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Individualism: Just One of the Things They Don’t Get
This political season has been a confusing one for the media and elites of both parties. In truth, the last few years have been confusing, especially the last three-odd congressional elections.
They are only now starting to act as if they might “get” part of the decided tendency voters are showing toward what have been called the “outsiders.” Donald Trump seemed to be opening the door for the non-establishment political newcomer. But GOP voters have given top-tier status to three plain-speaking candidates, none of whom have held elective office before. They are all accomplished, independent people. The pundit class is beginning to grasp a few things about their connection to the public — but the essence of it is still out of their wheelhouse.
Several factors play into their confusion. But for now, I’ll focus on just one. Something about the basic American character that the pundits and the Beltway Cartel completely miss. Individualism.
In this new age of intellectualism, globalism, collectivism, and political correctness, the concept of the rugged individual is seen as not merely passé and quant, but Neanderthal. Trump, Carson, Fiorina and, yes, Cruz (although he is a senator) are not accepted members of their party. It fact, all four have not only prospered but excelled outside of the political circle. They do not follow the standard political formula for interviews, speeches, or appeals for support. They are very much standing on their own feet against the weight and cash of an elite who have managed to ignore the stated will of the electorate for almost a decade.
The successful republic is not based on the collective. It thrives on the will and drive of the individual. That has been the strength of the nation since its founding. It was the resident strength of the fertile colonial soil from which the nation grew.
The nation’s success is owed to the success of individuals and the constitutional structure that fostered them. What the public sees in these “outsiders” is their ability and the inclination to stand up for themselves. And in so doing, they stand up for those who have been ignored. Fight and scrape are a not only part of our nature, but our heritage — and we like to see it.
Individualism is characterized not just by the lone pioneer on the plains, but by the shift worker who saved and then took the chance to begin that hot dog stand in the parking lot, or that small shop on the corner. Our story involves individual risk, effort, reward, loss, and hope.
Every success story has lapses, failed efforts, and re-starts. I have often considered these “failures” to be the real heroes of our culture. They are, perhaps, the truest measure of the individual. Individualism does not exclude the bad year, the poor decision, or just plain poor luck. Neither does it exclude the help and concern of those around us. Safety from these failures and risks does not build strong people or strong nations.
The message of collectivism has always been one of false safety.
These outsiders, these individualists, break the mold of politics as a fraternal order that requires not just an apprenticeship but acceptance from the members-in-standing. They don’t appear to be asking anything from the establishment — one that has ignored the very base that provided them with their positions.
They help to remind us that we are not just one of many nations, but an exceptional experiment in liberty never before seen in the world. On second thought, they do not remind us of that. They tap into our realization of it, a realization that comfortable Beltway elites ignore and transformative leftists seek to destroy.
They have each, in some way, gained strength as the early stages of the campaign process plays out. They will all have plenty of opportunity to better define where they would take an administration if given the chance. No matter who wins the nomination, it’s a necessary, positive step to reach back to our true national nature for someone who reaffirms the potential of the individual. It’s the beginning of putting the American character back in its proper place as a model for our children and the rest of the world.
Published in Culture, Elections, General
For the first six years, it’s been & it’s going to be the biggest political defeat for the GOP & especially for conservatives who profess an attachment to small government. Everyone knows it’s Obamacare & Mr. Obama has secured his re-election. He is not even unpopular.
You may have a point about what’s going to happen in 2016 & afterward. The law is admittedly unpopular. What can be done about getting rid of it or its effects & whether such action would be popular–who knows? What conditions do you think would lead to the destruction of Obamacare? How should we think about predictions & expectations in this case, to know what to look for, to figure out whether you’re right or wrong?
Again, the problem is here is that there is no obvious reason to believe government that works is going to be small government. Taxation rises to meet spending or spending falls to meet revenue. Or you hope there will be 4% growth?
Let me offer one very obvious reason that things that work come from the smallest government, meaning no government at all.
Package delivery- Federal Express vrs US Postal Service– no contest. the non government solution is preferred
Private Charter schools- overwhelming popular when allowed to compete with government run schools
Forest land productivity- Private land overwhelmingly more productive than federal land.
Energy- private land oil production booming- federal land oil production near zero.
What I am suggesting is for Conservatives to change their strategy from reducing government to privatizing it for better performance. Tell American you are going to close post offices and they will howl. Tell them their mail will be handled by Fedex and they will cheer.
And Obamacare is already defeated. The enrollment numbers are abysmal. If it was such a victory for the Democrats, they would be talking about it. The fact that they refuse to discuss it shows whose defeat it was. Obamacare is only a defeat for the GOP if it causes them to lose votes. So far, since it rollout after 2012, it has been a political plus for them.
I do not share your hopes–or not for the most part. You assume–this is something, as you may know, libertarians tend to assume & fiscal conservatives of a certain stripe–that all so-called services or parts of the economy have the same political status now or later. This is not so.
There is no getting around the big entitlements that account for most of the coming debt & prevent any debt being paid now. Getting Americans to give up those entitlements is incredibly difficult. Maybe impossible.
You could maybe abolish USPS. Never been done, but maybe. It would make not a dent-
No. Obamacare has already divided the GOP. It will again in the future. It seems like the people who run the GOP say it cannot be undone. The movement conservatives hate that-
Eh,
Maybe privatizing the post ain’t so crazy – we could sell it as becoming more European ;-)
True, the USPS is not a big dent in the overall size of the gubmint. But it’s iconic, and if people find they can live without a government-sponsored postal service and life is just as good or better, they may become more trusting of letting go of government in other areas. A bunch of little dents… maybe it could work…
Good luck with that.
The progs have been doing it for years, T. Works for them!
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander?
I don’t know. I have not seen government decrease in terms of percentage of GDP it consumes over the long run–with a possible exception for WWII. There are certain things about modern government & the modern state that seem very difficult to change…
As Dr. Seuss said: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
Obviously. But not everything that’s hard to change fails to be worth changing.
You’d probably consider the Serenity Prayer hackneyed and gauche. And I’d never claim it as a thing of great literary beauty. It does, however, reflect a reality about human nature and human decisionmaking – including the depths to which we simply do not know and cannot know know the difference between which changes are realistic and which are not. We guess – and pray to God we maybe guessed right.
I’m not against trying to change modern government & the modern state to be somewhat more reasonable. I happen to think conservatives are right about the coming chaos & that we are in a serious danger of forgetting that civilization depends on political freedom, not just the arts & sciences… But I do not delude myself, I trust, & so I fear that what we need & what we can accomplish are not necessarily commensurate. Not even American conservatives might be equal to the task, but especially not those who think it’s mostly a matter of blaming their adversaries…
This idea, individualism, is full of danger. I fear conservatives are insufficiently aware of its dangers–the ones to which libertarians are, I would say, typically, blind. I fear they do not see that individualism of a certain kind is more the cause than the effect of the healthcare-welfare state.
Honestly, I’m not even sure how much I think about the “individualist” mythos. Humans are creatures made for human cooperation and relationships. The libertarians I’ve spent the most time around tend to be economists, who are pretty into the human-cooperation thing. The idea of the isolated individual honestly doesn’t appeal much to me, or I think to anyone, really.
What is meant by “individualism” must be something other than atomized individualism if it is to be any good. Indeed, some historical notions of American individualism emphasized responsibly fulfilling one’s obligations to others as a mark of individual development.
That’s a hypothetical imperative-
That individualism oughtn’t be atomized? Or what.
Anyhow, people can go around in circles forever disputing whether “real individualism” means putting yourself first and so disregarding others (selfishness), or whether “real individualism” means taking personal responsibility for your relationships with others. I suspect a lot of more traditionally-minded Americans still understand it as the latter.
That is, if you didn’t feel responsible for yourself as an individual, then you could always be content to be a bystander, one of the faceless, impassive crowd, never stepping forward to take a personal interest in others. But it’s because you see responsibility as an individual thing applying specifically to you that you’re then moved to go out of your way.
It doesn’t mean it’s impossible to make the case that “individualism” is just a pretty cover for selfishness. Indeed, that case always remains the easiest one to make. I just doubt that this construction of individualism accurately reflects what many Americans intuitively mean when they say stuff like “The individualism that made this country great.”
I think it is more “the self-made man” concept of individualism than “the individual.”
Well, one can be a firm believer in the value of individual enterprise and yet be perfectly comfortable dismissing the mythos of the “self-made man”.
I’m not sure how you propose to find out whether most Americans–or at least an electoral majority–really take seriously what you take seriously. I think we’re agreed Dems neither campaign nor govern on your ideas & they seem to do well-
Sweetie, I could say the same thing of you. And neither of us is operating a polling firm ;-)
My suggestion is, America is not what you think it is. If the next GOP candidate does another one of those ‘praise job creators’ campaigns–there’s a kind of individualism–he’ll lose just like the last did.
It’s likely to be even less what you think it is. At any rate, I think you’re misinterpreting my description of the tradition of American individualism. Describing a tradition is describing a tradition, not claiming that the tradition is currently popular by X amount.
It is quite likely he will also lose if he doesn’t. I happen to think the next GOP candidate, whoever he is, is more likely to lose than not. I felt the same way about the election for Obama’s second term.
I was one of the few here who thought that, while the election was likely to be close, Romney was still more likely to lose than win. Part of this was I considered Romney a subpar example of what, in theory at least, can make Republicans better than Democrats. But part of it is because I could understand that Obama has charm and popular appeal, even while violently disagreeing with him.
I don’t think the charm really matters–& it avoids the serious question about electoral coalitions & what an electoral majority of Americans find plausible or attractive. The question is, why the popular appeal–why is Mr. Obama not unpopular now?
As for the talk about the tradition of American individualism, if you mean it’s dead & gone, sure, you might be right.
Eh, it pretty clearly does in electoral politics.
Saying that charm also matters is not meant to avoid those serious questions. “Popular appeal”, which I also mentioned, is not just about charm, but about those other things, too.
For example, under Obama, the feds “did something” about a real problem for many Americans, healthcare costs. That the problem was quite likely already worsened by prior government involvement, and that the “something done” could quite likely make access to care even worse, may not matter to many Americans who have better things to do with their time than research the history and economics of healthcare policy. I suspect that Obamacare may create a public-private hybrid so unworkable that, compared to it, single-payer may clearly be the better option, instead of only dubiously being the better option, as it had been under our previous system. This may even have been intentional.
Nor will I say that, because a policy is controversial, or has a significant minority – or indeed any minority – rightfully opposed to it, this means that the policy is unpopular. And Democrats are, as far as I can tell, better at the mechanics of appealing to coalitions than Republicans. This appears even in little gestures, like local Democrats bringing coffee to thirsty, sleep-deprived election judges while local Republicans mysteriously… don’t.