There was a time not so long ago when the labels we assigned to politicians meant something. Moderate, liberal, Democrat, Republican, conservative—these descriptors generally reflected some underlying truth. not anymore Today, the labels assigned to public officials—RINO, MAGA, socialist, “real” conservative, “non-fascist”—often bear no relation to what anyone actually believes. And this dissonance, amplified by social networks, has undermined public dialogue. Labeling in politics is now something like cursing in an argument: we resort to it to distract from the issues at hand. And that’s a shame.
I can attest to the new power and total distortion of labeling because I saw the change first hand. When I was elected governor of North Carolina in 2012, my approach to governing was well established. I have been the Republican mayor of a Democratic city, Charlotte, for 14 years. And I decided to take the same approach to the governor’s mansion—a principled conservative who was also pragmatic and believed in bipartisanship—that I had employed as mayor. Working with the Legislature, I cut taxes and invested in the state’s universities and community colleges. I paid off over $2 billion in debt, balanced the budget and still gave teachers a raise.
But then two things happened. First, I signed a bill designed primarily to overturn a local law that dictated to private businesses how to manage who went to which bathroom, a choice I thought businesses should decide for themselves. Suddenly, people who weren’t paying close attention decided that meant he was “transphobic.” And so, after decades of working with Democrats and Republicans alike, I was reduced in the public mind to little more than a “radical right-winger.”
Then, earlier this year, while running for the United States Senate, I was assigned an entirely different label, one coined by none other than former President Donald Trump. Endorsing my primary opponent, the former president called me a Republican in name only (a “RINO”), suggesting to the state’s Republican electorate that I “didn’t represent ‘our’ values.”
So the same person who just a few years earlier had been considered too conservative to serve as the state’s governor was now considered too moderate to be one of the state’s U.S. senators. It didn’t make any sense. I served in government for decades. I took positions on dozens of issues. But I didn’t care a lick about my record. Instead of opposing my ideas, my detractors turned back to saying I was just “one of them,” whoever “they” was at any given time. And the same is happening everywhere in our politics.
Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), for example, may not be a Trump supporter, but he is certainly not a RINO. However, he lost a bid for re-election to another Republican. And among Democrats, Oregon Rep. Kurt Schraeder may have been a bulwark of bipartisanship, but he was no traitor to his party, as evidenced by President Biden’s endorsement for re-election. However, after being accused of not being a true progressive, he was kicked out in the primaries earlier this year.
George Carlin had an old piece that I think speaks to this moment. He said, “I love people. I hate groups of people. I hate a group of people with a ‘common purpose.’ Because they soon have little hats. And armbands. And fight songs. And a list of people who will visit in 3 in the morning.” And that’s exactly what labeling does in our policy. It assumes that people are simply mindless followers of some ideology, unable to think for themselves or define themselves apart from a larger class of people.
The problem here isn’t that labels are bad in themselves: Short descriptors have long played an important role in defining candidates for office. The real issue is twofold. First of all, today’s labels have no real basis in reality, and yet they hold up today in ways they didn’t before. A single viral post that distorts a public official’s record with an inappropriate label can define a campaign. Calling a principled conservative RINO can undermine his career. And “cancelling” someone for not being 100% aligned on every issue is a big deal.
Perhaps more worryingly, labeling has come to distort the incentives that define public service. To avoid being labeled, officials are now afraid to do what they believe is in the public’s best interest. Even if the general electorate is eager for them to come across the aisle, principled conservatives and principled liberals will avoid doing so for fear of being labeled a RINO or DINO. And that shift will surely shake up the entrenched notion that our politics is becoming increasingly disconnected from the problem-solving approach that the electorate demands and, frankly, the country needs.
Pat McCrory served as the governor of North Carolina from 2012 to 2016.
