Election 2011

I think both Chait and Krauthammer are wrong on points.

The study Chait references, by the way, is pretty patronizing; it simply defines ethnocentrism as the opposite of cosmopolitanism, and suggests it as the origin of all sorts of points of views on the right, including opposition to gay marriage. What he's really talking about is a "common sense" oriented non-relativistic view of the world versus a postmodern cultural relativism, and wrapping it in terminology that panders to a lot of liberal biases about how people think.

The quoted "opposition" to welfare and support of Medicare by the group termed "ethnocentric" is not surprising at all, although its mischaracterized. Hard-core conservatives use rhetoric against welfare all the time, but don't support dismantling it; they support reducing people's dependence on it, and generally transitioning it from welfare to "workfare", like was one of the goals of the reforms in the 90s. This is whats referred to in the study as "opposition" to welfare. Conservatives who are more "cosmopolitan" are likely to also be more "opposed" to Medicare and Social Security, because they'll either be libertarian -- and opposed to everything done by government -- or younger people, who are more conscious about long-term problems in these programs. In this case, the "them" that would be affected negatively by keeping Medicare and SS as they are is the older people's children -- not blacks and hispanics that they supposedly don't care about, but their own flesh and blood -- and they still defend the programs. See how making this about ethnocentricity obscures the real issues?

The issue with unions is that -- despite what conservatives may think -- even though the public is weary of corruption in unions, they side with labor rights all the time, even for public employees. The question, as Gov. Kasich put it, is whether the public is convinced that limiting their rights is necessary to run a functioning government. People have a schizophrenic attitude about spending -- they want the government to spend on things, but they don't want to pay for it. This same issue carries over into the public union debate. In theory, they support the public unions right to collective bargaining, and that's what they were voting on. So the debate on the issue needs to be narrowed to get any public support.

Krauthammer, of course, remarks on the wisdom of voters in rejecting the Personhood amendment, but doesn't note how close the vote came, 58%-42%. Perhaps he felt it would distract from his endorsement of their wisdom.