Let’s make our cases with rigor — not just vigor
With the 2020 primary season underway, let’s try to remember when posting critiques of candidates to back up these critiques substantively.
Myself, I prefer writing supportive diaries and comments rather than negative ones. That’s just my own habit, I’m not preaching that it should be yours.
I appreciate that primary season is the proper time to vet our candidates — and that fair criticism can be helpful to campaigns. It can’t hurt candidates to keep an open mind to criticism; it might hurt their campaigns if they don’t.
Here’s what I’m preaching: that folks who do write critical diaries and comments on Daily Kos strive to make solid, evidence-based arguments.
Much of the quality and utility of this forum depends on whether such arguments are the norm or the exception.
Basic propositions
1. If you’re making a critical case against one of our candidates who you don’t prefer, you should try to make your case as solidly and carefully as you would want others to make their cases against a candidate who you do prefer.
2. If a Kossack makes a critical case against a candidate you like, focus on their argument, not the person making it. Don’t default to ad hominem.
3. If you’re the one making the case against a candidate, and a Kossack points out deficiencies in the case you’ve presented, focus on their argument, not the person making it. Don’t default to ad hominem.
Examples of criticism without supportive evidence
Below are a couple examples illustrating recent cases of what should be exceptions — harsh criticism without supportive evidence — and they are notable because they were posted by folks who are longtime, knowledgeable, even-keeled members of this site. If I notice topnotch contributors like these folks doing this — well, that’s a warning sign that it’s a too-common problem — so I’m hoping this diary serves as a useful reminder to all Kossacks that we should try hard to make our cases well.
In these particular examples, the object of the criticism is Bernie Sanders. Since he’s my senator and I think he’s a good egg, it’s become force of habit for me to listen up when I hear critiques of Bernie and to try to assess if they’re substantive or not. Naturally other Kossacks will pay more attention to critiques of their own favorite politicians — but the point is not about whose ox is being gored. Today it might be mine, tomorrow it might be yours.
Case #1
In the comment thread of a recent diary of mine, a Kossack wrote:
“[Bernie] did not back the Democratic nominee with the energy and enthusiasm that other losers have done. I am not going to detail it but will provide links if people insist.”
This is an oft-repeated critique, but I’ve never seen any data which backs it up, so I was very interested to see the evidence. I wrote:
Sure, I'd like to see the links. I’m interested to see quantitatively how he didn’t measure up as a losing primary candidate, in campaigning with energy and enthusiasm for the winner, compared to other losing candidates such as Kennedy in 1980, Bradley in 2000, and Clinton in 2008. For example, did Bernie do less campaign events than those other candidates did in support of the nominee?
I know for example that Ted Kennedy, while he came up significantly short in delegates, did not concede his loss until after the floor vote at the convention, and during his impassioned address to the convention and national audience, he included only one 8-word sentence in reference to Jimmy Carter, toward the end of his speech: “I congratulate President Carter on his victory here.”
The Kossack replied that they would search for the links, but they haven’t responded further.
Case #2
In that same diary, I noted that as a gadfly, Bernie is by definition apt to sometimes say things that bother folks, including folks on our side of the aisle — and I also noted that members of the caucus don’t have to be independents or gadflies to say things that irk. I gave an example that I find particularly egregious — a critique of the Democratic Party that Chuck Schumer made after our severe losses in the 2014 midterms:
"After passing the stimulus, Democrats should have continued to propose middle-class-oriented programs and built on the partial success of the stimulus, but unfortunately Democrats blew the opportunity the American people gave them," Schumer said. "We took their mandate and put all of our focus on the wrong problem—health care reform."
In the comment thread, a Kossack remarked that Bernie “always had demeaning things to say about the Party.” I replied:
Do you have some examples? Very occasionally he’ll say something that will make me think...hm, that could have been stated more artfully…but I have no examples I can think of that compare to the Schumer one I mentioned in the diary. (I’m talking about since the time he entered Congress and became a loyal member of the Democratic caucus...i.e. since 1991. In his earlier career, I’m sure there are examples...
It’s not that I don’t believe that this Kossack remembers hearing Bernie make remarks about the Democratic Party that they found demeaning. But without even one example, I have no way of assessing whether I agree that Bernie was “demeaning” the party in that instance, let alone that he’s “always” doing it. If it happens so often, surely there must be examples to demonstrate the assertion.
I realize this sort of criticism is highly subjective: Schumer’s remark that bothered me might be viewed by someone else as fair, constructive criticism. But even if I’m careful to assert that “in my opinion” Schumer sometimes says egregiously unhelpful things — that’s a harsh assertion, and if I don’t provide any actual examples, it’s a bare assertion. It’s incumbent on me to provide the reader some evidence so they can assess the basis of my criticism.
Now, I should add that some things are such common knowledge — e.g. there are fish in the sea, and Donald Trump is a habitual liar — that surely we can assert them without necessarily providing examples.
By contrast, suppose someone says “it’s just common knowledge” that Bernie is someone who habitually demeans the Democratic Party. That would seem to be in direct contradiction to known facts: for instance, the fact that his Democratic colleagues in the Senate appointed him to lead their voter outreach efforts after the 2016 election. At the very least, a fact like that one renders the assertion very questionable (are his colleagues somehow unaware of his oft-”demeaning” remarks, or are they familiar with his remarks and don’t consider them demeaning?) So this is not the sort of case where we can brush off the need for supportive evidence.
There may be any number of reasons why that Kossack didn’t reply to my request for examples and the other Kossack hasn’t followed up with links. But surely the best practice is if you make a charge to provide evidence at the same time.