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Lying to Ourselves
We have a problem with our federal government, but it’s not exactly the one we’re used to thinking about. Frankly, we don’t want to think about it all – better to deny the reality entirely. Easier to lie and lie and lie, and blame our problems on everyone else. Easier to blame Liberals, or Wokesters, or (the current favorite among the increasingly reality-averse folks who still cannot face that Trump has immolated himself once and for all time) traitors and sabotage. It is, of course, all lies. Mind you, lies can be useful – especially when trying to avoiding hurt feelings (our own not the least), but they’re still lies. At one time rebellions against ruling monarchs favored the lie “We’re not really rebelling against the King, he’s just the victim of bad advisors.”
The lie we all tell ourselves today is that we are the helpless victims of “The DC Establishment” (or whatever other term you want to use). Synonyms for this include “Wall Street,” “Big Tech,” and a host of others. They are the “bad advisors” we blame for manipulating Congress, for stealing elections, or for disloyalty to Trump (fact check here: the only consistent disloyalty in the Trump administration came from Trump – watching his cabinet members go from vaunted heroes to filthy traitors and sellouts in the commentariat was much akin to studying Soviet photography for disappearing faces alongside Stalin). We are very good at lying to ourselves about why Trump lost this or that political battle, about why Congress is a dysfunctional mess, and about why the “authoritarian ratchet” is inexorable. The truth we cannot confront about it is all is simple, and we all bear the shame of it. We do not really want any of our congress critters, our president, or our courts to lead us out of our morass, we want them to follow us into the pit of our own making. And follow they blithely do.
Why should anyone really attempt to lead? Why should anyone take any campaign rhetoric seriously? I’m not even speaking for the Left here, I’m just talking about the entire right half of the political spectrum. Think of all that we demand:
Repeal Obamacare! But get me my pills cheap! And you’d better not slash Medicare because Granny will be out on the street! Cut my taxes! But don’t touch Social Security, that’s my retirement! Slash regulations! But raise the minimum wage! And punish those rich Wall Street fat cats! No more bailouts! But bail out small businesses! No more stimulus checks… after the next one (and send a chaser too)!
Any time anyone in Congress actually tries to show real leadership he gets savaged. Paul Ryan was sent to Congress and proclaimed a hero as a fiscal wonk. Paul Ryan is now disgraced as a heartless fiscal wonk. Well? Which is it? He was the same Paul Ryan that entered as left – the truth is he violated the will of the voters, and the will of the voters is that the gravy train run to them, but not to other people they don’t like. We hailed the Tea Party a decade ago for demanding fiscal accountability, and then it all wilted when we realized everyone would take a hit, not just the “bad guys”. We wailed about Obama’s fiscal profligacy, then ignored Trump’s (even pre-COVID) because that spending was just better because it went to the right people.
We blame the Republican congress of 2017-2018 for not having a Repeal and Replace plan from Day 1 (nevermind that Trump promised he had his own too – and we never saw any of it). Why would any sane and safe Republican bother to come up with a health care reform plan? Any real plan would gore everyone’s ox, but not equally, and that would be seized on as evidence of favoritism towards whoever was hurt less than someone else – and we would be as happy to denounce it as the Left, just for different reasons. Why bother with specifics? Why bother to stick your neck out? Easier to campaign on an issue and then blame the other side when nothing ever happens later. Keeps the issue alive for a few election cycles, until the voters fixate on something else for a few cycles.
It’s no wonder Congress is stuffed with hacks, charlatans, grifters, sell-outs, and bench warmers. It’s no wonder both parties spend like drunken sailors. It’s no wonder the debt keeps growing and growing – hardly anyone there dares to change the game. When they try, they’re denounced as traitors, or Elitists, or uncompassionate eggheads, or accused of being in some group’s pocket (which, while true, is a problem only because it’s the “wrong” group), and so turfed out. Besides, they know what the voters really want better than the voters themselves: having someone else always around to blame.
It’s no wonder that both sides refuse to actually address electoral reforms too – that’s the gift that keeps giving. That way you never have to take any blame on your side for nominating cultists and loonies. That way you never have to take any blame for running a terrible campaign. Even if you lose, you win! After all, you were cheated! And martyrs are always more beloved than Darwin-award winners, giving you a leg up on fundraising for the next round (that’s where the real money is made – paying your friends and relatives for “consulting fees” while you expense first-class flights). Both sides play the game, and the money rolls in.
The truth of the matter is, Americans of all stripes really do not want reform. They do not want leaders. They do not want any hard choices. They want the status quo, but also want the moral high ground of blaming it on everybody else. And the government they claim to hate so much? It’s just following along. If we really wanted reform, we’d stop blaming the “swamp”, or whatever other excuses we have at hand. Instead, we would admit to ourselves that, like losing weight we are the ones who have to change first.
Published in Politics
Excuses, all of them. It’s all somebody else’s fault.
No, they aren’t. That’s also just making excuses.
As Skip ably pointed out above: for what reason should the Old South be subject to such draconian rules today? If the point of the VRA is to ensure that the rights of voters are protected, why isn’t my right to not have my vote canceled out by fraud in another state also on the table?
Denounced as a traitor or elitist for trying to reduce debt? I don’t believe that. And who’s denouncing? The average conservative? The average Republican?
Who is this post directed to?
Well, technically speaking, you and somebody else in another state are not voting on the same things.
That would be some trick, though… My vote against a tax levy here is cancelled by a New Yorker’s vote for a tax levy there.
This is actually a question of Federalism. While my vote may not technically be affected by the vote in another state, if a Congressional seat in another state which is acquired fraudulently ends up contributing to a majority which was similarly acquired through fraud… my vote for a Congressional majority has been canceled out.
Sounds like you’re implying Trump, but don’t you think that Trump would be on board for electoral reforms? Wasn’t he warning against mail in? Yeah, it’s a generally valid question: why is everyone else disinterested in a better process? Money, cheating, etc. I don’t actually believe, though, that Republican cheating approaches the level of Dem cheating only because Dems have a lock on entrenched urban political machines where this kind of cheating is likeliest.
Why not subject everyone to the same rules under the act? If a new act were passed with all of the sections of the old act, except section 4 have been altered in such a manner that now the whole country is subject to the same rules, what is the issue of such an act?
Is there something that would make the new act not feasible, and is there some reason why these rules should not apply everywhere in the US?
If your point is that all states need to have mutually acceptable levels of voter verification, I do agree. Otherwise I was being a silly and pedantic.
This does have an interesting parallel with the original Constitutional Convention, though, and what drove the 3/5 compromise over slaves. The free states argued quite fiercely that the slave states were in effect cheating in their demands that slaves count towards congressional apportioning, and therefore nullifying the power of the free states. The 3/5 compromise proved their point amply in the coming decades as the populations of the northern free states boomed compared to the agrarian south, but the southern states retained massive clout as a bloc in the House.
My preference would be that we maximize Federalism to the greatest extent possible where appropriate. One more “one size fits all” mandate is unlikely to solve the world’s problems.
It would be nice but not totally necessary for the states to have minimally similar procedures for elections… but if they have currently evident problems with election fraud the Justice Department should just sue them to remedy them.
Amen.
Skip, I have liked you and your posts since way back. I think you’re still looking for rationalization for your anti-Trumpism. You don’t have to like him or think he did anything good or believe him to be competent or whatever.
However, I think Trump won originally precisely because a large segment wants leaders, to break up the status quo, drain the swamp, etc. Maybe that segment was wrong, maybe Trump was not going to be able to deliver. The desire is there though.I think it’s the same on the left. There is great disaffection with the establishment, status quo, etc. It’s not new. You are at once acknowledging the terms yet belittling them as naive while also calling the impulse fundamentally false.
I wouldn’t have gone as far as fraud back then but I was disappointed early and often. His term as Speaker was just terrible, and so was Boehner’s. I don’t remember the specifics anymore, but I do remember that we had managed to get sequester (was it 5% across the board discretionary cut) and then I remember that we gave it away for not much of anything,
I don’t think those are the same category. I’m not interested in extending some racial grievance monitoring system over voting. I want reform that improves accuracy and prevents fraud and enables audit/transparency.
AND grifters took over the skinsuit.
I also remember that Rick Santelli’s rant was in an economic/finance context but I also remembr the rant and spirit being more of a moral argument and about good governance.
I also remember that this was squashed in about 100 different ways.
I’m 72 years old and there was only one time in my life when I heard a significant number of people from various walks of life say, “Well, OK, if everyone is going to do it, maybe I need to give up some of my federal goodies, too.” That was during the Gingrich Revolution. The people who ruined it were the GOPe real estate lobby and agribusiness lobbies. I’m still bitter about it. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for reform down the drain thanks to corporate welfare.
It took a lot of work to get people to the point of saying that. It could happen again, but it will be many years before we get there. In other words, not in my lifetime. In the meantime I don’t blame people for saying, “Keep your government hands off my social security.”
I guess I never thought much of either Cruz or Rubio. I didn’t exactly think bad of them, I just wasn’t enamored. That remains true, although I like Cruz more than Rubio at this point. I keep trying to give Rubio a chance then find him not ready.
Cruz or James?
[Insert “Why not both?” meme here.]
I say that primary resistance would come from the left for the reasons you state, and the Republicans would silently breathe a sigh of relief over not being forced into actually accomplishing it.
It’s not just that Cruz keeps getting worse. It’s clear that he got worse because he wants to be President.
I voted for him twice. And this is bigger, by far, than Trump. Not everything needs to be read through a Trump-shaped lens.
Of course there is dissatisfaction all around. But no politician can fix that because that’s a cultural and moral problem. You cannot fix the culture from above, only from below, and that requires you to start with yourself. Fix yourself, fix your relations with your family, fix what you can in your community, create culture and tell better stories than the rot that’s out there, make better art, build things, be a better employee or a better manager. These are the things you can control.
It is through neglect of these things that we are in this mess, so it is through reclaiming these things that the true way out lies. The other stuff – the propaganda, unthinking covid authoritarianism, lusts for power – would have a lot less purchase in a society that was healthier in the first place.
Could be. I don’t see how he ever becomes president, though. I don’t think he could win a Republican primary let alone a general. So you probably don’t have to worry about it too much.
There was another failure then: the impeachment madness against Clinton. That sucked all the air out of the room for anything else until Clinton was gone, but by that time the hacks had moved in.
He won the Iowa Caucus.
Good and fair enough. It’s a brand new day anyway.
I don’t think it’s either or but yes and. Yes there is cultural work to do: bottom up and inside out. However, there is political and structural work to do too.
Yes, I meant the whole shebang.
I am a big Cruz fan.
The problem I have had with Cruz since I first took a hard look at him is this:
I completely doubt his sincerity on anything. He is a chameleon, appearing one way to one group of people, then when has to appear as something else he sheds that skin. If you carefully listen to him speak (which I find teeth grating), his accent and cadence even change. It was bad when Hillary did that, but then again you could laugh because she was so transparent, but also just a terrible, terrible actress. With her it was like trying to hear any English actor do a “southern” accent without knowing that there are dozens of different such accents.
Cruz? He’s good. Really good at it. Subtle. Smooth. And that’s terrifying. There’s something lurking there.