Thomas Sowell has an excellent column today on the all-too-evident phenomenon of leftist anger.
Why is it that on issue after issue, whether it’s the minimum wage, global warming, education, or anything else where there is a fault line between those who demand government action and those who believe that we’d be better off without governmental demand and prohibitions, the public face of the left is one of anger against those who disagree? Sowell suggests that it’s because their position is psychologically important to them. If they can’t get government to do things they want, they lose their sense of importance.
In his new book The Myth of the Rational Voter, Bryan Caplan makes the same point. Many people have preferences about their political and economic beliefs just as they have preferences about music or ice cream. Those beliefs are very much a part of their identity and are usually impervious to rational argument. To Caplan, that’s a key reason why democracy does not work very well.
