BOSTON — New York Times columnist David Brooks proves once again why he is my favorite Republican:
Many conservatives declare that Barack Obama is a Muslim because it feels so good to say so. Many liberals would never ask themselves why they were so wrong about the surge in Iraq while George Bush was so right. The question is too uncomfortable.
There’s a seller’s market in ideologies that gives people a chance to feel victimized. There’s a rigidity to political debate. Issues like tax cuts and the size of government, which should be shaped by circumstances (often it’s good to cut taxes; sometimes it’s necessary to raise them), are now treated as inflexible tests of tribal purity.
To use a fancy word, there’s a metacognition deficit. Very few in public life habitually step back and think about the weakness in their own thinking and what they should do to compensate. A few people I interview do this regularly (in fact, Larry Summers is one). But it is rare. The rigors of combat discourage it.
Of the problems that afflict the country, this is the underlying one. (emphasis added)
I am not a partisan guy. I hold various thoughts on various issues that span the political spectrum to an extent that is probably confusing or even contradictory. (The benefit, or curse, of having a journalistic mindset, I suppose.) Anyone who says life is simple — or that one political mindset is always correct — is selling something.
As a result, I always admire pundits and politicians who buck the trend in their respective camps to speak (what they think is) the realistic, blunt truth. And in this instance, Brooks is absolutely correct. On issues like taxes, different economic times call for different economic measures.
Back in Boston, I remember watching the 2004 presidential debates between President George W. Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry. In one debate, the candidates took questions from the audience. One man asked Kerry the following question (paraphrased from memory):
“Would you ever raise taxes as president? Answer ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”
After taking a few seconds to consider a response, Kerry looked at the questioner and said the following: “No. I will never raise taxes.”
Of course, it was an answer designed to gain (or at least not lose) votes. But it was the wrong answer. This is what a true leader, then or now, would have said:
I will not promise to raise taxes. I will not promise to lower taxes. I will not promise to keep taxes level. And here is why. No one knows what is going to happen in the economy. Not the president, not the pundits, not anyone. And different economic times require different economic policies. If the government runs a large deficit, it is sensible to raise taxes to increase revenue. If the economy is in a recession, it is sensible to lower taxes to stimulate the economy. But a president is not God. I cannot tell you what I will do because I do not know what is going to happen. But what I can promise is that me and my advisers will take the most-appropriate actions in light of any economic situation. Any politician who says otherwise is pandering for votes at best or a fool at worst.
It’s too bad that the statement does not fit on a bumper-sticker. Still, take that quote and apply it to any political issue facing the United States. Part of the reason that I supported Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election was that I believed that he would use his ability to communicate — as well as his staff’s adeptness at online marketing — to tell the American people the blunt, honest truth. Sadly, I have yet to see that occur.
After all, pundits like Brooks have a luxury that politicians like Obama do not have. To co-opt a common saying, there are three actions that spell out a death-sentence in politics:
- Be found in bed with a dead girl
- Be found in bed with a live boy
- Tell the truth
Brooks can tell the truth because the only people to whom he answers are the op-ed editor and the shareholders of the New York Times. Obama answers to the American people and can therefore not afford to anger them by telling blunt, uncomfortable truths. (Unless he, or any president, would aim to be a one-termer in the idealistic hope of getting real results.)
The negative effect of the lack of bluntness can result in the rise of demagogues to take advantage of the need for truth by telling false truths. James Kunstler, author of “The Long Emergency” (how peak-oil and climate change will purportedly decimate U.S. society) and “The Geography of Nowhere” (on the alleged death of American suburbia), addresses the issue in a diatribe against Fox News demagogue Glenn Beck after his recent speech in the U.S. Capitol:
Of course, what has allowed Beck to occupy center stage is the failure of rational political figures to articulate the terms of the convulsion that American society faces, brought about not by communists and other John Bircher hobgoblins but by the forces of history. The failure at the political center is a conscious one of nerve and will, of elected officials in both major parties playing desperately for advantage in defiance of the truth — this truth being that the USA went broke trying to swindle itself into prosperity. Add to this the failure of the law to go after the swindlers, which has undermined the fundamental belief in the rule of law that enabled this society to function as well as it did previously.
Of course, Kunstler seems to be a modern-day Cassandra despite the fact that many people — rightly or wrongly — are believing him. As a result, his writings are entirely pessimistic. Still, his point on this specific issue is well-taken. A society that cannot hear — or refuses to hear — necessary truths and relies on partisan talking-points is one that is doomed to decline.
Earlier: The Disappearance of Centrist Moderates and Glenn Beck, Fox News, and the Overton Window
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