The Election, Ideology, and the Public Interest
The irony of the Obama presidency is that in less than two years it has caused a minor political transformation. This transformation will draw, for a significant number, an ideological line in the sand, a demarcation between a presidency that is moving farther to the left and a Congress that will begin to move farther to the right.
Wall Street has been climbing upward on the cynicism of anticipated political gridlock. While some assume that nearly anything government does is detrimental to the well-being of the nation, others assume government is the best solution to the nation’s problems. The reality is that both these views are overly simplistic.
The essence of politics, as Alexis de Tocqueville noted, is compromise and conciliation. The Obama administration set a standard for ideological exclusion and purity, and in turn created its mirror image in the current electoral outcome. Even gubernatorial races are being interpreted as referenda on the Obama presidency.
Lost in this is that government performs vital and necessary functions, and there are limits to what either government or free markets alone can accomplish. Imagine Wall Street without regulation, or rust belt industry without environmental controls. Left to market forces, environmental damage would be devastating, perhaps irreversible. Yet overregulation and too much intrusion in the economy cause the kind of crony capitalism and wealth transfer that is the hallmark of this administration and has damaged the economic recovery.
Americans primarily are neither liberals nor conservatives; they are best defined as pragmatic moderates. Political economist Anthony Downs described the American electorate through the spatial image of a bell-shaped curve along an amorphous left-right ideological dimension. The centrist ideological distribution of the American electorate provided for stable, moderate government that avoided the ideological and dysfunctional political upheavals of European politics grounded in conflicting ideologies.
The political right has always argued that there is a large group of conservatives, a second mode, in the otherwise normal curve, sitting at the right end of this somewhat amorphous ideological continuum that stayed home because the differences between the candidates were insignificant. The conservative ideal has been to mobilize these conservatives into the electorate by running candidates that strongly represented their ideological point of view.
In 1964, the nomination of Barry Goldwater was the fulfillment of the conservative dream and a test of the bimodal variation of Downs’ single-mode political curve. And the theory was rejected just as Goldwater was.
“a willingness to transcend ideological rigidity coupled with a commitment to the public interest might begin to get us there…”
And therein lies the problem. Because Obama is of severely limited intellect and because he is also a classic narcissist, he is incapable of transcending his ideology. That requires comprehending a new world and others – which stupidity and arrogance don’t allow. The result is that it’s going to be 2 more years of clashing with him and his ego – nothing will get done until 2012 when a new president and Congress are elected. The best that can be accomplished in the interim is that the newly-elected conservatives will prevent Obama from enacting any more of his Leftist policies. It’s not much but it’s infinitely better than what happened in the last 2 years.
“Transcending rigid ideology” is not virtuous when it accomodates evil. oscama is evil. How can one agree that killing babies is right? That practicing homosexual perversions is right? That inflating the economy and thus stealing the savings of the thrifty is right? That surrendering US sovereignty to foreign/global institutions is right? That weakening our national defenses and opening our borders is right? That turning us into a “1984″ polity is right?
No! One cannot compromise with evil! There are some things about which one must be rigid if one is to function effectively. Theology, politics, economics and romance are some of those categories.Impotence is pitiable; but never productive.
I agree but would add that there might be a longer underlying wave of gradually increasing conservatism. Also, the rout in the state houses will enable redistricting that will undo much of the Democrat gerrymander advantage of the last 40 years. We will see some Republican resurgence. But overall the middle will rule, a good thing, IMHO.
Best analysis I’ve seen: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/11/04/an_anti-democratic_year_107845.html
Money quote: “much as 2008 was the year that Democratic-leaning districts determined that they could no longer afford to send Republicans to Congress, no matter how moderate, 2010 is the year that the Republican-leaning districts made the inverse decision”
Also WSJ talks about independents swinging right (for now): WSJ: http://tinyurl.com/2ex3kc2
And it wasn’t about turnout. Most voting group turnout referenced by political talking points (youth, Dem, Rep) held pretty constant ratios to 2008 except for 65+ which bumped up about 4% and was not the force behind the wave. It was all about the middle.
JOM/TNR: http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2010/11/a-hand-grenade-from-william-galston-at-tnr-.html
Ideologues of either stripe need to cool it, there is no mandate other than stop rocking the boat.
My guess is that middle is ambivalent about HCR and other issues. If there is a mandate, it might be “keep the peace, give us goodies, if possible, but keep the costs down, and leave us and our culture alone”.
Oops. “constant ratios to 2008″ should read “constant ratios to 2006″, not good to compare a midterm to a presidential election.
Mr. Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the members of Congress pissed the American people off like they have never been pissed off before. In turn the American people threw as many of the “gang” out of office as they could and they have full intentions of completely gutting the “establishment” before its over.
The newly elected members of Congress (and states governors / legislatures) were elected by the people to stop the forever growing green blob of bureaucratic, mainstream media and Wall Street pragmatic babbling that does nothing more than destroy our country and screw the public (workers). If they do this they will stay. If they don’t they too will be escorted out.
Think of it this way.
Americans are nothing more than a bunch of Bible clinging, gun totting, pickup truck driving Bubbas with good looking babe wives and three kids that play in the yard next door throughout the heartland of America.
When someone does them dirty they do not carry a grudge; but they always get even. At that time there is absolutely nothing ephemeral about shutting the offending person or system down permanently so that no one can be bothered or harmed by it any more.
The days of “We all need to hug and kiss each other” are over. This especially and particularly applies to following the $15.00 (and up) per word guidance of those amongst us with superior intelligence leading the way..
Then I shouldn’t try to teach you how to spell?
Even gubernatorial races are being interpreted as referenda on the Obama presidency.
What do you mean ‘even’? I’d say especially.
The attack on federalism, the national government’s threat to & attempts to usurp “states rights”, has been palpable. The people have recognized this in electing not-democrats to governerships and state legislatures.
This movie trailer captures the peoples’ mood
…and if the new Congress embraces the mirror-image ideological stridency of the current administration…
It’s not physically possible to match the ideological stridency of the current administration, besides which republicans aren’t cut from the rabid ideological cloth as Obama surrogates, czars et al. and etc.
…but where government can take us out of the current financial crisis
Government getting out of the way would be a good start. As is mentioned in that movie clip, government is the problem, not the solution.
Can we please retire the immature, left-wing assertion that the political Right and the Tea Parties want to abolish government? I can’t believe that the author even brings up this absurd point:
Lost in this is that government performs vital and necessary functions, and there are limits to what either government or free markets alone can accomplish. Imagine Wall Street without regulation, or rust belt industry without environmental controls. Left to market forces, environmental damage would be devastating, perhaps irreversible.
The fact that government performs vital and necessary functions is not lost. The only question is what is vital. Roads and bridges, a strong military, and common-sense protections for consumers fall into this category. Preventing the planting and harvesting of food in California’s Central Valley over concerns about some insignificant fish could hardly be considered necessary, unless you suffer from the deranged view that places animals above the needs of humans, as our EPA strangely does.
This last example is what we demand be changed. And the author’s claim that, left to their own devices, market forces would devastate the ecology are patently false. Look to the paper or plywood industry and tell me why those interests wouldn’t manage their resources wisely. Do you really think they would be so stupid as to eliminate the only natural source of their business by poor management?
We have clearly reached the tipping point where the rabid, anti-capitalist minority of the left has full control over Washington. They’ve demonstrated that they have no concept of the negative consequences of their actions and don’t care who they harm, as long as they have their power. This is what we on the Right will change.
The current head of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, is a complete idiotlogue in the style of Obama and is unqualified to make any judgments on or assessments of “the environment”.
If Obama (who just declared cap ‘n trade to be “dead”; Lindsay Graham, reportedly, dropped his support after the Obama administration revealed that the Graham/Lieberman proposal contained (yet another) gasoline tax)…If Obama attempts an end around with brain dead Lisa’s EPA, it’s nuts.
So, considering that the Federal Reserve (and just which banks and which people from those banks get input into that, anyways?) got the economic policies wrong in the lead up to the 1930′s, during the 1930′s and in the lead up to this current mess, just how can their regulatory ability be seen as ‘good’? Up to 1911 the dollar had lost 5% of its value. From 1911 to 2009 it lost 95% of its value due to our lovely managers of the money supply in the Federal Reserve… helped by Congress and the bureaucratic process.
The SEC… aren’t those the folks you can no longer execute a FOIA on? Why is that? Aren’t they a part of our government, not in the cloak and dagger business and should be open to full transparency. So what gives? And just what have they done to justify their existence, to put George Bernard Shaw’s question on the questioners… no, really! Name the good of that organization. Just who did they catch early on in Securities fraud? Bernie Madoff? No, they got to him very, very late in the scheme… decades late. Semion Mogilevich who swindled US and Canadian markets via securities fraud and fled back home to Russia with hundreds of millions in his pocket? No they not only didn’t stop him they can’t figure out the Bank of NY penetration by the Red Mafia and its being a bigger swindle than BCCI ever was. Sorry it was operated out of NY with SEC oversight for years.
Plus we now have scholarship examining monopolies and that they have a natural life span due to market forces. Everyone remembers the break-up of AT&T, but how about USA vs. IBM? IBM buried the government in documents and the case never went anywhere. Threaten Microsoft and you get an even worse situation that shaped up and the regulators backed off.
So what’s with the non-FOIA stuff? CYA?
Strangely enough the US did just fine without the Federal Reserve, SEC, Fannie, Freddie, Sallie, Ginnie, EPA (formed after the States started their own regulatory environments, and it never did execute the ‘superfund’ cleanups)… these are palliative organizations that make you think things are being regulated while, in fact, they are encouraging the regulated to get in on the act of regulation to cut down the competition.
Can we stop that, please? And get the vested interest partisan hacks from Left, Right, Center and criminal organizations from having input them? Or just do away with them as the States can handle these things pretty well on their own. That still leaves wirefraud as a National venue… but for that you don’t need the huge bureaucracy we have now and would be better served with lots of cooperation from State entities. And since these lovely organizations have been stymied by the BoNY scandal, and still cannot track down how much of the $70 billion that went through it was criminal, just why is having such a ‘feel good’ about regulation doing us any good at all? That is not being ‘partisan’ but seeing that the things that have been created not only do not work as touted, but actually set up an environment where it becomes easier to get in bed with the regulators to swindle people.
Plus when was the last time these agencies had an outside audit done on them? Ever?
To A Jacksonian:
I thought I was the only one remaining!
Dump the Fed and install Andy’s National Bank! And provide the International Babkers, each, with forty acres, a mule and a bag of seed.
“Abraham H. Miller is an emeritus professor of political science and a former head of the Intelligence Studies Section of the International Studies Association.”
Ahem. Abraham H. Miller is a typical lame-ass academic apologist for communism. Sit down. Shut up. Get a job.
Actually, JinEugene, Ad hominem rants do not move the discourse along and only betray the ignorance of the person making them. My friends and colleagues would be amused to know that I was called a “communist,” even if by a person who obviously doesn’t remotely comprehend the meaning of the term.
Abe, this was one fine, “fair and balanced” piece. JinEugene and yahoos of his ilk scan clearthought articles like this and once they see anything about compromise or whatever else argues against blind ideologism they interpret it as a polar attack on their own, opposite pole. IMHO he would better spend his time paying with his pole than polluting rational debate. Oh sorry, am I being too ad hominem? Anyway, laying three-to-one he tries to “flame” this. Myself, I’m outta here.
Wall Street has been climbing upward on the cynicism of anticipated political gridlock.
“Wall Street” has been climbing upward on the reasonable hope that gridlock means it will no longer be getting the sh*t beat out of it by Jacobins with more talent for the politics of class envy then knowledge of economics.
I agree with Mr. Miller. Americans, more than ever, are looking for workable solutions, not ideological battles. We will get behind the policies that work, regardless of the politician, the party, or the ideology those policies came from.
As uncomfortable as it may be, the country is clearly engaged in an intense ideological battle, one that has been in the making for at least half a century. The time for workable solutions (which I translate as messy compromises) will be *after* the broad outlines of a genuine free-market philosophy that drives both the foreign and the domestic agenda have been crafted.
Soothing the losers with compromises will be appropriate for two reasons. First, discouraged lefties will need to know that they count and second, the winners will need to like themselves. But first the battle for a free-market economy that provides opportunity and scope for individual initiative to everyone must be won – and that precludes any premature accommodation e.g. reaching across the aisle, smoothing over the cracks,patching up the differences etc.
If Obama stays where he is, and every indication is that he intends to, the best we can hope for is gridlock. If I hear him correctly, he is saying his policies are all great, they were just pursued in the wrong order, no great change necessary. He actually believes that the stimulus worked. His, like FDR’s accomplished the same end, lots of debt no jobs.