contradictions for their own candidate but detected contradictions in the opposing candidate.

Overall, here were the results:

• Partisan beliefs are calcified, meaning partisan people can learn very little from new data
• Partisans spin data in their minds until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones. They literally feel a rush from ignoring facts which contradict their desired outcomes.

Partisan politics isn't about facts or issues or policies. It's about identity. In other words, it isn't about what a member of my tribe says or does, what matters is that they are part of my tribe. So if a Democrat sells out totally on issue after issue, the Democrats simply ignore that fact and keep on vilifying the opposition. The Republicans do the same thing. In fact, partisan minds even reinforce this process by giving their owners a rush from ignoring contradictory data.

There is no logic to this. Which is why rational policy debate is out the window. How can you have a rational debate when you are totally blind to the contradictory nature of the policies emanating from your own side, and are incapable of learning from new data? In fact, how can you even begin to argue rationally if you are incapable of evaluating your own side's ideas?

If you believe your side is perfect, and are totally blind to any failings in your chosen Messiah, then of course you are going to react badly to any opposition. A partisan mind can't conceive of any principaled opposition based on facts. The only possible explanation for anyone opposing the Chosen One must be irrational hatred, or some other dark, evil motivation such as a desire to see America destroyed. When you are blind to your own failings, it is easy to project nefarious motives on others.

Republicans need to take a long, hard look at the way Democrats are acting right now. Then they need to understand that for the past 8 years they were no better. In some ways, they were worse. The fact is that politicians on both sides of the political fence lie like rugs and abuse their core constituencies. The pro-life Republicans don't reduce abortions, the pro-peace Democrats don't stop any wars. The pro-God Republicans don't reverse the tide of secularism, and the pro-poor Democrats don't create any real jobs.

The time is now to stop the addiction to willful ignorance. The Gospel calls us to first examine ourselves, and only then to look at others. Electoral politics encourages us to ignore our own faults, and instead attack the other guy viciously.

This is why the Gospel has survived for 2,000 years, but our own Republic is a candidate for history's dustbin after just over 200. I encourage both sides of the political debate in this country to look at their own leaders and their own policies. Really examine what they are up to, and what the potential impact will be. Look past the tribal indentificaiton and be willing to engage in criticism of your own Chosen One. When both sides are willing to look at themselves honestly, then we may be in a position to make some headway.

Until then, we'll just keep calling each other names.

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 [Politics as Tribe]

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