Interview with Jeff Spinner-Halev, co-author of Respect and Loathing in American Democracy

A worthwhile new book

Jeff Spinner-Halev is the Kenan Eminent Professor of Political Ethics at UNC Chapel Hill, a widely respected political theorist (and longtime friend). He and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, the Willa Cather Professor of Political Science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, have written a compelling new book exploring how Americans across the political divide judge one another’s political beliefs.

Part of what makes Respect and Loathing in American Democracy so interesting and innovative is its combination of a philosophical exploration of the importance of mutual respect to democracy and civic life coupled with a range of empirical findings, drawn from three national surveys the authors fielded, as well as twenty seven different focus groups they conducted with liberals and conservatives in several cities in the United States. I thought a good portion of the readership of this substack would find their work both highly relevant to contemporary politics and, based on what I hear from some of you, helpful in attempting to make sense of how the other side can think the way it does about politics.

With help from Beth, Jeff responded to some questions I posed about the book, which I’ve edited very lightly.

JW: In a paragraph or so, explain what you'd most want people to get out of the book.

JSH: Respect is absolutely crucial to democracy, which our surveys show is a belief shared by most Americans, at least in the abstract. Respect is important for several reasons: it allows us to work and compromise with people with whom we disagree; diversity of viewpoints are inevitable, and so our co-workers, relatives and even some of our friends will hold opposing views or belong to a different political party; and if we can’t respect many of the people around us, our relationships suffer and our lives are diminished. Indeed, the saddest parts of our book are from our focus group discussions where people lament the relationships they lost because of political disagreements. Even though respect is so important, our results show that many Americans find it difficult to grant respect to opposing partisans.  This is particularly true for liberals, who by a modest margin are more likely than conservatives to believe in the importance of respect in the abstract yet are modestly less able to grant respect in practice. Both liberals and conservatives think that opposing partisans are ignorant and misled by the media, rather than holding legitimate beliefs with which they happen to disagree.  

JW: When it comes to civic respect, you say that it should not be granted to those who deny basic elements of our constitutional democracy, most notably accepting election results. But since that has become a mainstream position among Republicans, how is that to be squared with your larger call for widespread recognition respect? Put another way, if you are asking people, in a political context to respect others, while at the same time acknowledging (or suggesting) that many of those people are disqualifying themselves as democratic citizens worthy of respect, are you not asking too much?

JSH: We do distinguish recognition respect from what we call civic respect. Recognition respect is what we grant all humans.  It is tied to equality, since we should respect others as fellow humans. Civic respect is more political and is at its core an acceptance that our fellow citizens hold a plurality of beliefs.  As you say, we do argue that beliefs that undermine democracy are not worthy of civic respect. That does not mean that it is acceptable to withhold recognition respect, though that is what often happens in practice, according to our research.  Further, it is one thing to withhold civic respect from someone because they hold a harmful belief and another matter to permanently withhold it from a person.  Someone may genuinely believe something harmful to democracy because certain political elites tell them it is true or because they genuinely think it is right. This does not mean that we respect the belief, but we should have respect be the default position. It might be the case that someone has one harmful belief but their other beliefs might be worthy of respect. When we stop respecting all opposing partisans because of some of their beliefs, we will often reject all of their beliefs as utterly wrongheaded, even though that might not be fair or warranted.

JW: You say it's "too simple to say that racism was the main motivator for most Trump voters." But there has been voluminous scholarship on the relationship between racial resentment and voting for Trump. What is the basis of your claim and why is it important to make it? 

JSH: We don’t deny that racism plays an important role in American politics and in vote choice, but it is easy to view it as an all-encompassing explanation and using it will blind people to try to understand opposing partisans.  The racism lens cannot, for example, explain the many Obama-Trump voters.  Nor can it explain the fact that Trump increased his vote share of Black and Latino voters from 2016 to 2020 and it is quite possible that even more Black and Latino voters will vote for him in 2024 if the polls today are correct.  To be sure, the majority of Black voters will still vote for the Democratic nominee, but the fact that there is notable movement toward Trump among these groups should give pause to those on the Left. Indeed, it is possible that Latino voters will have an especially strong shift toward Trump.  If liberals simply ascribe racism to the other side, they are withholding civic respect, and they will not understand why they are losing voters. Using racism as an all encompassing explanation shields one from understanding, while condemning nearly half of your fellow citizens as horrible people. It is also the case that liberals and conservatives have a different understanding of racism, which you can learn about if you read the book!

JW: You say both conservatives and liberals moralize about politics in ways that make it difficult for them to respect those who do not share their worldview. For liberals, it's the social justice frame - if you don't work to end racism, sexism and other injustices - you are failing in a fundamental civic duty, which puts you outside the bounds of respect. For conservatives, it's what you describe as national solidarity. So, for example, taking a knee during the national anthem, or otherwise criticizing the United States weakens our country in ways that put you outside the bounds of respect.

Do you think these moralizing frames have increased in recent years and, if so, why?

JSH: That’s hard for us to say simply because we don’t have the data, but we do wonder if conservatives continue to be modestly more respectful than liberals.  Our latest data is from 2021, so matters may have changed since then.  It is also the case that both sides think that democracy is at stake in the next election.  In other words, a new moralizing framework has arisen since we finished the book, one that each side shares. (Academic publishing is slow – we sent our final draft of the book to the press about 18 months ago.) We do not think that Democrats will destroy democracy. They are not running against our institutions like Trump is.  We actually don’t think Trump will destroy democracy, though we do think he will weaken it in many ways, as populist leaders often do.  Regardless, many people will not vote for the Democrats for a myriad of reasons, whether because they’re pro-life, they doubt Biden’s fitness for office or other considerations.

JW: You and Beth call for a kind of pluralism - an acceptance that people have different notions of what constitutes justice and civic well-being, that those differences can be good-faith differences and that we need to learn to live with and accept those differences. What would make that more likely? What role do leaders play in this process?

JSH: As you suggest, political leaders are important, and they have an interest in demonizing the other side.  To use a counter-example, during John McCain’s Presidential campaign, a constituent told McCain that she couldn't trust Obama because he was “an Arab,” which clearly was meant to be an insult and part of the birther campaign.¹  And while McCain’s response didn’t point out that there is nothing wrong in being an Arab, he did say the following:  “No ma'am, he's a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that's what this campaign is all about.”  Of course, one cannot imagine the current Republican candidate giving a similar response; instead, Trump does his best to characterize Democrats – and anyone who disagrees with him -- as terrible.  Perhaps it is unsurprising that Trump hated McCain.

So political leaders often make granting respect, both civic and recognition, difficult since they set the tone for many of our political conversations.  Indeed, we note throughout the book how hard it is to grant respect. We do think that without a change in our toxic politics, increasing respect is an uphill battle.  But respect is important.  Ironically, civic respect would be bolstered if people didn’t define themselves only in political terms; political junkies would probably be happier and find it easier to grant respect if they spent a little less time following politics.  

We also think people should recognize the ambiguities and contradictions in their own lives. One of  the interesting focus group quotations in the book (there are many great quotations, which is one reason to read the book!) was in response to a question on what the participants thought of someone driving a Hummer.  The participants were a group of young Bay Area liberals, and nearly everyone condemned the Hummer driver.  But one young man asked the group how many of them flew on an airplane several times a year, noting that doing so was more harmful to the environment than driving a Hummer.  It is easy to condemn others for not living up to our standards, but we should recognize that we often don’t live up to our own standards either.

Life is complicated in many ways, and that should not be hard to recognize. If we are willing to acknowledge the many tensions we must navigate within our own lives, perhaps we can better understand how people will come up with different answers than we do. There is certainly more than one reasonable way to balance these tensions that we all face. 

(JW again. It’s harder than ever to for many to grant respect in the terms Jeff describes. And as I’ve said before, I make a distinction between how we ought to think about and treat political elites on the one hand, and regular folks on the other. Regarding the former, if they are acting in bad faith, then it’s appropriate to say so and not to grant respect out of an abstract commitment when those elites themselves have done so much to undermine our civic institutions (and however flawed you think they are, weakening them further does not help us build a better, more inclusive society). But regarding the latter, I think Jeff and Beth make a case for affording respect that is worth wrestling with. Again, you can order a copy here).

1. The “birther” conspiracy theory, which first emerged when Barack Obama became a presidential contender in 2008, falsely alleged that Obama was not born in the United States and was, therefore, ineligible to run for president, since he was not a natural born citizen. Trump himself became a key promoter of the birther lie in 2011. For more, see here.