RichardHananiais a political scientist with interesting ideas. He started writing about Afghanistanandthe weaknesses of U.S. foreign policyin 2012, and his ideas, regardless of whether they are right,have never seemed more relevantthan they are today.Hananiaispresident of the Center for Study of Partisanship andIdeology andhas blogged about subjects ranging from the last minutes of a basketball game,to the “awokening”ofsociety.My interview with him touches on a lot of his work. My questions areedited slightly for clarity.
Whatdo you find important or rewarding about your work?
Things that I think are important or things that can influence the public discussion. It’s rewarding to see people who are important engage[with]and compliment the stuff Iwrite,[and]it’s nice to have the freedom to write about what you’re interested in. Even in academia, people build their own research agenda, but have to fit it to scholarship or literature. I don’t have to do that.I write some op-eds and newspapers and stuff. There’s a freedom there.
What specific topic do you like that you’ve covered most?
American foreign policy—I’ve contributed a lot to it. I wrote about the war in Afghanistan.[President Joe]Biden ended the war in Afghanistan. I’ve had a lot of op-eds and a lot of appearances. The entire war was bad, and it could have been a lot worse. There’s been more and more skepticism about Americanforeignpolicy. I’ve been a part of it.
In some ways, I’ve helped tomainstreamthe idea thateveryinstitutionisliberal. I’ve got it into public discoursethatthe reason liberals dominate everythingisbecause they care more about politics.Unlikeelectionsthatareclose to50-50, when it comes to who cares more, who captures institutions, the left has a real advantage in this country. Civil rights lawis theultimate source of wokeness. It’s an overlooked point that I wanted to develop further. There are policy solutions tothis issue. It’s a cultural thing, not just a legal thing now. It was a path from legal developments to the culture and undoingthe legal aspects may change culture again.
You’ve argued that Trump does better by not apologizing. Is that strategy broadly able to work, or is it a fluke? What should politicians learn from this? Can, or should,mediatry to hold people accountable?
Many people think the way it works is that you say something and there’s outrage. Apologizing is admitting something is wrong. This thing being said is not really that bad. Most things people are canceled for shouldn’t be seen as that bad. The issue is that being unapologetic meshes with Trump’s entire persona. You can’t take the non-apologizing thing about the persona. Trump wants to bang the table and signal that you’re with one tribe and not the other. The left demands an apology, yetsolidifying the base won the election for him. People don’t care about norms and being unoffensive as much as the media and other elites do.
Let me explain further.People are unsure of what to be outraged about. Most people don’t have a list of things they should or shouldn’t be offended by. Take dating or friendships, there are often doublestandards people apply because these things are instinctual. When you apologize you send a signal that you are a compassionate person. However, it can also come from a place of weakness.
The media has a lot of problems. It’s clearly biased, it has a general affiliation with the left.Things they want to hold people accountable for are often very stupid. Things that people consider racist and sexist are very broad. In general, you want the media to tell us when people are lying. The media does a good job holding the left accountable for outrageous stuff. But most stuff they let slide. Right-wing media doesn’t work either. Republicans don’t hold themselves accountable either.
You argue that “All institutions are liberal,”andthat the reason is because progressives tend to be more active in politics than conservatives.Does this hold universally? You also talk about the feminization ofsociety.I’ve noticed that a few other conservatives like Tyler Cowen have argued something akin to this. Tell me more about what this means.
These things are linked. There’s a gender divide between men and women. There’s a lot of overlap, but men tend to be more conservative and vote more Republican than women. If you look atWhites and Hispanics, and male versus female,the20-pointvotergap is huge.
A result of this feminization is wehave less of an inclination to do a cost-benefit analysis. There’s more of an emphasis of being safe at any cost.Where menare more likely to think like an economist, and to considertheentire pictureas opposed tominimizingone variable.
There areotherpositiveaspects to thisas well, such as the decline of violence, war, tortureandcruel treatment ofprisoners.
Whya20-point gap?
There’s more sorting[with the]identitypolitics on the left. Womentend to be more likely to be friendly to identitypolitics. Sincethe left is more friendly toidentity politics such as theregionalization ofpolitics. You’ve heard the phrase“as a woman”or“as a person of color.”Women are more likely to engage in terms of these identity-based politics.
Another note on institutions:Women in academia are less likely to be married or have children,and in some ways thatrepresents women, but not other ways.
So,you think conservatives have no way of really getting an effective compromise? Is this because liberals win because they care about politics more? Can you explain your cardinal preference theory?You reference learned helplessness among conservatives. Tell me more about the causes and effects.
Conservatives are more indifferent at the national level. They don’t want to compromise. They want to be seen as fighting the Democrats to the greatest extent possible. One side just takes politics more seriously. Ordinalversus cardinal theories is an interesting way of explaining preferences.
Ordinal looks just at numbers,[and it]is close to50-50. Pretty even, andit’salways pretty close. Cardinal preferences are how bad you want something to happen, [and] that’swhat matters for capturing institutions. To pressure a corporation or the government, actions likewritinga letter, protesting, etc.tend to be effective.
On those measures, liberals are more caring about politics. More likely to cut people off, more likely to go into realms that are influential, like academia or journalism. More likely to donate money, protest, sign petitions. All these things measure cardinal preferences. Liberals just care more, eventhough[political]parties arepretty evenlymatched.
What aboutnon-presidential years?
That’s not universally true. It wasn’t true of Trump’s first term,nottrue in 2018. During the Obama administration,[the]party out of powerdoesbetter in off-year elections. Voting is not something that takes that much effort.There arestill hundreds of millions of people going to vote in the midterm elections. Voting isn’t that huge a matter of election preferences, notsomething that involves dedicating life to it. Even if it’s true, Republicans do better in an election.Parties’composition has changed. More educated people vote in midterm elections. Republicans used to do better among white,college-educated[voters]. More have moved towards the Democratic camp. Midterms areprobably,to a lesser extent,going to turn out in favor of the Republicans.
If that’s the case, wouldn’tmaking it harder to votehelp Democrats?
This is where it seems to get complicated.Democrats are bimodal, split into the most dedicated and least dedicatedabout politics. Republicans are more in-between.This is consistent with the idea thatliberalscare more.The people that really matter are activists and journalists, because not many people dedicate themselves to politics, or provide much support.
Freedom House: You argue that a bunch of NGOs are run by American officials and the U.S.government. What’s the alternative? Why isn’t there more scrutiny about Sweden, Norway, etc.? Does this create fake legitimacy for the government?Tell me how alternative institutions may be built.
What’s the need for an alternative? We can read the newspaper and learn about the systems. To give everyone a point and have 32s or a 17s or a 46s…There’s not really a good reason to do that. It’sjust a justification for American foreign policy. I don’t think whatFreedom House isdoing is good. There can be groups that focus on human rights,but, going around theworldandrankingpeopleisa waste of time.
Neocons[neoconservatives]arepretty liberalon these things. They can get perfect scores, but Nordic countries are most democratic because liberals like them themost. Meanwhile, the U.S.and disinformation on theInternet makes it not a real democracy.No matter how youslice the data, it is going to be biased.
People are skeptical when they want to be skeptical.Then they say there’s a new threat overChina, and people buy it. The military establishment still has a lot ofcredibility buthas lostmuch ofit over time. People don’t take the generals as seriously, buttheystillhave some[credibility]left.
Ifyou don’t like current institutions like[the]media or academia, there are policy suggestionsthat can push the needle in a better direction.For instance,anti-discrimination laws go over the top,andinfringeonwhat can be said and association. School choice, if you can transfer money away from education system into parents’ hands, thatwould be a great thing. Legislators do this at the state level, but a lotmorecan be done here.
I think there’s room for some better mediasources, thingsthat are not necessarily partisan.Krystal[and]Saagar’sBreakingPointis a good example.There isspace for that.People need to be entrepreneurial.In my shortcareer as a public intellectual, I try togivepeople something different.I’m notpandering to anideology;a lot of people want smart ideological peopleto agree with them.My niche is to think more aboutpossibilities.
You argue thatwokeness isgovernmentpolicy. Can you explain more? Why is harassment law, and other court doctrinemisguided? How much of a threat is government action to free expression?
The Civil Rights Act says don’t discriminate on race and sex. Itdoesn’t explain what it means. Through the courts and the bureaucracy, the definitions become expanded.Not discriminating now requires affirmativeaction anddiscriminating against[White people]and menon behalf ofwomen and minorities.Now, it emphasizes disparate impact, usuallyreferring to[Blackpeople]orsome other race,or women.
Since people can be sued for having a disparate impact, it has created a chilling effect. Human resourcesisan industry that arose after theCivilRightsActfrom the innovations in civil rights law.This changed theculture. Wokeness is the implications of government policies.
Another example is the banning of tests that may have disparate impact.Governments explicitlyaskthat you have an affirmative action program, andit doesnottake into accountdata that could be racially biased.This has led to a lack of diversity in institutions.
Government has been there for55years puttingtheir thumb on a scale. I think it’s mostly through civil rights law,which isindirect.
Cases inInternetcensorshiparemore direct. Democratic politicians go toBigTech[and]ask to kickright-wingers off.There are someanti-BDSlaws in certain states.
I don’t thinkdirectgovernmentactionis the mainthreat to speechin the U.S.Much of the pressure is indirectly fromthe governmentbecauseof theeducation system.Governmentfunds universities and puts thumb on scale through civil rights law.
You’ve recently written in detail about the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Can you tell me what you would want a lay person to know?
Know that we failed in the most miserable way a country can fail. We spent 20 years there and trillions of dollars. Wecouldn’tbuild an army that could last through the time we were withdrawing. The government wasfake anddidn’tcontrol anything. People’s livesdidn’tget better.[Therewere]tonsof human rights violations, drone strikes and bombings. Nobody really understood the mission, and it drifted forever. Generalsandsome think-tankers and some establishment said to stay in thereorlose our gains. Defenses of war became incoherent. American foreign policy is like this, wedon’t know what they were doing.
Following up on that,yourecently wrote an article for the New YorkTimes where youarguedthat we rely on “experts” far too much. What can be done about it? Are future marketsreallyableto solve the problem?
Futuremarketsare better than the alternative. When there’s an incentive to get things right, people are more likely to get things right. The alternative is no incentives at all. People don’t remember a month later if it happened or not. Expertise based on referencing itself, the idea that expertise is based on a community of fellow experts. This is circular. When you’re in,you’re taken seriously. We need something better in the hard sciences. Better metrics. Did you make a profit, did you invent something, can you really do something? Reading some random pundit onTwitter has no accountability mechanism to find some way to fix that. Why would we expect things to get better otherwise?
Would these future markets fall to the same fate as the one-handed economists?
Ifpeopletry to rig them. If you added mechanisms to keep track, or to keep transparent who gets right and wrong. There will be corrections like in a normal economic market.Punditry can do this too. Prediction markets overestimate the extreme circ*mstances. Extreme things don’t happen more often than not. I think that this is a problem with everything, but prediction markets are better than anything else.
Tell me about your opinion onCOVID. Explain what you mean by,“COVID is the new TSA.”
You have this vaccine. Thevaccinesolves the problem. The odds of death or hospitalization arebasically zero. You have to move on with your life at some point. People should get vaccinated and move on with their lives.The TSA basically makes you take off your shoes. They don’t work, and people are able to get stuff past them.Therearenot many terrorists out there.As a result, the TSA isjust making air travel unpleasant and take forever.Similarly,ifthis is like COVID, we may need to wear masks for the rest of our lives.It’s a tragedy that we don’t let people move on. Anything beyond that is hysteria.
