Julian, speaking from his perch as a pox-on-both-your-houses libertarian, writes:
One of the very, very few practical perks of being a libertarian is that you will occasionally find yourself in conversations about what's wrong with "our side" with groups of both liberals and conservatives. It very quickly becomes apparent that both group are utterly convinced that "we" waste all our time in petty internecine squabbling, whereas "they," being so doctrinaire and all, manage to present a united front, force any fellow travelers with private doubts to publicly toe the line. And there's nothing very surprising about that, because people are naturally more attuned to their own internal debates (that's what makes them "internal") and less conscious of the nuances on the the other side. [...]
I think you can make this general prediction: Whichever party has most recently had its ass handed to it will seem more riven by internal dissent, since this is usually an occasion for considering what collective changes need to be made and an opportunity for each subgroup within the party to make a play to move the larger group in its preferred direction. Hence lots of Democratic soul searching and squabbling in '04, more or the GOP flavor lately.
This is exactly right. Each side imputes almost the exact same advantages onto the other. I've heard conservatives lament how kind their brethren are, how considerate the Bush administration is, how lockstep the left appears, how effective our attack dogs prove, and how sophisticated our noise machine is. This could, of course, be crocodile tears, an attempt to misrepresent reality to their benefit. But probably not.
It just so happens that, at times, liberals are really good at what they do. During the battle of Social Security privatization, it not only looked like we were united and deadly, but we actually were united and deadly. Conservatives remember that loss. Liberals, by contrast, remember the Iraq War, when Gephardt undercut attempts to slow the President and the hawks took every opportunity to marginalize the skeptics, and the party disintegrated into incoherence and administration enabling. Conversely, conservatives are currently looking at the immigration fight and scratching their head over what a fractious coalition they've built. Liberals look at the first four years of the Bush administration, and are amazed by how proudly and perfectly the GOP fell into line. It's all true, so far as it goes, it's just that neither side is very good at keeping the parts separate from the whole.
