The built-in sexiness of defense contains lessons far beyond foreign policy. In America, social change often comes after a politician or government goes too heavily on offense against individuals wishing merely to stand their ground and assert their rights. Bull Connor’s fire hoses and George Wallace’s billy clubs helped tilt public opinion toward brave civil rights protesters. Susette Kelo may have lost her little pink house in New London, Connecticut, to profit-seeking eminent domain abusers, but the Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene provoked public outrage that led 40 states to pass laws trimming the government’s power to forcibly transfer property from one private owner to another. The Institute for Justice, which represented Kelo, has built an entire practice out of identifying and rallying support for sympathetic victims defending their turf from an aggressive state.
Populists and other government aggrandizers forget this principle at their peril. Democrats generated support when they rallied for gay people’s rights to enjoy the same adoption and marriage rules as straights, but they began alienating people by going on offense against bakers and photographers who eschew gay-wedding work. Republicans are right to decry public education training seminars that conflate critical thinking with white supremacy, but they are wrong to write broad legislation restricting what books can be taught and what language can be used in the classroom.
When everyday people suddenly feel the imposition of alien practices, rules, or jargon, they tend to react badly. It is a paradox of our populist political moment that both large political parties are perennially surprised at how unpopular they can get when they go on offense.
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