Like the guy whistling past the graveyard, I am trying to be cheerful amidst mounting fears over the outcome of next Tuesday’s election. We are even going to the Jon Stewart/Steven Colbert rally on the Mall on the Saturday before. It won’t change anything, but at least it’ll make us feel better.
What’s baffling about this election is that the electorate is as unhappy with the Republicans, if not more so according to some polls, as they are with the Democrats. Yet, if the polls are correct, they still want to turn control of the Congress over to the Republicans. “Throwing the bums out” has taken on a curiously capricious turn.
Could the polls be wrong? Here’s my wishful thinking: Poll data is based on responses from likely voters. Right? And how do pollsters get in touch with likely voters? Mostly by calling their landlines. But, younger voters don’t use landlines and they use their cell phones mostly as texting devices. Then, how can pollsters predict what the younger set is going to do in the next election? What if they turn out in unprecedented numbers?
Yeah, I know…. The pollsters have already thought about that. Okay, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that the Democrats retain control of both the House and Senate, but with a very tiny majority in both, the rosiest scenario I have seen anyone come up with. Is that cause for rejoicing? I don’t see how. That’ll just get us the status quo on steroids.
Although a firm believer in redemption, I can’t imagine the Republicans experiencing a change in heart, taking the election as a sign that they need to start cooperating with the President. After all, Minority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell is quoted as saying in a recent National Journal article that his top priority in the next Congress is to ensure that Barack Obama is a one-term president. Based on his statements, presumptive Speaker of the House, John Boehner, is no less intransigent.
So, I am beginning to think that such an outcome, where the Democrats win both houses, might be the worst outcome of this election over the long haul. That would just put the monkey firmly on the backs of the Democrats and would make them primarily responsible in the eyes of the electorate for the continuing stalemate, as it apparently has done in this election. And, as a result, 2012 could be a debacle to the point that the Democrats could lose not only the House and the Senate but the White House and several key Governorships as well, with all of the pernicious gerrymandering that would bring. So, hoping for a Democratic sweep brings to mind my mother’s gentle warning – be careful what you pray for.
On the other hand, let’s assume the Democrats retain control of the Senate, by a slim margin, but the leadership in the House shifts to Rep. John Boehner and the Republicans, as expected. Will the Republicans then be able to continue their persistence in denying the President and the Democrats any successes? Maybe – it’s worked wonders for them so far — but I rather doubt it.
The Republicans have campaigned on the promise of doing something to create more jobs and getting the economy back on track. So, if they win the House, presumably they will have to show some leadership and come up with new ideas of their own. Otherwise, an unhappy, impatient electorate – with the likely increased influence of the Tea Party — will quickly pivot and turn them out in 2012, just as they are likely to do this year with the Democrats, their “saviors” just two short years ago. On the other hand, if the Republicans use their new power trying to repeal health care reform, and other such mischief, as many rightly fear, a Democratically-controlled Senate and a Presidential veto will stand ready to rebuff their efforts.
Meantime, I still can’t help entertaining the fantasy of the pollsters getting it wrong, comforted by the memory of President Truman holding up a copy of the Chicago Tribune after the 1948 Presidential election with a front-page story reporting: “Dewey Defeats Truman.” During that campaign, Truman gained a lot of traction running against a “do-nothing” Republican-controlled Congress. Could that happen again? Probably not, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which are vastly improved polling techniques. As indicated, I’m not sure it would be good for the long haul, anyway.
Whatever happens on Tuesday, though, at the very least we’ll get a temporary reprieve from the ugly political ads coming from both sides of the aisle assaulting our eyes and ears and filling up our mailboxes.
Gerald E. Lavey
Friday, October 29, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
The Long Goodbye
The other night we had guests for dinner, a young couple in their late 20’s or early 30’s. Topics ranged all over the lot. Towards the end of the meal we even got into politics and religion, two areas we normally stay away from. On the subject of religion, the husband volunteered that he had been raised Catholic but no longer considered himself Catholic. His wife told the same story.
In neither case was it anything traumatic, nor one single issue, that drove them away; it was just a slow disillusionment with the Catholic Church and so eventually they quit going to Mass and stopped practicing altogether. A “long goodbye,” in other words, the title of a recent article in Commonweal magazine by Cathleen Kaveny, which typifies the experience of a large number of Catholics who have left the church over the last four decades.
In a companion article, Peter Steinfels, who also serves as a religious editor for the New York Times, cites a February 2008 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which found that one of every three adult Americans who were raised Catholic have left the church. If these former Catholics were “to form a single church,” observes Steinfels, “they would constitute the second largest church in the nation.”
What went wrong? Some say it’s the church rigid stand on abortion and sexual matters, including homosexuality. Others cite the church’s treatment of women as second-class citizens, and the refusal to even think about women priests or a married clergy, despite the steady drop in a celibate male clergy. The sexual abuse scandal was a major factor, of course, but the steady erosion of Catholics began way before the sexual abuse scandal came to light. So, my guess is that in many cases, it’s all of the above and none of the above.
Many former Catholics that I have run into over the years told me the Catholic church, no longer “did it for them.” It didn’t provide them the spiritual sustenance and uplift they were looking for, so they left and joined other Christian denominations which better met their spiritual needs. Others, including members of my own extended family, found what they were looking for in Buddhism. Still others are no longer affiliated with any formal religious body.
On a personal note, I’m still a Catholic for reasons spelled out in a confessional piece I wrote recently (“Why I’m Still a Catholic”) and shared with family members and friends, but I can totally understand and respect those who have come to an opposite conclusion and have chosen another path.
As I recall my own journey as a Catholic over the last several decades, I too have become disillusioned with the church hierarchy, with its authoritarian approach and rigid focus on a few moral issues, such as abortion and homosexuality, its treatment of women and its steadfast refusal, as a result, to consider the issue of women priests. Much of the hierarchy, it seems to me, including the majority of U.S. Catholic bishops, has become a nest of Pharisees, running around in their funny hats and dresses issuing excommunications and refusing the Eucharist to those who don’t toe the line. In so doing, they have become the very kind of narrow-minded legalists that Jesus so roundly condemned in his ministry here on earth.
That said, even if much of the hierarchy has lost touch with the church’s vision of striving to be a source of love and compassion and a beacon of hope for the broken and the hopeless, that spirit still burns brightly in many Catholic organizations. Coming to mind are organizations like the Catholic Relief Services, the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, Catholic Relief Services USA, communities of priests and nuns, and countless other individuals and organizations that are doing the real work of the church in their tireless promotion of social justice for the poor and dispossessed around the world. They are working shoulder to shoulder with other humanitarian organizations to help people of all faiths, or no faiths, in Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and here in America’s schools and hospitals and inner cites.
That is the Catholic church I admire so greatly, hoping and praying that over time the official, hierarchical church will wake up and catch up with our dedicated Catholic workers in the vineyard who are responding every day to the core Christian call to love and care for one another, especially our sisters and brothers most in need.
Gerald E. Lavey
In neither case was it anything traumatic, nor one single issue, that drove them away; it was just a slow disillusionment with the Catholic Church and so eventually they quit going to Mass and stopped practicing altogether. A “long goodbye,” in other words, the title of a recent article in Commonweal magazine by Cathleen Kaveny, which typifies the experience of a large number of Catholics who have left the church over the last four decades.
In a companion article, Peter Steinfels, who also serves as a religious editor for the New York Times, cites a February 2008 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which found that one of every three adult Americans who were raised Catholic have left the church. If these former Catholics were “to form a single church,” observes Steinfels, “they would constitute the second largest church in the nation.”
What went wrong? Some say it’s the church rigid stand on abortion and sexual matters, including homosexuality. Others cite the church’s treatment of women as second-class citizens, and the refusal to even think about women priests or a married clergy, despite the steady drop in a celibate male clergy. The sexual abuse scandal was a major factor, of course, but the steady erosion of Catholics began way before the sexual abuse scandal came to light. So, my guess is that in many cases, it’s all of the above and none of the above.
Many former Catholics that I have run into over the years told me the Catholic church, no longer “did it for them.” It didn’t provide them the spiritual sustenance and uplift they were looking for, so they left and joined other Christian denominations which better met their spiritual needs. Others, including members of my own extended family, found what they were looking for in Buddhism. Still others are no longer affiliated with any formal religious body.
On a personal note, I’m still a Catholic for reasons spelled out in a confessional piece I wrote recently (“Why I’m Still a Catholic”) and shared with family members and friends, but I can totally understand and respect those who have come to an opposite conclusion and have chosen another path.
As I recall my own journey as a Catholic over the last several decades, I too have become disillusioned with the church hierarchy, with its authoritarian approach and rigid focus on a few moral issues, such as abortion and homosexuality, its treatment of women and its steadfast refusal, as a result, to consider the issue of women priests. Much of the hierarchy, it seems to me, including the majority of U.S. Catholic bishops, has become a nest of Pharisees, running around in their funny hats and dresses issuing excommunications and refusing the Eucharist to those who don’t toe the line. In so doing, they have become the very kind of narrow-minded legalists that Jesus so roundly condemned in his ministry here on earth.
That said, even if much of the hierarchy has lost touch with the church’s vision of striving to be a source of love and compassion and a beacon of hope for the broken and the hopeless, that spirit still burns brightly in many Catholic organizations. Coming to mind are organizations like the Catholic Relief Services, the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, Catholic Relief Services USA, communities of priests and nuns, and countless other individuals and organizations that are doing the real work of the church in their tireless promotion of social justice for the poor and dispossessed around the world. They are working shoulder to shoulder with other humanitarian organizations to help people of all faiths, or no faiths, in Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and here in America’s schools and hospitals and inner cites.
That is the Catholic church I admire so greatly, hoping and praying that over time the official, hierarchical church will wake up and catch up with our dedicated Catholic workers in the vineyard who are responding every day to the core Christian call to love and care for one another, especially our sisters and brothers most in need.
Gerald E. Lavey
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Déjà Vu All Over Again
A persistent strain of scary right-wing looniness keeps resurfacing every generation or so in American politics. There was the Know-Nothing Party, then Fr. Coughlin and his rants against Jews and communists, often conflating the two. Next, Senator Joseph McCarthy emerged warning of Communists infiltrating the Federal government, followed closely by the John Birch Society, which found even Dwight Eisenhower, Republican President and decorated General and Supreme Commander in World War II, as a witting tool of the Communist Party.
Just when you relax, thinking that’s part of our sordid past and the country has finally driven a stake into the heart of this craziness, Glenn Beck appears and the movement appears stronger than ever. It would be one thing if you could dismiss him and his followers as part of a harmless “lunatic fringe” — a phrase that Theodore Roosevelt first used against the far Left of his day. But, it’s quite another matter when the lunatic fringe seriously starts “infiltrating,” to use one of their pet terms, the highest halls of government as they appear poised to do in this off-year election.
The New Yorker magazine, which has alternately entertained, bored, amused, and educated me, for more than 50 years, but has never alarmed me, sent a chill up on my spine with its October 18 issue. In an article “Confounding Fathers,” author Sean Willentz traces the roots of Beck’s philosophy and teaching to Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society and Willard Cleon Skousen. Skousen was considered so radical in the early 1960’s that even avid Communist-hunter, J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, put him under surveillance as part of dangerous right-wing anti-communist ring.
According to Willentz, by the time Skousen, a Mormon convert, died, in 2006, “he was little remembered outside the ranks of the furthest-right Mormons.” By that he refers to acolytes of Ezra Taft Benson, a noted anti-Communist who saw conspiracies behind every tree and under every bed. Scary as Benson was, Willentz says that Skousen was the “most outlandish of the era’s right-wing anti-Communists.”
Skousen wrote several books, including “A Naked Capitalist,” “The 5,000 Year Leap,” “The Making of America,” and a “rousing tract” in defense of Robert Welch, called “The Communist Attack on the John Birch Society.” I have never heard of these eminently forgettable books, as I suspect none of you have either, and they would have long ago been resting in well-deserved oblivion except that Glenn Beck has resurrected them and put them at the top of his recommended reading list. Beck claims that the “The 5,000 Year Leap” is essential to understanding “why our Founders built this Republic the way they did.” After he touted the book to his large viewing audience — estimated at 2 million or more – and wrote an introduction to the new edition, the book jumped to the top of the Amazon best-seller list. In the first half of 2009 it sold more than 250,000 copies. According to Willentz, Constitutional scholar Jack Rakove, of Stanford, inspected another of Skousen’s books that Beck endorses (“The Making of America’) as well as Skousen’s seminars and pronounced them a “joke that no self-respecting scholar would think is worth a warm pitcher of spit.”
Fortunately, in the heyday of the John Birch Society in the 1960’s, there were moderate Republicans who spoke out against this lunacy and could help mitigate its impact. Even columnist William F. Buckley, Jr., was an avid anti-Bircher conservative. But, today, there are no moderate Republicans to speak out — in fact, there are no moderate Republicans — and so Beck has an open, largely unobstructed field and a large bullhorn and platform in Fox News that the John Birch Society could only have dreamed of.
No matter what scary stuff the kids will think of for Halloween, it will be nothing compared to the scary stuff that Beck and his followers might be able to pull on us just two days later.
Gerald E. Lavey
Just when you relax, thinking that’s part of our sordid past and the country has finally driven a stake into the heart of this craziness, Glenn Beck appears and the movement appears stronger than ever. It would be one thing if you could dismiss him and his followers as part of a harmless “lunatic fringe” — a phrase that Theodore Roosevelt first used against the far Left of his day. But, it’s quite another matter when the lunatic fringe seriously starts “infiltrating,” to use one of their pet terms, the highest halls of government as they appear poised to do in this off-year election.
The New Yorker magazine, which has alternately entertained, bored, amused, and educated me, for more than 50 years, but has never alarmed me, sent a chill up on my spine with its October 18 issue. In an article “Confounding Fathers,” author Sean Willentz traces the roots of Beck’s philosophy and teaching to Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society and Willard Cleon Skousen. Skousen was considered so radical in the early 1960’s that even avid Communist-hunter, J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, put him under surveillance as part of dangerous right-wing anti-communist ring.
According to Willentz, by the time Skousen, a Mormon convert, died, in 2006, “he was little remembered outside the ranks of the furthest-right Mormons.” By that he refers to acolytes of Ezra Taft Benson, a noted anti-Communist who saw conspiracies behind every tree and under every bed. Scary as Benson was, Willentz says that Skousen was the “most outlandish of the era’s right-wing anti-Communists.”
Skousen wrote several books, including “A Naked Capitalist,” “The 5,000 Year Leap,” “The Making of America,” and a “rousing tract” in defense of Robert Welch, called “The Communist Attack on the John Birch Society.” I have never heard of these eminently forgettable books, as I suspect none of you have either, and they would have long ago been resting in well-deserved oblivion except that Glenn Beck has resurrected them and put them at the top of his recommended reading list. Beck claims that the “The 5,000 Year Leap” is essential to understanding “why our Founders built this Republic the way they did.” After he touted the book to his large viewing audience — estimated at 2 million or more – and wrote an introduction to the new edition, the book jumped to the top of the Amazon best-seller list. In the first half of 2009 it sold more than 250,000 copies. According to Willentz, Constitutional scholar Jack Rakove, of Stanford, inspected another of Skousen’s books that Beck endorses (“The Making of America’) as well as Skousen’s seminars and pronounced them a “joke that no self-respecting scholar would think is worth a warm pitcher of spit.”
Fortunately, in the heyday of the John Birch Society in the 1960’s, there were moderate Republicans who spoke out against this lunacy and could help mitigate its impact. Even columnist William F. Buckley, Jr., was an avid anti-Bircher conservative. But, today, there are no moderate Republicans to speak out — in fact, there are no moderate Republicans — and so Beck has an open, largely unobstructed field and a large bullhorn and platform in Fox News that the John Birch Society could only have dreamed of.
No matter what scary stuff the kids will think of for Halloween, it will be nothing compared to the scary stuff that Beck and his followers might be able to pull on us just two days later.
Gerald E. Lavey
Monday, October 11, 2010
Sometimes a Strange Notion
Occasionally, an idea takes hold of me during the night that I can’t let go of it until I put it down on paper and see if it bears up under the stark scrutiny of day.
First, some background: This nocturnal notion has to do with the lack of jobs which is holding back the economic recovery. When the stimulus bill was passed, the amount of the stimulus should have been larger, many economists argue, but politically, with the Republicans saying no to everything, the idea of passing a stimulus bill that exceeded one trillion dollars was politically not feasible.
The stimulus helped, as we have pointed out here before, mainly by mitigating the impact on the unemployment rate. Without the stimulus, the amount of joblessness would have been twice what it is, although that is not a talking point in the Tea Party and the Republicans campaign literature. Unfortunately, neither does it seem to be part of the Democratic Party campaign arsenal either.
So, clearly, what the economy needs is a new jump start. But, from where and from whom? First, the government is stymied by the current political mood of the country, especially with the off-year election coming up. With the job situation and the economy so uncertain, American consumers are understandably wary and are sitting tight hoping the situation will improve and they can get back to shopping again, including getting in the market for new homes. Small mom-and-pop businesses are virtually in the same boat as consumers, with no room for new investments or creating new jobs. So, no hope there.
So, if logic serves me right, that leaves big business – major corporations and the like. What can they do? First of all, they are sitting on more that one trillion in cash — yes, trillion, not billion — yet unwilling to invest in new jobs and equipment because basically they don’t trust the current administration in Washington. They are afraid of what more may come down the pike by way of mandates – such as the hated health care reform legislation that will force them to provide health coverage for their employees. But, maybe they can get that repealed, they console themselves. Next, the outrage of financial regulatory reform which may put a crimp in their free-wheeling modus operandi, not to mention environmental legislation, which may force them to help the country break its addiction to foreign oil and help clean up the environment. And God knows what other socialist “job-killing” notions the Obama Administration has up its sleeves. So, they are in a wait-and-see mood, meanwhile spending massive sums of money on getting more business friendly Republican politicians back in power so they can conduct business as usual.
So, this is where my strange notion comes in. Let’s say — humor me for a moment while I unfold my fantasy — that some corporate leaders, inspired by the example of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, wake up in the middle of the night and say to themselves: What if we invest some of this cash we are sitting on to create new jobs, jobs that we know we’ll need once the economy is back on its feet again? By doing so, we may be able to speed the economic recovery and help this country get back on its feet again.
Now that I am fully awake, I realize this nocturnal notion will not survive daylight scrutiny because it would never pass the litmus tests of the U.S Chamber of Commerce or the Business Roundtable. But, the nagging thought still persists: What if … just what if some major corporation could break the mold and break out of the pack? That’s the nice thing about fantasy — it removes us, if only temporarily, from the rigors of reality. It’s fun while it lasts. Now back to political reality.
Political reality which is playing out on the campaign trail as we speak declares that tax cuts for big business and the wealthy and a hands-off approach by government in terms of regulations are the only way to get the engine of the economy going again and help create new jobs. Just leave the market alone — it will right itself and all will be well throughout the land, they say in their soothing, siren voice.
I can’t help thinking of Lucy saying to Charlie Brown, I promise this time I will not pull back the football as I did so many times in the past. Promise, Charlie Brown. Honest, this time it will be different, she implores, tears flowing.
My new fantasy is that this time Charlie Brown will not buy it and refuse to go along with Lucy’s little game, but I fear there are way too many gullible Charlie Browns out there with notoriously short memories.
Gerald E. Lavey
First, some background: This nocturnal notion has to do with the lack of jobs which is holding back the economic recovery. When the stimulus bill was passed, the amount of the stimulus should have been larger, many economists argue, but politically, with the Republicans saying no to everything, the idea of passing a stimulus bill that exceeded one trillion dollars was politically not feasible.
The stimulus helped, as we have pointed out here before, mainly by mitigating the impact on the unemployment rate. Without the stimulus, the amount of joblessness would have been twice what it is, although that is not a talking point in the Tea Party and the Republicans campaign literature. Unfortunately, neither does it seem to be part of the Democratic Party campaign arsenal either.
So, clearly, what the economy needs is a new jump start. But, from where and from whom? First, the government is stymied by the current political mood of the country, especially with the off-year election coming up. With the job situation and the economy so uncertain, American consumers are understandably wary and are sitting tight hoping the situation will improve and they can get back to shopping again, including getting in the market for new homes. Small mom-and-pop businesses are virtually in the same boat as consumers, with no room for new investments or creating new jobs. So, no hope there.
So, if logic serves me right, that leaves big business – major corporations and the like. What can they do? First of all, they are sitting on more that one trillion in cash — yes, trillion, not billion — yet unwilling to invest in new jobs and equipment because basically they don’t trust the current administration in Washington. They are afraid of what more may come down the pike by way of mandates – such as the hated health care reform legislation that will force them to provide health coverage for their employees. But, maybe they can get that repealed, they console themselves. Next, the outrage of financial regulatory reform which may put a crimp in their free-wheeling modus operandi, not to mention environmental legislation, which may force them to help the country break its addiction to foreign oil and help clean up the environment. And God knows what other socialist “job-killing” notions the Obama Administration has up its sleeves. So, they are in a wait-and-see mood, meanwhile spending massive sums of money on getting more business friendly Republican politicians back in power so they can conduct business as usual.
So, this is where my strange notion comes in. Let’s say — humor me for a moment while I unfold my fantasy — that some corporate leaders, inspired by the example of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, wake up in the middle of the night and say to themselves: What if we invest some of this cash we are sitting on to create new jobs, jobs that we know we’ll need once the economy is back on its feet again? By doing so, we may be able to speed the economic recovery and help this country get back on its feet again.
Now that I am fully awake, I realize this nocturnal notion will not survive daylight scrutiny because it would never pass the litmus tests of the U.S Chamber of Commerce or the Business Roundtable. But, the nagging thought still persists: What if … just what if some major corporation could break the mold and break out of the pack? That’s the nice thing about fantasy — it removes us, if only temporarily, from the rigors of reality. It’s fun while it lasts. Now back to political reality.
Political reality which is playing out on the campaign trail as we speak declares that tax cuts for big business and the wealthy and a hands-off approach by government in terms of regulations are the only way to get the engine of the economy going again and help create new jobs. Just leave the market alone — it will right itself and all will be well throughout the land, they say in their soothing, siren voice.
I can’t help thinking of Lucy saying to Charlie Brown, I promise this time I will not pull back the football as I did so many times in the past. Promise, Charlie Brown. Honest, this time it will be different, she implores, tears flowing.
My new fantasy is that this time Charlie Brown will not buy it and refuse to go along with Lucy’s little game, but I fear there are way too many gullible Charlie Browns out there with notoriously short memories.
Gerald E. Lavey
Friday, October 1, 2010
Dump the Party -- Keep the Tea
It’s way too easy to make fun of the Tea Party. Clownish Tea party-backed candidates for public office, such as Sharron Angle in Nevada and Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell invite caricature and parody. So does the stereotype of the Tea Party rank and file – a virtually all-white, over-50 crowd, donning baseball caps. They’re easy prey.
But, to dismiss the Tea Party movement out of hand, on the assumption that it’s led by a bunch of clowns and based on a platform of unfocused anger that will shortly fizzle out, is fraught with peril — for two reasons. The first, most immediate danger is that regardless of how the movement does long term, it’s highly unlikely it will lose steam before the November election. So, after November, we may well be referring to the objects of our ridicule as Senator Angle and Senator O’Donnell. Secondly, regardless of how the current Tea Party does in November, there is a danger of overlooking the underlying angst, anger, and dissatisfaction, which even centrist Americans are feeling about the direction of the country and who believe they have nowhere to turn except the Tea Party.
On that note, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman makes an important distinction between the current Tea Party faithful getting so much public attention, which he calls the “Tea Kettle Movement” because it just blows off steam, and this other much larger group whose agenda is still largely amorphous and unfocused, but real. They want someone who can summon us to greatness again, claims Friedman, and all they are looking for, he says, is a leader who can tap into that and galvanize their support.
As a strong Obama supporter, I could easily make the case that we already have that type of leader and point to the President’s accomplishments over the past two years. Education reform, increased funding for research and development, including alternative forms of energy, financial regulatory reform, tax cuts for small businesses and the middle class, not to mention health-care reform which is designed to finally enable the U.S. to match what other major industrialized nations have been doing for decades. Currently, in the category of richest nations, the U.S. ranks among the worst providers of health care even though we spend significantly more than the others in terms of percentage of GDP. We also have one of the highest poverty rates compared to other major nations, a dubious record we held even before the recent recession. Any country that ignores these matters cannot legitimately lay claim to greatness.
So, people like me can make a strong case for the President’s agenda, I believe, but we’re lonely voices crying in the wilderness. On a good day my readership barely breaks into double digits. We need the Party leadership to make the case and frankly, to date, they have done a miserable job of framing this story in simple terms that ordinary people can understand. Even though the President is making a surge at the 11th hour to rally the base, it may be too little too late.
Besides, Democratic candidates, facing the rising tide of support for Tea Party candidates are running away from the President and refashioning their separate narratives to address public fear and anger in their states and districts. To be fair, they have the unenviable job of running on a platform of “here’s what would have happened if we had not” and “here is what financial regulatory reform, health reform, and research into renewable forms of energy will do over the long term.” That’s a tough sale at any time. It’s easy to trump a long, discursive explanation with a clever one-liner that fits on a yard sign. Besides, to a society used to instant gratification, it just doesn’t play well generally.
My nephew Kevin, also an Obama supporter, sees broader factors at play. “People feel so overwhelmed about how life works in the late 20th and early 21st century,” he writes, citing a number of factors that contribute to these feelings, that “they want their president to provide comforting myths that assuage their sense of estrangement. Ronald Reagan, rather than the great communicator, was, to me, the great myth maker,” says Kevin. “Bush, clumsier, managed to do the same thing in his walk tall, shoot from the hip, sneer at pointy heads’ demeanor. Obama is the transformational man, and the country isn't ready for him. Americans say they want straight talk, but don't talk to them about needing to change."
Sadly, I fear Kevin may be on to something. But, if we are not ready for a transformational leader now, then when? How long can we kick that can down the road? How long can we be seduced by the “gain without pain” philosophy enshrined most recently, for example, in the Republican’s vacuous “Pledge to America.” Or the call by various Tea Party candidates for dismantling much of the Federal government, including the IRS? Or cutting funds for education and research in favor of tax cuts for the rich? Or continuing to buy into the long ago discredited “trickle down theory” based on the idea that if we take care of the wealthy with tax cuts and eliminate regulatory restraints on special interests, the benefits will trickle down to the needy? Sounds to me like the scriptural story of the scraps from Lazarus’s table writ large. Besides, we saw that it didn’t work under President Reagan or during the George W. Bush presidency when the average earning power of the middle class fell steadily despite massive tax cuts for the wealthy.
Do we really want to go back to that, now that we are on the road to economic recovery, revitalizing long-neglected programs for education and research, and regaining the respect of our allies around the world? There’s a real chance we will because, as history attests, the electorate’s short-term memory is woefully deficient and the soothing siren song of the Republicans can be very tantalizing, making us easily forget what got us into this mess in the first place.
But, to dismiss the Tea Party movement out of hand, on the assumption that it’s led by a bunch of clowns and based on a platform of unfocused anger that will shortly fizzle out, is fraught with peril — for two reasons. The first, most immediate danger is that regardless of how the movement does long term, it’s highly unlikely it will lose steam before the November election. So, after November, we may well be referring to the objects of our ridicule as Senator Angle and Senator O’Donnell. Secondly, regardless of how the current Tea Party does in November, there is a danger of overlooking the underlying angst, anger, and dissatisfaction, which even centrist Americans are feeling about the direction of the country and who believe they have nowhere to turn except the Tea Party.
On that note, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman makes an important distinction between the current Tea Party faithful getting so much public attention, which he calls the “Tea Kettle Movement” because it just blows off steam, and this other much larger group whose agenda is still largely amorphous and unfocused, but real. They want someone who can summon us to greatness again, claims Friedman, and all they are looking for, he says, is a leader who can tap into that and galvanize their support.
As a strong Obama supporter, I could easily make the case that we already have that type of leader and point to the President’s accomplishments over the past two years. Education reform, increased funding for research and development, including alternative forms of energy, financial regulatory reform, tax cuts for small businesses and the middle class, not to mention health-care reform which is designed to finally enable the U.S. to match what other major industrialized nations have been doing for decades. Currently, in the category of richest nations, the U.S. ranks among the worst providers of health care even though we spend significantly more than the others in terms of percentage of GDP. We also have one of the highest poverty rates compared to other major nations, a dubious record we held even before the recent recession. Any country that ignores these matters cannot legitimately lay claim to greatness.
So, people like me can make a strong case for the President’s agenda, I believe, but we’re lonely voices crying in the wilderness. On a good day my readership barely breaks into double digits. We need the Party leadership to make the case and frankly, to date, they have done a miserable job of framing this story in simple terms that ordinary people can understand. Even though the President is making a surge at the 11th hour to rally the base, it may be too little too late.
Besides, Democratic candidates, facing the rising tide of support for Tea Party candidates are running away from the President and refashioning their separate narratives to address public fear and anger in their states and districts. To be fair, they have the unenviable job of running on a platform of “here’s what would have happened if we had not” and “here is what financial regulatory reform, health reform, and research into renewable forms of energy will do over the long term.” That’s a tough sale at any time. It’s easy to trump a long, discursive explanation with a clever one-liner that fits on a yard sign. Besides, to a society used to instant gratification, it just doesn’t play well generally.
My nephew Kevin, also an Obama supporter, sees broader factors at play. “People feel so overwhelmed about how life works in the late 20th and early 21st century,” he writes, citing a number of factors that contribute to these feelings, that “they want their president to provide comforting myths that assuage their sense of estrangement. Ronald Reagan, rather than the great communicator, was, to me, the great myth maker,” says Kevin. “Bush, clumsier, managed to do the same thing in his walk tall, shoot from the hip, sneer at pointy heads’ demeanor. Obama is the transformational man, and the country isn't ready for him. Americans say they want straight talk, but don't talk to them about needing to change."
Sadly, I fear Kevin may be on to something. But, if we are not ready for a transformational leader now, then when? How long can we kick that can down the road? How long can we be seduced by the “gain without pain” philosophy enshrined most recently, for example, in the Republican’s vacuous “Pledge to America.” Or the call by various Tea Party candidates for dismantling much of the Federal government, including the IRS? Or cutting funds for education and research in favor of tax cuts for the rich? Or continuing to buy into the long ago discredited “trickle down theory” based on the idea that if we take care of the wealthy with tax cuts and eliminate regulatory restraints on special interests, the benefits will trickle down to the needy? Sounds to me like the scriptural story of the scraps from Lazarus’s table writ large. Besides, we saw that it didn’t work under President Reagan or during the George W. Bush presidency when the average earning power of the middle class fell steadily despite massive tax cuts for the wealthy.
Do we really want to go back to that, now that we are on the road to economic recovery, revitalizing long-neglected programs for education and research, and regaining the respect of our allies around the world? There’s a real chance we will because, as history attests, the electorate’s short-term memory is woefully deficient and the soothing siren song of the Republicans can be very tantalizing, making us easily forget what got us into this mess in the first place.
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