LP #48: Pontoon Conservatives
There is a certain kind of conservative that progressives should try harder to reach out to. They are the conservative who is not hardline religious though they may identify as Christian, they’re patriotic but not aggressively nationalistic about it, they’re not anti-wildlife but they do get annoyed at being told to go vegan, and they’re vaguely populist but mostly in a “I want to hang out on my pontoon boat and drink beer with my friends without getting sneered at by cultural elites” kind of way. So let’s call this kind of conservative the “pontoon conservative.” Not every pontoon conservative has a boat. Some hang out at the beach, others are at college football tailgates, and still others can be found at huntin’ clubs. And many of them believe that progressives are out to kill their fun. That’s a problem for progressives both as a matter of political strategy and at a more fundamental level. Progressives, to be true to themselves psychologically, need to be committed to joy and there’s no faster route to joy than fun. Let people have fun!
Progressives would benefit from paying more attention to these pontoon conservatives, and showing greater enthusiasm for their cultural tastes, in three important ways. First, with national elections as close as they are, Democrats need every vote they can get and getting at least some additional pontoon conservative votes is more doable than may at first be apparent. Second, befriending pontoon conservatives anchors Democrats into the cultural mainstream and into positive messaging. Third, deliberately courting pontoon conservatives could help trim the sails on Democrats’ unfortunate penchant for defending certain cultural hierarchies.
First, but for about 12,000 votes in Georgia, 10,000 votes in Arizona, and 80,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Joe Biden would not be President. In the grand scheme of things, that’s very few votes. The next election could be just as close, as could 2028. House and Senate races hang by threads. Leaving any votes on the table is an act of electoral self-sabotage. Fortunately, at least some of these voters seem winnable. Unlike the post-liberals, pontoon conservatives are not committed to using the state to crush their cultural enemies. Unlike the white nationalists they aren’t dreaming of a herrenvolk democracy. Unlike the unhinged New Right, they aren’t conspiracy theorists pining for another French Revolution. They may have this or that policy disagreement with most Democratic voters and they may have voted for Donald Trump, but they aren’t the kind of people who are unfit to invite to dinner. They may even have a lot of sympathy with some progressive ideas like occupational licensing reform, allowing more imports of medicines and baby formula, and letting gay people marry whomever they love.
The problem is that many of these voters see Democrats as insufferable killjoys relentlessly criticizing everything they enjoy. What they hear from progressive social commentary is “Don’t eat meat. Use this paper straw. Why isn’t your vehicle electric? Did you laugh at that comedian’s bawdy joke? Why do you live in a suburb, don’t you know those are bad? How are you smiling, aren’t you outraged by [insert bad thing here]?” On and on. Relatedly, though many progressives argue that cancel culture is overblown, a lot of people including but certainly not limited to pontoon conservatives do feel, in a very palpable way, that society has become more censorious and see progressives as doing a solid share of that censoring. That does not help Democrats be seen as likeable.
Make fun of “I could have a beer with him” level of political analysis if you wish, but it is hard to get people to vote for you if they are convinced that you don’t like them and the quickest way to convince them of that is to say that everything they like is stupid. People want to feel validated. Critics by nature do something like the opposite of validation. That cannot help but be politically unpopular. Progressives should take note of that. It is unwise to get too soaked in the world of criticism and too associated with its perceived spirit of anti-validation. It is a bad idea to build a political culture that treats being negative as being smart and committed to the cause while it treats being positive as being a Panglossian shill for the status quo.
Second, befriending pontoon conservatives anchors Democrats into the cultural mainstream. Even beyond electoral strategy, if Democrats want to govern America, it’s a good idea to understand all kinds of little nooks and crannies of American culture, and not just understand it but appreciate it. There’s a generosity of spirit that needs to be there and that’s hard to do if the contemptuous eye-roll is the default response to anything middlebrow. It’s also a missed opportunity to absorb the insights that are often hiding just behind a joke or playful bit.
There’s a country song called “Buy Me a Boat” by Chris Janson that’s a good example of this. Some of the chorus lines are:
“I know what they say, money can’t buy everything, maybe so.
But it can buy me a boat, it can buy me a truck to pull it.
It can buy me a Yeti 110 iced down with some silver bullets.”
It’s a fun song, and those are great lines for understanding mainstream American culture. We are an acquisitive people but also a people but our acquisitions, thankfully, are usually not about aping patrician manners. We’re a country of plebians, and that’s great actually. We like going to the lake and taking a big cooler with food and drinks, and there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s fun, and progressives should celebrate it! America’s cultural mainstream likes fun. They like fun movies like The Rock starring Nicholas Cage and Sean Connery. Does The Rock compare to some of the truly great films like The Godfather and Shawshank Redemption? Of course not, but it doesn’t have to. Lots of normal people enjoy it and it’s ok to enjoy it. They like fun food and fun music and fun shows and fun sporting events. Furthermore, objectively, it isn’t hard to like the things that pontoon conservatives like. If a guy wants a boat and a truck and a big cooler full of Coors Light for him and his friends at the lake, what’s to dislike about that? That sounds like a nice day. We don’t have to be too cool for school. With only a few exceptions (hard drugs for example), if someone’s into something, we should have an ethos of saying “that’s cool and we think it’s great that you’re into that.” We don’t need to criticize everything.
And yet, that is how progressives often come across. What hurts progressives more than many would care to admit is is that they seem to be the people turning their noses up at things. There are many potential examples of this. Here’s a Vox article dragging Parks and Rec, Harry Potter, and even Hamilton. The New Yorker wrote about Chik-Fil-A opening a restaurant in NYC as an infiltration of “Christian traditionalism.” Here are two more pieces of ridiculous complaints about people who travel to Antelope Canyon and Italy’s Amalfi Coast respectively. And this is to say nothing of how much casual derision gets thrown at cultural products like the WWE, Kid Rock, Duck Dynasty, and Insane Clown Posse. It doesn’t seem to matter what you’re into, some critic in the media -and fairly or unfairly those kinds of people are usually coded as on the political left- has a take on why what you like is actually not very good and why you’re uncool for liking it.
The political left is obviously not alone in this. The political right has had plenty of bizarre meltdowns of their own such as when they weirdly freaked out about Lizzo played James Madison’s flute. If Republicans want to get worked up over stuff like that, let them. They look silly, scoldy, and in their worst iterations like Chris Rufo, thuggishly authoritarian. If they want to be the party of “actually you’d be happier as a serf, nothing about modernity is good” and finger wagging people to go to church more and being obsessed with who sleeps with who, they’re going to alienate a lot of more moderate voters including a lot of pontoon conservatives. Democrats should allow them to throw those kinds of political interceptions without responding with turnovers of their own, but that’s exactly what being counter-cultural is, a political pick-six. Think about it this way. What you’re trying to do in politics is convince as many people as possible that you think the way they do and vice versa. Being counter-cultural is intentionally saying that, in important respects, you are in the minority and, at least as importantly, you don’t care what the majority thinks or wants and in fact you look upon their cultural tastes with contempt. That’s fine if your first priority is feeling superior, but it does work at cross-purposes with building a broadly popular political brand and winning elections.
Third, what is especially regrettable about Democrats’ derision of pontoon conservatives’ cultural tastes is that many of those tastes are quite egalitarian. Earlier I mentioned Kid Rock, Duck Dynasty, Insane Clown Posse, and the WWE. Kid Rock sings about the working man and came up with an ingenious system to circumvent scalpers to help his working class fans. Duck Dynasty shows that even if you make some money, it doesn’t have to go to your head. Insane Clown Posse might be the most authentically blue-collar, pro-dignity bands today. Give me the sincerity of the Juggalos over the jaundiced eyes of literary critics any day. Even the WWE, in its own way, has merit. It is athletic theater that plays out storylines involving good guys (faces), bad guys (heels), revenge, ambition, betrayal, and spectacle. It is to Broadway what the Trans-Siberian Orchestra is to classical music, a different product with some similar elements rather than an inferior substitute. For it’s part, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra is a musical and artistic production that is immensely enjoyable. It’s delightfully “too much” in the way only an American product could be. Rap music is poetry, it’s extremely popular, and it’s often extremely smart. There’s nothing about rap music that is inherently less than spoken word poetry. In the right context, Taco Bell is an amazing meal. All of these things are worth celebrating. There’s a time for classical music but also a time to enjoy a group of guys dropping some great beats while drumming on Home Depot buckets in a public square. One does not need to look down on the latter to appreciate the former. We’re all just trying to have a good time.
The themes of free and equal echo throughout this essay series as well as throughout American history because they are bedrock political principals in this country. “You will not tell me what to do” and “you are not better than me” are deep-seated emotions in the American psyche. Helpfully, those are bedrock principals and deep-seated emotions that progressives, libertarians, and pontoon conservatives all share. We all have things we like doing for fun and those things are hugely important components of what it means to be free. Moreover, we don’t want to be told that what we think is fun is “less than” or beneath the standards of some self-anointed cultural critic, and that’s perfectly reasonable too. So to all the people, conservative or not, getting their literal and metaphorical pontoon boats ready for spring break and warmer weather, whatever those boats may be, I say “Good for you- I hope you have a great time!”
-GW