Labels trump values in political bloodsport, and we all lose

Ah, the World Series. The Fall Classic. Another reason for us to choose sides, root like hell for one team or the other and practice the fine art of ribbing the opponents’ fans on social media … just like we’ve been doing about politics.

The increased polarization in politics is no secret; I’ve lamented it before. But something occurred to me as I was watching my beloved Dodgers’ pitching get hammered by the Houston Astros in Game 5 — and trying not to get too dejected: I was rooting for the Dodgers because they’re the Dodgers.

Sure, I think Justin Turner’s cool because he looks like a Celtic warrior out of “Braveheart” or “Game of Thrones.” And Clayton Kershaw? The guy’s got a great arm and a lot of class, not to mention the fact that he wears the same number my onetime next-door neighbor, Bill Buckner, wore for the Dodgers back in the 1970s when I lived in SoCal.

Back then, the Dodgers had the same infield for more than eight seasons, a major league record, so the players really were the team.

Nowadays, players come and go like dandelion seeds on a summer wind. Kershaw’s been with the Dodgers all 10 seasons he’s played in the big leagues, and Tony Gwynn played his entire 20-year career in San Diego, but such constancy is unusual in the era of free agency and analytics-driven trades.

But mostly, we like the players we like because they’re on our team, and we stop liking them so much when they switch uniforms — whether by choice or not. We may still appreciate their abilities, but we won’t root for them if it means “our team” (which used to be their team) might lose as a result of their efforts.

By the same token, we don’t stop rooting for our team if we discover one of the players has been using steroids or has assaulted someone or is just a surly, antisocial so-and-so. More often than not, we keep rooting for the team, and for them, as long as we wear the right uniform.

I’m not the first person to compare politics to a team sport, but there’s an aspect of that comparison I hadn’t thought about until recently: We treat political parties, and those that represent them, the same way we treat sports teams and their players — and they respond accordingly.

A recent Washington Post-University of Maryland poll found that just 12 percent of voters think members of Congress base their policies on a core set of values, while 87 percent believe lawmakers primarily “do whatever is needed to win re-election.”

If true, that means values are largely interchangeable, like players on a baseball roster, then party labels become more important than what they’re supposed to represent. And, indeed, the values of both major parties have shifted a lot over time on issues ranging from segregation to taxation.

It’s the uniform that matters, not the values of the person wearing it … which explains how Donald Trump can retain credibility among his base despite having switched parties several times, not to mention having switched positions on any number of issues. He calls himself a Republican now, and that’s what’s important.

It helps explain why Democratic Party leadership backed longtime party stalwart Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders, who ran for the party’s nomination even though he’s a self-identified independent. In sports terms, he was more a free agent than a team player.

It also explains why Trump can emerge unscathed by the same kind of sexual abuse allegations that brought down movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. Even though, like Sanders, Trump was something of a free agent — at one point threatening to run as an independent — he’s not only on the Republican roster now, as president, he’s batting cleanup.

Millions of people have a lot invested in Trump’s success, politically speaking. The same can’t be said for Weinstein, who represents no one except himself and, to a much lesser extent, that nebulous entity called Hollywood.

Trump is, in political terms, very much like a bank or corporation that’s been deemed “too big to fail.”

As with sports, political loyalty these days has less to do with values and character than it does with the level of partisans’ personal investment in a brand or a label.

There’s a heavy price to pay for that. As long as we treat politics as a spectator sport, we’ll be rewarded with candidates who’ll do “whatever is needed to win” — even if it means abandoning their stated values at the drop of a hat or, worse, forsaking the values that have long defined the nation..

This story was originally published October 30, 2017 at 11:45 AM with the headline "Labels trump values in political bloodsport, and we all lose."