Cranks of the world, unite!

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right

Last week, a rally was held in DC with a few thousand in attendance. It was called “Rescue the Republic,” but a better name would have been Freakchella. Speakers ranged from the far-left to the far-right and included anti-vaxxers, peaceniks aka Putin apologists, MAGA devotees and conspiracy theorists of all stripes. What the speakers and those in attendance all shared in common was support for Trump. The horseshoe theory has never looked better.

Since Trump became the face of the Republican Party, there has been a significant shift in party coalitions. Voters with a college degree have moved towards Democrats while voters without one have moved towards Republicans. Beneath that shift is another change affecting the two parties, which was on display at the rally. It is what Matthew Yglesias has called the crank realignment. Ross Douthat wrote a piece about it, too.

It wasn’t long ago when conspiracy theorists could be found in both parties. That was certainly the case during the Bush years. RFK Jr. was widely popular among Democrats even though he was as crazy as he is now. I have to confess I was once a fan of his and saw him speak. I was 18 and right out of high school so I have the excuse of youthful indiscretion.

Since 2016, those who believe in conspiracy theories have shifted sharply towards Republicans. Anti-vaxxers used to be plentiful on the left and being one was not a dealbreaker in Democratic Party circles. Today, anti-vaxxers are not welcome there, but are embraced wholeheartedly by Republicans. The journey of RFK Jr., the main speaker at the DC rally, says it all.

Yglesias argues that the crank realignment is bad for Democrats and Republicans. Douthat highlights problems it presents for the left and right. I think there is validity to what both of them wrote and I’m going to address some it here with my own cold take.

For Yglesias, the problem the crank realignment presents for Republicans is it makes them dumb. Very few intellectuals or experts are aligned with Republicans in the Trump era. Those on the right who are like that are marginalized and have little to no influence. That’s a problem because enacting and implementing policies requires their efforts. Even when Republicans want to address legitimate issues, they have very few people who can do the work of making it a reality.

Believing in conspiracy theories is the rule for Republicans and those on the right. For example, here is Marco Rubio on Friday saying the jobs report was fake. That is not the first time someone on the right has made that claim. Just about every event and/or the response to it is attributed to a conspiracy and/or is lied about. We saw that with Springfield, Ohio and we’re seeing it with conspiracy theories and lies about the response to Hurricane Helene.

It’s not just that Trump has brought cranks to the Republican Party. He’s made formerly sane people into cranks, especially at the elite level. Examples of that include Mike Lee, JD Vance and Lindsay Graham. All of them knew he was bad in 2016 and didn’t support him. In the years since, they have become some of his biggest supporters and sound indistinguishable from him. That has happened to some party donors, writers and consultants.

Although Yglesias says the crank realignment is bad for Democrats, his real concern is not with the Democratic Party itself. It’s with institutions and entire fields of expertise becoming left-wing monocultures. With so few people working in fields like journalism, public health and academia who are conservative, they become much more susceptible to groupthink and are likely to miss their own biases.

I think that’s right and we saw many examples of it during the pandemic and the Trump years. Some universities, particularly elite ones, lost sight of their mission to educate students and decided to become social justice factories. Public health officials were given way too much leeway to make policy and were deferred to no matter how insane their recommendations were.

In general, I’m heavily inclined to think ideological diversity is a good thing. It’s not healthy to only interact with people who agree with you on everything. How to achieve ideological diversity is a different story. I see it as a problem of culture and not laws. For example, I would like to see more conservatives in academia, but I don’t favor using the force of law against universities to achieve it.

For Douthat, a problem the crank realignment presents for the right is the widespread belief that because one idea dismissed by “the establishment” turned out to be right every such idea must be right. For example, because some scientists overstated the benefits of vaccines, it follows that vaccines are bad. If one conspiracy theory turns out to have some truth to it, then all conspiracy theories must be true.

I think that’s too bad, especially with respect to the pandemic. I think the CDC and FDA handled it horribly, which I have written about before. It would be great to see Republicans and those on the right pushing for ideas to fix them, but there is no such effort being made and there won’t be. A party that marginalizes intellectuals and experts and welcomes anti-vaxxers is not going to push for any kind of substantive changes.

Operation Warp Speed was amazing. It was far and away the best thing to happen on Trump’s watch. It’s something he should be bragging about, but his party is too insane for even him to do that.

When discussing the problems the crank realignment presents for the left, Douthat focuses on the craziness of the Trump years. He points to the far-left positions that were taken by some Democratic presidential candidates in 2019-20 and to the foothold gained by some writers who were obviously bad. In his telling, some Democrats and left-wingers got it in their heads that because being a crank was supposedly right-wing, there was no way they could be cranks themselves.

It’s certainly true there were Democrats who went way out into left-field during the Trump years. I have written about that many times before. Some people badly misinterpreted what happened in 2016 both in the Democratic primary and the general election. Contrary to what some thought, Bernie Sanders was not the wave of the future, socialism was not in high demand and wokeness had very little appeal. Trump won the general election by default on a platform of basically keepings things as they were. It was not proof that everyone wanted to burn it all down.

While many in Democratic Party elite circles went off the rails, rank-and-file Democratic voters did not. Democratic voters wanted to win, which they showed by nominating normal, center/center-left Democrats in 2018 and 2020. That’s the key difference between the craziness on the left and the right. I can never emphasize it enough.

The craziness on the left is and always was confined to party elites. Democratic voters have remained sane, rational and pragmatic the entire time. The craziness on the right is a different story. Republican voters have enthusiastically nominated Trump three times. Downballot, they have regularly nominated candidates from Arkham Asylum.

The crank realignment is good

It’s partly for that reason why I think the crank realignment is a good thing and where I differ from Yglesias on. To be sure, I don’t think the crank realignment is without downsides. In a two party system, both parties should be sane. If cranks are more evenly spread out, that can be done, but not so much if they all go to one side.

It’s not just that we have a two party system in the US. We also have a presidential system, which makes the changing of the guard more frequent.¹ We don’t just elect a president, we separately elect the House and Senate. We have presidential elections and then midterms two years later.

Between having a political system that makes the changing of the guard more likely and very high levels of polarization, it’s extremely difficult for one party to hold the presidency and Congress consistently. Even if one party goes insane, it doesn’t mean they can’t win. I sure as hell don’t want Trump to win, but he’s not the only Republican who is unfit to serve.

The problem is sooner or later, Republicans will win the presidency and Congress. Particularly at the presidential level, there is so much polarization that anyone who is the nominee of a major party for president can win no matter who they are. If they remain crazy like they are now, it’s going to be very bad having them in charge. That said, I still think the crank realignment brings more benefits than costs.

Republicans nominating lunatics has been a gift to Democrats. As someone who loves to see Democrats win, I can’t thank them enough for it. Democrats have won many federal and state races that they shouldn’t have because their opponents were toxic. This year, the governor’s race in North Carolina is basically over. That’s a race Republicans should be competitive in, but their voters opted to nominate a self-proclaimed “black Nazi.” The Senate race in Arizona is looking like it won’t be close either even though it should be.

If Harris wins in November, the midterms will probably not be good for Democrats unless Republicans nominate a bunch of cranks. It’s possible someone toxic could still win, but highly unlikely. A big question the 2022 midterms answered was what happens when an unstoppable force (the usual midterm dynamics) meets an immovable object (toxic candidates)? The answer is the latter is a bigger deal. Maybe things will be different in 2026, but call me skeptical.

It’s true Trump is one of the biggest cranks there is and he could win in November, but his appeal is unique to him. None of his imitators have had any success. Even with all the polarization at the presidential level, if Republicans nominate someone who acts like Trump, but is not him, they will be at a disadvantage. Downballot, being seen as Trumpy is a kiss of death in most competitive races.

Another problem with being the party of cranks is they aren’t reliable voters. By definition, those who are conspiracy theorists are low trusting people. I would wager very few of them are politically engaged. When they do pay attention to politics, it’s because of an attraction to a particular candidate. I suspect a large majority of those who attended the rally in DC are not regular voters, if they vote at all.

While plenty have lamented Democrats’ losing ground with non-college educated voters, I think the trade is mostly good. Democrats have been doing very well with college educated white voters. That’s a good trade because college educated white people tend to be reliable voters. The people Republicans have made gains with are much less likely to vote in midterm and other non-presidential elections. Presidential elections matter a lot, but so do non-presidential elections and arguably even more so depending on the issue.

Yglesias believes the crank realignment has given Republicans an edge in the electoral college. Trump had a big electoral college advantage in 2016 and 2020, but it may not be true this year. Even if it is, it’s still a good trade. If Republicans enjoy somewhat of an advantage in presidential elections while Democrats enjoy a substantial advantage in non-presidential elections, that’s not an even trade at all.

Beyond electoral politics, I think the crank realignment is good because I don’t like cranks. I don’t like conspiracy theorists of any stripe. Criticism of institutions and their shortcomings is welcome. Conspiracy theories are not. I don’t want Democrats to try to cater to that crowd and I wouldn’t want to have their support. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are welcome, Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. are not.

I sometimes write about the need to build as broad of a coalition as possible not just to win elections, but to win support for causes. That is something the pro-choice movement has been very successful at. It’s something I have implored those who want to see clean energy succeed to do. Building a broad coalition is going to involve finding common ground with people who don’t agree with you on many things.

Building a broad coalition is good, but there are limits to it. I do think the Harris campaign should reach out to undecided Republicans. I don’t think they should reach out to conspiracy theorists. When RFK Jr. tried to meet with Harris, she didn’t answer his call. Whatever your view of her judgment is, it should be a lot higher after learning that.

I don’t want the support of any speaker at the DC rally or anyone who attended it. I don’t want the support of those who think Putin is good. I don’t want the support of any bigots or grifters. I don’t want the support of any group or individual who engages in or condones violence against people or property.

God bless the establishment

I consider myself to be high trusting and pro-establishment. By that, I don’t mean I believe everything I hear or read from any authority figure uncritically. I have written before about the limits of expertise. We all have flaws and biases and make mistakes. Nobody is immune to mental pathologies like groupthink and confirmation bias. Despite those limits, expertise is not something we can live without and thank god for those who possess it.

What I do mean by high trusting and pro-establishment is that I think our institutions are good and I’m glad they exist. That includes public and private institutions. I’m glad we have an executive, legislative and judicial branch. Yes, even the Supreme Court is an institution I’m glad exists. I think it has done a lot more bad than good since its creation, but I don’t want to live in a world without it.

I think business is a force for good and I see businesses as providers of goods and services, not exploiters of workers and consumers. That’s not because I think those things don’t happen. It’s because I believe they’re the exception. The rule is businesses provide jobs and generate the growth that allows our living standards to rise. No economy has ever prospered without business leading the charge.

I believe our universities are good. We have the best universities in the world by far. A few idiots notwithstanding, I believe our elite universities are good. They produce talented people, conduct important research and attract people from all over the world. Thank god institutions like Stanford and Harvard are located in the US and not China.

I think two of our institutions are worthy of a big shoutout here. While the public health response to the pandemic left a lot to be desired, the economic response was spectacular. Congress and the Fed have done an excellent job. The CARES Act was the single best piece of economic legislation ever enacted.

Jay Powell is the greatest central banker of all time. Not one of the greatest, the greatest. I have been singing his praises for years and very few of my writings have aged as well as those pieces. He did more than anyone else to prevent another financial crisis from happening.

While he made mistakes, he course corrected and raised interest rates substantially and quickly to tackle inflation. Last month, the Fed cut interest rates after two years of raising them. Unemployment, which just about everyone in 2022-23 thought would surge, is at 4.1% as of this writing.

What Powell has done in just over two years is incredible. He is the first central banker to bring down inflation without tanking the economy. The soft landing that almost everyone thought couldn’t happen is happening. There are still dangers out there, short-term and long-term, but right now the US economy is firing on all cylinders.

Because of Powell and aid passed by Congress, what could have been a depression was a minor downturn. The inflation that began in 2021 was painful for many, but people still were able to spend and no lasting scars look to have been formed from that experience. If there is an Asgard for central bankers, Powell deserves the biggest place in it.

That is the establishment at its best. It’s why I’m glad institutions like Congress and the Fed exist. It’s why I’m glad we have a market economy that is innovative and dynamic. None of those things are perfect and there is always room for improvement, but I will fight tooth and nail to defend them from those who wish to burn everything down.

I have issues with some establishments. The foreign policy establishment was wrong about invading Iraq and leaving Afghanistan. I thought the press coverage of the Afghanistan withdrawal was horrid and I won’t ever forget it. Despite that, thank god we have a free press and they have the right to cover anything as they please no matter what I or anyone else thinks. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Although the foreign policy establishment can be wrong, I agree with that crowd more often than not. They are absolutely right about supporting Ukraine and the need to counter China while still promoting trade with allied nations. Above all, I think America is a force for good in the world and have no tolerance for anyone who says we’re no different from China and Russia. Whatever disagreements I have with the foreign policy establishment, I will take them over isolationism or MAGA dictator worshipping any day of the week.

The establishment most lacking now is public health. Many people in that field exposed themselves as being insane, not understanding tradeoffs and having no risk tolerance. A lot of needless damage and loss of trust happened because of that. Still, public health is not something we can live without. The solution to the public health failings during and after the pandemic is to address their causes, not to throw our lot in with conspiracy theorists.

I’m glad we have a CDC and FDA. Both do important work and we’ll need them if, god forbid, another pandemic happens. We can learn from what went wrong and improve on it or we can side with cranks. I very much prefer the former.

1. The UK has two major parties, but has a parliamentary system. It’s normal for one party to be in charge for over a decade. Labour is now in charge, but the Tories were in charge from 2010 until July this year. Nothing like that has happened in the US since 1932-1946.