One of the worst developments in the Trump era is the widespread belief on the Right that if conservatives want to win, we have to “play dirty.”
This sentiment was repeated, often in those exact words, all over Twitter and conservative social media in the wake of House Republicans pulling their stunt of occupying a “secure” hearing room, some with cellphones illicitly in hand, to protest the way Democrats are conducting impeachment proceedings. It has been a common argument, or at least verbal eruption, since Trump entered Republican presidential politics.
The sentiment is terribly self-defeating in practice and, worse, morally monstrous.
It is self-defeating because conservatives think they are the “good guys” against the supposedly evil Left. If this is so, and winning is dependent on who can go lower, then there’s no way conservatives could ever win in the long term. Logic says that in a race to see who can win by playing dirtiest, the side with fewer scruples will always be willing to go lower. If conservatives think they are superior, they must think their consciences or character are better than the Left’s. Therefore, either they will never succeed at out-dirtying the Left (because their better character won’t allow it) or they will, thus refuting the idea that their character really is superior.
The reason Saul Alinsky urged radicals to make conservatives play by our own rules while they don’t was because he knows rules are constraining. That doesn’t mean we should adopt the tactics of a guy who literally dedicated his book to Lucifer; it means that rather than abandoning the rules, we should redouble our effort to strengthen essential rules so radicals can’t escape them. Norms favor the good guys; lack of norms favor the bad.
If conservatives do otherwise, they will experience so much losing they won’t be able to stand it.
For those who can’t do syllogistic logic, though, the reasoned argument from morality should prevail anyway. One should do the right thing because it’s the right thing. Period.
This isn’t to demand major self-sacrifice or invite defeat. Unless one believes human nature is so benighted that truth and justice cannot possibly prevail, then acting ethically and according to decent norms can just as easily be a winning play as a losing one. James Madison and other founders firmly believed human nature was in the realm of 50-50; so should we all, especially we conservatives who supposedly revere U.S. founding principles.
Think of it this way: If we believe fellow Americans are a decent people on the whole, we should believe they will eventually recognize and reward decency and rightful actions. Furthermore, we should believe that only right actions can lead to truly just results. Healthy fruit cannot come from poisoned trees.
Just as importantly, there’s a better way, much more effective, than playing dirty. The way to win is not by playing dirtier, but by playing smarter. Ronald Reagan showed as much. So, in its way, did the early Tea Party movement, which helped catalyze a monumental midterm victory in 2010 and then resulted in a huge slowdown in President Barack Obama’s federal spending. That win involved using high-energy, but usually very polite, methods.
To say that the only reason Trump won is because he was willing to go low is to ignore the deep unpopularity of his opponent and the copious evidence that he won despite his personal nastiness, not because of it, while other statewide Republican candidates outperformed him in most of the close-run states (including U.S. Senate candidates in Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Ohio, and New Hampshire). A refusal to adopt his methods isn’t surrender; it’s a combination of self-respect and self-confidence. In the long run, that’s a winning combination.
