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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
I think the offer regarding the Dreamers was made in good faith. Dreamers + Pathway in exchange for a wall.
Nancy and Schmuck said no.
Start by reading some before you try to re-write it.
This happened when Republicans had both chambers. Trump started railing against the legislation on Twitter and all of the Trump-curious Republicans proceeded to abandon ship, killing the bill’s chances for passage.
The trouble with much of the Trump Administration was that they seemed to think you could only ever pass a bill one time and that would be the law for eternity. The thought of coming back for more after making a compromise never seemed to occur to them.
Incrementalism. Eating the elephant one bite at a time. Nope. Had to be all or nothing. He has been such a poor politician.
The reasoning behind why this compromise bill was killed consists of equal parts cynicism and malice. It’s obvious that Trump a) wanted to have the issue and b) couldn’t stand the idea of giving even a little bit up on the DREAMers. When people would say “the cruelty of Trump’s policies was the point” I used to roll my eyes at them, but in hindsight, there was no good reason not to accept this legislation and get behind it four-square.
It looks a heck of a lot better now than what we’re going to get out of the Democrats, who will probably regularize the DREAMers, along with a bunch of other illegals, stop the wall from being constructed and not implement e-Verify. Which means that all of the bad stuff we don’t want will have happened without any offsetting good stuff.
When I say that “Trump was ineffective as President,” this is one of the top examples of him and his Administration making a hash out of easy wins on the Domestic policy side.
When has that worked so far, exactly, for the right?
O’Sullivans law.
I still don’t understand. You’re talking as if normalizing Dreamers was some no-big-deal popular thing. It wasn’t, and it wasn’t unpopular because President Trump spoke against it.
When has it even been tried?
It was (and is) a popular idea, with about 2:1 in favor.
But Trump wasn’t apparently interested in doing things which might appeal to people outside of his coalition. His inability to compromise or think about the future were on full display.
You are the one advocating for it. Prove it has worked for the right.
Popular with who?
Otherwise, yeah you have the pulse. Trump had no interest in compromise or deals. Right.
There may be a way we could have discussed reasonably, but your framing seems designed to repel conversation. So good luck with that.
Throughout Trump’s 4 year term, one of the defining characteristics of his Administration has been its unwillingness to engage in deal-making. I don’t know how to convince you of this aside from the fact that you have imbibed a mythological notion of who and what Donald Trump is.
On what major policy or piece of legislation did the President ever offer a compromise or “make a deal” in order to get something he wanted by trading away something he deemed less valuable? I can think of none.
This is the definition of “dealmaking,” and it seems as if the notion was utterly alien to him. There were no contractors to screw out of 90% payments or vendors to welch. It was all pretty “my way or the highway” for 4 years. And he probably could have made it to the end of his Term without having been overridden by Congress once if he had displayed a modicum of negotiating skill.
But the President is an incurious and vain creature who apparently doesn’t see the need to make these kinds of tradeoffs or win people to his side by giving them a single thing.
This is so ridiculous.
The one area where Conservatives have definitely accomplished this is with Tax Rates. When Obama made permanent the Bush-era rates (except for the top rate, which went to 39.6% from 36% IIRC?) this was a huge concession on Obama’s part that the secret sauce was not “taxing the heck out of everybody with high marginal rates.”
But that concession took decades to earn.
We’ve slain that dragon for the most part. Lowering marginal rates at this point is essentially negative marginal utility for Republicans and Conservatives. What is our vision in the long-run? Do we even have one upon which we can begin to make goals in order to reverse the ratchet?
Certainly, the President’s instincts were probably correct on many of the regulatory items his Administration addressed, but he couldn’t articulate a long-term goal for how to lock those gains in, and as a result, much of the good he did will be un-done with a stroke of Biden’s pen.
Great argument. Glad you came to drop that pearl.
Perhaps you can pick up the gauntlet I threw down?
Your turn.
Yeah, that says it all.
I’ll take that as a no, then?
Not the only way of making a deal and not a way I would ever support. It’s not the Democrat way.
You offer a compromise and the left will take your compromise as a starting point and demand more. No.
Or as Gen. Patton said, “Your job is not to compromise for your country. Your job is to make the other poor dumb bassinet compromise for his country.”
Gosh.
I thought that Trump was a master deal maker and highly intelligent; skilled in the art of the deal. Do you think, perhaps, he could have, you know… Anticipated that and asked for more up front? Like I just did?
Maybe I should have been his political strategist.