FOR
years, conservative politicians have been charged with indifference
toward the plight of the poor and vulnerable. Republicans are accused of
caring more about hedge fund managers than people who trim hedges, and
when pollsters ask questions like “Who cares more about people like
you?,” Democrats consistently come out on top. The George Washington
University political scientist Danny Hayes has found that Americans, by significant margins, believe that empathy and compassion are traits “owned” by Democrats.
Most
Republicans acknowledge this, but many just shrug. Maybe they don’t win
on empathy and compassion, they’ll concede, but they have a lock on
some other traits. Research by Mr. Hayes shows that most voters
instinctively associate morality and strong leadership with the
political right.
Based
on the premise that political success comes from doubling down on
natural strengths, many Republicans conclude that the way to win is to
be redder than red: They emphasize strength and moral uprightness and
forget about the soft stuff. Similarly, many Democrats fixate on empathy
and compassion and neglect the rest.
This explains our current depressing political stalemate. Congressional ratings are at historic lows
— with 15 percent of Americans approving of their performance, members
of Congress hold a position in the public esteem that is somewhere
between that of Vladimir V. Putin and a case of head lice. This is not
based on policy complaints as much as the fact that our leaders’ moral
repertory has all the nuance of a one-keyed piano. Americans don’t want
to choose between compassion and morality, or between leadership and
empathy. We want leaders who have all these traits.
F. Scott Fitzgerald famously declared
that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two
opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability
to function.” Compassion and strong leadership are not even opposed —
yet these days, they can’t seem to be held in the same political mind.
What a sad commentary on our times.
But
in this dreary stalemate lies a tremendous opportunity. Mr. Hayes’s
research shows that Americans love a leader who throws out the usual
script and trespasses on traits that traditionally belong to the other
side. Combing through decades of data, he finds that on average, if
voters rate two candidates as equally strong leaders (meaning the
Democrat has erased his party’s usual deficit on this trait), they break
roughly 60 percent to 40 percent in favor of the Democrats. Conversely,
among voters who rate a Republican candidate and a Democratic one as
equally empathetic, the G.O.P. wins with about 65 percent. Voters reward
candidates who go after unconventional traits.
This
brings us to the high-profile anti-poverty initiatives from
trait-trespassing Republicans such as Senator Marco Rubio and
Representative Paul D. Ryan. Mr. Ryan’s new anti-poverty plan, for
example, features an expansion of the earned-income tax credit for
childless workers — an outstanding idea that Democrats have favored for
decades. The Washington Post declared the plan
“so bipartisan it doesn’t sound like he’s running in 2016,” supposing
that Mr. Ryan’s proposal might even jeopardize his chances with the
Republican base.
While
we wouldn’t want or expect Democrats to rubber-stamp any Republican
plan, we might reasonably expect that they would welcome the
development, not treat it as a threat. After all, doesn’t this mean
there is finally real hope for a bit of bipartisan progress in helping
our most vulnerable citizens?
Obviously,
I was born yesterday. Mere hours after Mr. Ryan’s speech at the
American Enterprise Institute announcing the plan, attacks began. The
influential progressive blog Think Progress quickly posted
a series of pieces dismissing Mr. Ryan’s plan out of hand. “While Ryan
is trying out new rhetoric around the issue of poverty,” they wrote, his
plan “is full of the same empty promises he’s been making for years.”
Other progressive pundits followed suit, some appearing more eager to
silence Mr. Ryan than to build a compromise that would help the poor.
Rather
than trying to chase this Republican interloper off their compassion
turf, liberals could instead use the same technique and adopt some
typically conservative traits. Openly discussing personal morality and
extolling strong leadership in foreign affairs would help Democrats
appeal to more voters and poach from the Republican base.
Scrambling
the conventional categories would not merely shift electoral dynamics.
It would improve our country. More trait-trespassing politicians would
give all citizens the competition of ideas we deserve. Because of the
lack of overlapping values between the parties today, most people have
effectively one choice when it comes time to vote. Often, we just hold
our noses and pull the lever. That makes politics about as edifying as
shopping at a Soviet-era supermarket. Wouldn’t we all like some choice?
With a little work, maybe we can make our politics into more of a contest between virtuous adversaries.
For once, voters would be the winners.
Arthur C. Brooks is a contributing opinion writer and the president of the American Enterprise Institute.
