Something something election blog something

The last Presidential debate just finished, and it turns out that I haven’t written anything about the election all year. It’s been hard to find enough substance to meet my standards. I loved the three ring circus that was the GOP primary (Herman Cain, any questions?), but we all knew Romney was the inevitable nominee despite himself. The state of the race to 270 Electoral College votes, and the hard work of turning out the vanishingly small number of undecided voters in the handful of swing states is beyond my expertise; I’ll leave that to Nate Silver.  I just don’t have the time to evaluate in detail the candidates’ platforms and policies; not that much detail is being released. And besides, not that it’s any surprise to any of my readers, but I’m a staunch cultural Democrat, in that I’m pro-women, pro-equality, anti-war, living proof that America is not a Christian nation.

This isn’t likely to change: My earliest political memories were 1) the Clinton-Lewinsky impeachment hearings 2) the 2000 election and the Florida Supreme Court debacle, and 3) the entire motherfucking Bush administration, who’s epochal combination of incompetence, arrogance, and short-sightedness left me unable to find a single decent thing that was accomplished by the American government from 2000-2008. As far as I’m concerned, anybody who campaigns with an “R” after his or her name without renouncing George W. Bush and all his works is entirely unworthy of respect.

Of course, just because I'm decided means that I can't have an opinion. And ((spoilers ahead)), that opinion is one of cynicism and disengagement. 

I won’t be voting for Mitt Romney, as the Obama endorsement from The Salt Lake Tribune explains why in more or less the same language I’d use. The constantly shifting positions, the refusal to share policy specifics, and the very real probability that he holds a Randian ‘takers-vs-makers’ view of society, as exhibited in his infamous 47% comments, all serve to disqualify him from higher office.

On the other hand, I’m not really inclined towards Obama, even after a strong showing in this last debate. What I wrote this January is still true.

I supported Obama [in 2008] because I believed that he could articulate a vision for American democracy in the 21^st century. I thought that the author of Dreams from my Father, the 2004 Democratic Convention Keynote, and the speech on Reverend Wright, would be somebody who could inspire America in the same way that Kennedy and Reagan did. We needed, and still need, inspiration more than any specific policy solution. I believed that roused to action, the American people would find their own solutions to major problems, like healthcare, energy, education, and the war.
 Instead, Barack Obama has presided over an ugly and secretive government. It is a government that uses drones to kill terrorists on the other side of the world, while making the absurd claim that “There hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities we’ve been able to develop,” (according to senior counter-terrorism official John O. Brennan) despite ample evidence to the contrary. It is a government that has failed to address basic concerns about hidden risks and ‘shadow banks’ in the financial system. And while the rancor and insanity of the 112^th Congress is not Obama’s fault, the White House is little better. On the Keystone XL pipeline, and Plan B birth control pill, the Obama administration has given the impression that it does not make decisions based on evidence, or what he believes would be right for the country, but what is most politically expedient. 

I’d like a frank debate about jobs and the nature of work in the 21^st century, because humans are losing to machines. We need to talk about communities and belonging, because our society is more fluid, more free, and more alienating than ever before.  We need to talk about war and peace, because we have an absurdly expensive white elephant of a military with no clear mission. And we need to seriously talk about energy and sustainability, because we get precisely one shot at technological civilization and the infrastructure that sustains us is far from secure.

But none of this happened, because the conventional wisdom is that voters care about pocketbook issues and the old staples of the culture wars. The big issues and questions don’t fit neatly into the ideological frameworks of either party. If campaigning is mostly about repeating the right set of meaningless shibboleths until 51%  of the voters decide to check the mark next to your name, then bringing up non-standard narratives is always a mistake. Who am I to criticize the electoral performance of Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, James Carville, David Axelrod and all the other operatives who have honed the tools of campaigning into a lethal arsenal.  But if we can’t talk about these political problems during a presidential campaign, then when?

Go ahead and vote if you want to. I don’t really care (unless you live in Ohio). Obama has been an adequate caretaker president at a time when this nation needed so much more. Romney has failed to demonstrate why he should have the job, and personally, I just don't like him. He fails the "who-would-I-like-to-have-a-beer-with" test. Hell, he even fails the coffee test. But the 2012 election isn't about politics or likability, at best, it's about administration. Sometimes, it seems like the most powerful man in the free world has all the independence of thought and action of a middle-school student treasurer.

Maybe this time I'll write in Cthulhu.

Why Andrew Sullivan is Wrong About Obama

Andrew Sullivan has been blowing up the internet with an article about how Obama has outsmarted his critics on the Left and on the Right, by playing a long game that has allowed him to achieve meaningful policy advances without grandstanding or drama. Yet while Obama has achieved policy successes, he has failed to establish the government as a credible force for good. Andrew Sullivan misses the cultural forest for the policy trees. I didn’t want Obama to be FDR; I just wanted him to reverse the worst parts of the Reagan revolution. Instead, at this rate Obama is going to wind up looking more like Richard Nixon than Ronald Reagan.

In Sullivan’s words:

Obama was not elected, despite liberal fantasies, to be a left-wing crusader. He was elected as a pragmatic, unifying reformist who would be more responsible than Bush.

And what have we seen? A recurring pattern. To use the terms Obama first employed in his inaugural address: the president begins by extending a hand to his opponents; when they respond by raising a fist, he demonstrates that they are the source of the problem; then, finally, he moves to his preferred position of moderate liberalism and fights for it without being effectively tarred as an ideologue or a divider.

This is essentially correct. Obama has achieved some notable policy successes, and I for one have greatly enjoyed the frothy fury of the Republican primary, but come November, the election will be over, and somebody will have to govern. And the fact is they’ll do so with a population that trusts the government less than ever before. It’s what David Brooks calls the instrument problem; 10% of Americans trust the government to do the right thing, even as they rely on the government to secure the borders, ensure the safety of food and drugs, and provide healthcare, social security, and unemployment insurance. Suzanne Mettler identifies the problem as the submerged state. Most of the government programs that benefit the middle class are either invisible or run so smoothly that more than half the people who use them don’t think they’re using a government program. If you don’t think the government supports you, why would you support the government?

I’d like to compare two Republican presidents, not on their conservative credentials, but on their legacy. By conventional measures, Nixon is a far better president. He founded the EPA, opened relations with China, unilaterally renounced the development of biological weapons, negotiated the first arms control treaty with the USSR, ended the Vietnam War (eventually), got American off the gold standard, reduced inflation, launched the War on Cancer, and saw American land on the moon. Reagan presided over ballooning budget deficits, used government power to crush the unions, cut taxes only to raise them, ignored AIDS for several years, supervised the Iran-Contra affair, presided over a massive arms race, slashed anti-poverty programs, pushed the war on drugs, and saw the Challenger explode.

Yet for all this, Nixon’s legacy is “I am not a crook,” and Reagan’s legacy is “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I'm from the government and I'm here to help.’” Sure, Nixon was a paranoid lowlife with the moral instincts of a hammerhead shark, but he led many initiatives which America is rightfully proud of. Reagan’s accomplishments are far thinner, but he was the Great Communicator, and he established a political dialogue that is with us today, an undead ideology that flows through the Tea Party and cripples the ability to govern.

Sullivan thinks that Obama’s opponents will be punished for their carelessness with the truth, but I’m not so sure. Paul Krugman believes that Mitt Romney is running a post-truth campaign, and he’s the most reasonable of the Republican candidates, or at least the least insane. Being elected today requires that you believe a dozen contradictory things before breakfast (to link to Krugman again). I’ve not seen any backlash towards public figures for spouting obvious falsehoods, and even the New York Times is wondering if it should challenge people who lie in its articles.

I supported Obama because I believed that he could articulate a vision for American democracy in the 21^st century. I thought that the author of Dreams from my Father, the 2004 Democratic Convention Keynote, and the speech on Reverend Wright, would be somebody who could inspire America in the same way that Kennedy and Reagan did. We needed, and still need, inspiration more than any specific policy solution. I believed that roused to action, the American people would find their own solutions to major problems, like healthcare, energy, education, and the war.

Instead, Barack Obama has presided over an ugly and secretive government. It is a government that uses drones to kill terrorists on the other side of the world, while making the absurd claim that “There hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities we’ve been able to develop,” (according to senior counter-terrorism official John O. Brennan) despite ample evidence to the contrary. It is a government that has failed to address basic concerns about hidden risks and ‘shadow banks’ in the financial system. And while the rancor and insanity of the 112^th Congress is not Obama’s fault, the White House is little better. On the Keystone XL pipeline, and Plan B birth control pill, the Obama administration has given the impression that it does not make decisions based on evidence, or what he believes would be right for the country, but what is most politically expedient. It is a short-sighted tactic that reduces his own credibility.

David Brooks, at the end of his editorial on the instrument problem, says:

“If Democrats can’t restore Americans’ trust in government, it really doesn’t matter what problems they identify and what plans they propose. No one will believe in the instrument they rely on for solutions.”

I do not want people to uncritically trust Big Government, but American has passed the point of reasonable skepticism to the point of political solipsism. Congress is less popular than polygamy, the BP oil spill and Maoism. If Obama cannot restore some basic faith in government, then he will be a failure, no matter how many policy successes he manages.