The Vibes to Conflict Pipeline
Also: threading the needle of public opinion on trans rights. – BCB #154
In the days right after Israel first struck Iran on June 13, Americans across the political spectrum agreed that we shouldn’t get involved in the fighting between Israel and Iran. Only 23% of Republicans thought it was a good idea. But those views, like many in our age of vibes-based politics, were about to change.
A week later, just after US warplanes bombed nuclear sites in Iran, Democrats’ views hadn’t changed, but 68% of Republicans now approved of American involvement.
It’s not hard to understand where this shift comes from: Trump himself, who ran for President on an isolationist “America First” platform, moved remarkably quickly from expressing ambivalence about getting involved to authorizing an American bombing campaign. As we’ve written about before, when Trump changes his mind about something, the opinions of many members of his party tend to follow suit.
The problem, of course, is that perceptions can foment conflict, even when they’re not grounded in the underlying reality. That conflict can take the form of overseas fighting, but it can also look like people who previously agreed with each other duking it out at home or online.
Already, the discourse around Iran in pockets of the MAGA internet is devolving. Outspoken Red voices online are telling their followers things like “If you’re no longer MAGA because Trump wiped out Iran’s nuclear sites, you were never MAGA to begin with,” leaving little room for thoughtful disagreement and likely fueling the stark shift in public opinion that we can see in the polling on this issue.
Nobody is immune to social pressure—we’re all much more likely to believe what the people around us approve of believing. This is part of being human, and often a good thing; this is how constructive social norms spread. On the other hand, it’s also how destructive conflict spreads.
The fight over the fight over trans rights
On June 18, the Supreme Court upheld state bans on providing gender-affirming care for transgender minors. Whether or not you agree with this decision, one thing seems clear: the fight for trans rights is slipping through the fingers of even its most ardent supporters. In a recent interview with Ezra Klein, Delaware congresswoman Sarah McBride, the first openly trans member of Congress, offers her thoughts on how Democrats lost this fight, and how she thinks legislators, activists, and ordinary people with the long-term goal of securing trans rights ought to adjust their strategy.
In short, McBride explains, persuading people requires immense time and effort, and you could make the argument that the Democrats’ party line around trans rights got out ahead of what the public had come to understand and accept.
We decided that we now have to say and fight for and push for every single perfect policy and cultural norm right now, regardless of whether the public is ready. And I think it misunderstands the role that politicians and, frankly, social movements have in maintaining proximity to public opinion, of walking people to a place.
We should be ahead of public opinion, but we have to be within arm’s reach. If we get too far out ahead, we lose our grip on public opinion, and we can no longer bring it with us.
McBride’s interview with Klein led to swift backlash in the trans community, where many people saw her comments as capitulating to anti-trans politics and giving Democrats an out to move to the right. Erin Reed, a prominent trans activist, quickly wrote a post on Substack responding to McBride’s comments:
McBride fails to grasp a hard truth: capitulation has never yielded progress on LGBTQ+ rights—not in public opinion, certainly not in policy, and not in this fight. We aren’t losing ground because we’ve been too loud or too assertive. We’re here because the far right dominates the media ecosystem, funnels hundreds of millions into demonizing transgender people, and has cowed Republican politicians into lockstep obedience. The only antidote is to stand firm and lead with principle.
Of course, McBride acknowledges, the tenor of attacks trans people face from legislators, judges, and their neighbors can make it hard to tack to the center. But she argues that people who are playing the long game need to think carefully about who they are trying to appeal to, and how:
I recognize that when the house is on fire, when there are attacks that are dangerous, very dangerous, it can feel like we need to scream and we need to sound the alarm and we need everyone to be doing exactly that. I get that instinct. I understand that people would say: If you give a little bit here, they’ll take a mile.
We’re not negotiating with the other side, though. In this moment, we have to negotiate with public opinion. And we shouldn’t treat the public like they’re Republican politicians.
When you recognize that distinction, I think it allows for a pragmatic approach that has, in my mind, the best possible chance of shifting public opinion as quickly as possible. It would be one thing if screaming about how dangerous this is right now had the effect of stopping these attacks, but it won’t.
Quote of the Week
America so deindustrialized we don’t even manufacture our own consent