On Loneliness and Campaign Reboots
Full-spectrum political insurgencies, what government can do to promote social connection, and more
Proposed legislation on combatting loneliness kicks up a debate about public policy and community. The DeSantis campaign reboots—what can that tell us about “woke mind virus” messaging? Some links at the end on “freedom conservatism,” the end of history, and the fate of the fact.
Loneliness is a big topic in politics these days, with U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declaring an “epidemic of loneliness.”
Connecticut senator Chris Murphy is one of the more interesting figures to watch in Democratic politics right now. With an emphasis on solidarity and an attempt to claim nationalism for the political left, he is making a clear bid to be an architect of a Democratic “realignment.” Murphy recently leaned into these themes with a proposal to create an Office of Social Connection Policy. Politico offers a helpful overview here:
The bill would:
— Establish an office of social connection policy within the White House to advise the president on how loneliness and isolation affect the economy, public health, national security, the environment and community engagement.
— Form an advisory council bringing together stakeholders and federal agencies to improve social infrastructure, quality of life and civic spirit.
— Develop a government-wide strategy promoting connection, working across the transportation, housing, health, education and labor agencies.
— Launch a public education campaign, including national guidelines and research-backed best practices to help people engage and connect with their communities, similar to existing guidelines on nutrition, sleep and physical activity.
— Provide $5 million in annual Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding to research social connection, loneliness and social infrastructure through 2029.
In the Washington Post, E. J. Dionne applauds Murphy’s proposal—arguing that community is an essential concern for public policy:
Building community is a goal deeply embedded in strains of both conservative and progressive thought. The country lost one of its great communitarian scholars with the death in May of Amitai Etzioni, whose 1993 book “The Spirit of Community” inspired people across political lines. One of his passions: the imperative of balancing our rights with our responsibilities to a common good.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has picked up Etzioni’s torch with a quest to ally the left and the right “to tackle loneliness and strengthen communities.”
(Folks interested in that communitarian strand of thought might also be interested in another book by Etzioni, The Common Good.)
Others with libertarian leanings were more skeptical of Murphy’s proposal. At Reason, Elizabeth Nolan Brown says that it is not the concern of the federal government “whether Americans have enough friends.”
Jack Elbaum in The Washington Examiner echoes that point by arguing that loneliness is fundamentally a problem demanding a cultural—not political—solution.
At National Review, Noah Rothman situated his criticism of Murphy’s proposed legislation within a bigger narrative. While Rothman thinks that community does indeed have major political stakes, he worries that state intervention can imperil community.
Declining rates of social cohesion are not a fixation only of the government-obsessed left. Senator Mike Lee’s social-capital project is similarly invested in seeking solutions to the disintegration of the American social fabric. Last year, his initiative identified the connection between the “explosive growth of the U.S. government through the 1960s and 1970s” and declining individual social capital. “Governments distort the foundations for vibrant families, communities, congregations, and workplaces,” the project’s literature read.
A well-managed state devoted to doing the things that states know how to do can create the conditions in which social cohesion flourishes. Governments know how to fight crime, keep the streets clean and safe, and preserve the general welfare against the designs of malign actors abroad. All those conditions are prerequisites for thriving community life. Governments do not, however, know how to make people happy, and politicians who become besotted with their own power are only like to disrupt existing social structures in an attempt to engineer their preferred social compact.
The best government can do for the lonely is get out of their way. That would be an especially beneficial project for the poor souls laboring under the misapprehension that all that stands between them and a healthy community life is a CDC-sponsored poster.
Also at NR, I think about loneliness and the state. I think that maintaining social connections is a key part of part of preserving democratic liberty and think that government can play a role in promoting some of the conditions of social connection:
The magnitude (or even existence) of a purported “loneliness epidemic” may be contested, but social connections nevertheless have major civic value. And government policy can intersect with loneliness — creating conditions for either the flourishing or the attenuation of personal ties. For example, family is one of the biggest bulwarks against loneliness, so policies that make family formation more affordable could help create a sense of bigger connection.
Senator Murphy’s legislation laments a decline in religious participation, so strengthening religious institutions might be an important part of an anti-loneliness agenda. Much of that strengthening is beyond the purview of policy-makers, but not all. Rolling back sectarian secularist policies (which target orders of nuns or religious hospitals, for instance) could be part of an attempt to strengthen the role of religious institutions in the public square, as could efforts to make it easier for parents to secure religious educations for their children. Murphy’s bill establishes an advisory council, which would include everyone from a representative from the Department of Commerce to “1 or more representatives of LGBTQIA+ advocacy organizations.” However, it does not guarantee a seat to an organization dedicated to religious freedom — an absence that could be remedied in a revision of the bill.
Because there is already such a significant government role in elder care, programs for the aged might be one of the more fruitful policy areas for combatting loneliness. Funding for local senior centers and incentivizing more social programs at nursing homes might be some policies to help ensure that elderly Americans do not feel alone and adrift. (Natalist policies are another vehicle for countering elderly isolation — grandchildren and adult children can be a great comfort to the elderly in their twilight years.)
That said, the most effective forms of community support from the government might often be indirect—making family formation easier rather than having state-mandated friends, for instance. Murphy himself has argued that much of the project of building community happens beyond the purview of government.
Okay—over to the GOP primary.
I’ve written before on Ron DeSantis as an “insurgency candidate,” and now his campaign seems to be undergoing a “reboot” that will position DeSantis as an “insurgent candidate.” (See also this “Playbook” piece from a few days ago projecting an “insurgent” turn to the DeSantis campaign.) DeSantis is now reaching out to more media outlets and is bringing on some new advisors—including Cody Hall, a top advisor to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp.
To some extent, the stories about the troubles facing Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign are the usual Washington feeding frenzy. It’s the summer. The primary debates haven’t started. A former president is running for the nomination. So it’s not surprising to see that former president leading in the primary polls.
Under the radar, the DeSantis campaign is quietly organizing to lock down supporters in key states, particularly Iowa. Past insurgency campaigns indicate how an early primary victory can dramatically change the shape of the race. It was only after his Iowa win that Barack Obama was able to overcome a 20-point deficit in national polls against Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic race, for instance.
Still, there are potential dangers facing the DeSantis presidential bid, and one particular risk is defining the DeSantis candidacy too narrowly. So far, the DeSantis team has leaned into an “anti-woke” message.
This is understandable for a few reasons. First, the national press wants to define DeSantis along those lines, so that kind of messaging is likely to get amplified. Second, trying to claim the “anti-woke” lane helps consolidate DeSantis’s political brand—and brand identification is as important in politics as it is in sneakers. Third, that kind of cultural message plays well with the activists who play an outsized role in the Iowa caucuses. Fourth, DeSantis has put a number of points on the cultural-issues board as Florida’s governor.
However, an over-emphasis on “woke mind virus” messaging also has risks for the DeSantis campaign over the long term. These risks might be less about whether such a message is polarizing (as former House Speaker Paul Ryan recently said) and more about whether it is limiting. One of the great dangers of a Republican presidential campaign is being branded as a niche candidate. Steve Forbes, Mike Huckabee, Herman Cain (of 9-9-9 fame) were all candidates who came to be identified with one particular “lane” in Republican politics. And there were certain benefits there. Forbes almost won Iowa in 2000, and Huckabee did win it in 2008. Yet none of those candidates were able to leverage that standing into a nomination-winning coalition. The winners of the Republican nomination are usually the candidates who run across various lanes rather than allowing themselves to be pigeonholed. (This was something that Donald Trump observed in 2016.)
And the risks of a niche candidacy are especially keen in the 2024 cycle. Donald Trump seems to have a large locked-in following among Republican primary voters (maybe around 30-40 percent or so). Against a dispersed field, that’s enough to win the nomination. The power of negative partisanship in contemporary American politics hints at another limit of running as an “anti-woke” candidate against Trump: Whatever Trump’s actual policies as president, the performative loathing of Trump is one of the major markers of progressive cultural politics. For some Republican voters, that white-hot rage against Trump might be proof that he is on the right side of cultural issues.
All this suggests the imperative of a more comprehensive vision for Trump challengers. In the 2024 primary, the candidate who dethrones Donald Trump (if any candidate can dethrone him) will be a comprehensive one—convincing Republicans to turn the page on the era of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Of course, there is still time for DeSantis and other Trump rivals to build out that kind of vision. But Trump’s foes should make no mistake: Displacing a dominant frontrunner will require a full-spectrum paradigm.
Other links:
A new “Freedom Conservative” manifesto is posted.
Reflecting on that manifesto, Michael Brendan Dougherty emphasizes the diversity of the conservative coalition.
Matt Lewis (who has a new book out on rich politicians and politicians who get rich) explains why he signed that manifesto.
Matt Continetti on why “freedom conservatism” matters.
Carmel Richardson on the nationalization of politics.
John Milbank on a “personalist metaphysic of history”: “We remain at the end of history, and the only question remains how exactly this ending will end—in the end, finally.”
Jon Askonas: “What Was the Fact?”
Kyle Smith reviews Oppenheimer.
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Thank you for the interesting information on "community" concerns