Tea Party Justice

(Other) people (who I don't know) should be punished for their shortcomings (about which I know nothing).

In the wake of the 2013 U.S. government shutdown and a narrowly averted default on federal debt, many commentators have tried to explain the apparently irrational actions of politicians associated with the Tea Party movement. In light of the fruitlessness of these actions and the potentially catastrophic implications of a default, it does seem worthwhile to explain what motivates Tea Party rage, especially regarding the U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. As someone who isn't particularly attached to that legislation, I still find it frightening just how disproportionate the anger toward it is.

Quite a few observers have claimed that the Tea Party is motivated by nihilism. The Big Lebowski aside, this isn't much of an explanation. Other than some fringe groups of Russians and Germans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, nihilism hasn't typically actually inspired any significant collective action.

Another theory is that the fear of a black president has tapped into deep reservoirs of anti-black hatred in the U.S. There is something to that, since for roughly 450 of the 500 years since North America was settled by non-Natives there has been some form or another of open hostility toward people with any known African ancestry. Given the kind of unintelligible rage inspired by the relatively moderate policies and measured and calm personality of Obama (in comparison to the reprehensible personal life of Clinton and the flippant rhetoric of Dubya), there might be something to this. In particular, the Affordable Care Act, supposedly a socialist and un-American plot, is rooted in the ideas of conservative and Republican think-tanks and politicians. (Anyone ignorant enough to think of the ACA as socialist is welcome to sign up for the public option--oh yeah, there is none).

So what really motivates the Tea Party? They are largely motivated by the idea that bad and lazy people should be punished. This principle of retributive justice is fairly widely held in the U.S. But the Tea Party conveniently feeds off the idea that someone, somewhere out there is undeserving of healthcare, food, and housing, as Mitt Romney put it. Of course, no one can name 47% percent of the people they know as part of this category, but the factual issue is beside the point. More important is the moral aspect: There is a moral disagreement between the notion that people ought to suffer for (alleged) wrongdoing and the notion that people should not be allowed to suffer if that is at all possible. For the most part, the Tea Party buys into the notion of retributive justice: Doing right should be rewarded proportionately, while doing wrong should be punished proportionately.

Of course, one might think, isn't that just what morality is? There are some serious problems with this approach, though. For one thing, who could possibly sort out the deserving from the undeserving to know who should and who shouldn't be allowed to starve/go homeless/die without medical care? An obvious answer is that this can be privately worked out by churches, employers, family members, etc. As Corey Robin has pointed out, since 1789 or so conservative ideology has been more interested in preserving private hierarchies than in preserving public ones. In other words, relying on such entities as employers to determine who should be given food, healthcare, and housing amounts to reliance on a largely unaccountable private tyranny. There is the mythology of the best and hardest working rising to the top, but that ignores the countless times when that doesn't happen. More than that, though, it allows the other 90% to potentially fall through the cracks of society. (As for churches and charities, go ask them if they are both able and willing to pay for the rent, grocery bills, and health insurance of even 10 families in need. Didn't think so.)

Moreover, there is something horribly wrong with a moral outlook that allows for people starving, going involuntarily homeless, or lacking needed medical care simply on the basis of (again, alleged) moral failure. Even if we could identify those who deserve to be poor, that fate is one that no one deserves unless incredible scarcity exists. Such scarcity obviously does not exist. What remains is a decision about the (plausible) mechanism used to eliminate poverty in a society. But that assumes that one views poverty as an unmitigated evil. For many Tea Party members, it may be that poverty is a good thing insofar as it properly disciplines the workforce and forces people to accept their just deserts. Other people, that is. (Keep your government hands of my Medicare, etc.)

[Update: Paul Krugman says something similar.]