Amanda posted an interesting piece today on the resurgence of Republicans (particularly this cycle’s crop of presidential aspirants) claiming that they once had Democratic tendencies, but had some experience that brought them to their senses and to the proper Republican path. She points out, rightly, many of these stories are merely fabrications to endear the candidates to certain segments of the party, particularly Evangelical Christians, who thrive on the spectacle of “Road to Damascus” style conversion stories, particularly from evangelists themselves, who often claim outlandish youthful lifestyles of drugs, orgies, black magick and Satanic ritual before “seeing the light” and dedicating their lives to ministry.

It’s a good piece, I highly recommend reading it, as it touches on other interesting points regarding shifting party affiliation (how people in the aggregate tend not to do it, and how those individuals who do shift, but shift left, don’t make a big deal about it).

However, What hit home the most for me were a few of the comments on the piece, which sort of expanded on the premise, and seemed awfully familiar. For example, I’ve known too many people like those that commenter “RickMassimo” describes:

Don’t Forget the angle of “I was a Democrat like all irresponsible childen are, but now that I’m a serious responsible adult I’m a Republican who knows How The Real World Works…”

There’s also the bonus of these types of people generally being assholes trying to lord their “maturity” over you to try to minimize your status in the relationship. It’s the classic “bully” conversion story, and usually soon followed up by the whole “If you’re not a liberal when you’re 20, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative when you’re 30, you have no brain” nonsense.

I really like the way commenter “Tyro” elaborates on it; I think they’re on to something:

It’s also a status ambition. Sales, accounting, medicine, etc., depend partly on projecting an image, and if you want to create a veneer of respectability, especially if you have few other class markers to fall back on, being a “Republican” is a good way to do that. I’m not sure these guys were democrats so much as politically apathetic college students who liked drinking and watching the big game on Saturday. But when it came to a desire to acquire some more social and professional status as an “adult,” joining the local Republican party and the rotary club probably seemed like the right thing to do.

I also think that this is the origin of the trop of liberals as “elites”- because among middle and upper middle class professionals having the freedom to be a Democrat and a liberal means that you have a certain amount of freedom and social capital that they do not -since they’re socially obligated to silently (or vocally) agree with their republican bosses and colleagues to appear “respectable.”

That really does kind of sum it up. The folks who tend to use this sort of justification for their politics, for the most part, haven’t really fundamentally changed their politics, as they never had much invested in politics anyway. They merely traded adherence to one predominant peer group for another, because it’s what the herd expected of them; and for those sort of people, total conformity with the perceived social order is paramount. It’s this type of person who generally goes into the bullying business, and justify it by believing they’re doing the good work of enforcing social order.

I’m really tempted to totally buy in to the idea in the second paragraph, about how liberal got labelled as “elite.” There’s something to that, I think, but it feels like it’s very close to tooting one’s horn about “how it’s really we who are special, not them” (same reason that I feel kind of hesitant about Paul Graham’s otherwise good essay “Why Nerds are Unpopular”); and despite my inner persecuted nerd’s desire to go there, I recognize that it’s not the most mature way to behave, because even though someone’s an asshole, they still might have something important to contribute, so you can’t immediately dismiss them out of hand. That said, the thesis is probably the best way I’ve seen to explain away the dichotomy of the conservative position that liberals are both inferior to “real” Americans and an elite class to be knocked down off the high horse.

Oh well; I don’t have a particularly good way to end this. I always have a little trouble sticking the landing on these sorts of things.

Best to just let it go.