{"id":42554,"date":"2025-07-07T12:32:28","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T17:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=42554"},"modified":"2025-07-07T12:32:28","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T17:32:28","slug":"hiding-behind-that-rhetorical-flourish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2025\/07\/07\/hiding-behind-that-rhetorical-flourish\/","title":{"rendered":"Hiding Behind That Rhetorical Flourish"},"content":{"rendered":"

I see George Will is trying a bit of sleight of hand<\/a> when it comes to spending on political races:<\/p>\n

On [June 18th], peak absurdity reaches the Supreme Court. It must decide whether a compelling government interest is served by limiting \u201ccoordination\u201d between parties and their candidates. Lest the parties corrupt their own nominees?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>Notice the subtle bullying of the intellectual process by suggesting that this is obviously ridiculous. But let’s think about it this way: Are candidates and their parties inseparable entities?<\/p>\n

No. Many candidates, especially in the past, held certain positions at variance with their national party’s interest. In fact, it was quite a common phenomenon; today, it’s a bit less common.<\/p>\n

Candidates are also mutable<\/em>. There’s an old trope about the well-intentioned innocent entering politics, and exiting umpteen years later covered in shame. It’s not a myth.\u00a0Is it that hard to see a Party transforming the earnest politician into a self-serving wretch? No. The reverse is more difficult, but I think that historians will point to Mr Trump as a prime example of a candidate effectively corrupting a Party through the mechanisms of persecution of the earnest and the induction of the corrupt.<\/p>\n

Actual quid pro quo corruption involving donors is rare. Abundant research confirms what common sense suggests: Political contributions move to politicians\u2019 issue positions, not the other way around. Teachers unions generally support Democrats for the same reason opponents of gun restrictions generally support Republicans: the parties\u2019 preexisting beliefs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>Abundant research<\/em> doesn’t mean it was insightful research. After all, dishonest candidates, outside of Mr Trump, do not want to be caught being corrupt as the electorate puts a great deal of value on the honesty of candidates. Worse yet, Mr Will hits the big red button: Common sense<\/em>. This is another bullying phrase that should never be used when it comes to politics, usually because scaling solutions to 300 million people is a delicate proposition. I still apply it in this distantly related area, as ethics are, as Mr. Heinlein once noted, the most important aspect of a political candidate, and coercing ethics from an unethical candidate is a tricky thing to do.<\/p>\n

But citing abundant research that corruption is rare without acknowledging the difficulties inherent in such research is the sort of thing that makes my skin crawl.<\/p>\n

The takeaway? When someone tries to intellectually bully you, look around for the curtain. Pull it back. See what’s cowering in the corner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I see George Will is trying a bit of sleight of hand when it comes to spending on political races: On [June 18th], peak absurdity reaches the Supreme Court. It must decide whether a compelling government interest is served by limiting \u201ccoordination\u201d between parties and their candidates. Lest the parties \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42554"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42559,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42554\/revisions\/42559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}