"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle," George Orwell famously noted, but he neglected to say that for some, the struggle isn't so much constant as it is ignored.
Enter, stage left: CNN's Fareed Zakaria, finally noticing what conservatives have known for years.
I was unaware that Zakaria was still on CNN, or that he anchored his own weekly show called Fareed Zakaria GPS. So you'll have to forgive me for also being unaware that he opens GPS with a segment called "My Take." Going by CNN's weekend viewership ratings, which rank right up there with ESPN's 2 a.m. showing of Low Stakes Bingo, I'm hardly alone in any of this.
But maybe I ought to be a regular viewer.
Zakaria opened this weekend's "Take" lamenting that Democrats made themselves appear "feckless" for ending the government shutdown — you know, the one they kept voting for — "with their own goals unmet and their message muddled."
He also asked, "If they didn't have the leverage or were not willing to use it to prolong the shutdown, then why did they stage it at all?"
Good question. Only Chuck Schumer knows the answer, and he probably forgot already.
But here's where Zakaria's take got truly interesting, coming from a CNN regular. While congressional Democrats "promised wonderful sounding new programs" like free childcare, in the real world, they "preside over bloated bureaucracies and inept execution."
"If America has an affordability crisis," Zakaria said — If, really? — "it tends to be in places Democrats govern, like New York, Illinois and California, which all feature high taxes, soaring housing costs and stagnant outcomes in basic areas like education and infrastructure. "
Spoiler: America has an affordability crisis, and yes, Democrats make it worse. In fact, as soon as Zakaria got into the numbers, he stopped hedging.
"In 2012, toward the end of Michael Bloomberg's mayoralty, the city's budget was about $65 billion. Today it is about $116 billion, an increase of more than 75% in just over a decade," although to be fair, that doesn't account for inflation, which makes it an increase of just 30%. Still, the NYC economy grew less than a quarter — so city spending grew much faster than the underlying economy.
Which led Zakaria to conclude: "Spending has soared while the subway deteriorates. Housing costs rise and public schools remain mediocre despite spending more than $36,000 per pupil last year, the highest in the nation among major school districts."
Zakaria almost couldn't help but conclude that "Government that promises more costs more, but delivers less," something he called "a paradox that defines much of blue state America."
That ain't a paradox, FZ. That's an inevitability.
Quibbles aside, Zakaria's next statement made him sound like a guy looking to move to Ron DeSantis's Sunshine State: "New York state mirrors the city. Its spending has risen from roughly $70 billion in 2000 to more than $230 billion today, about twice Florida's budget even though Florida has several million more residents. When voters see that record, they conclude, not unreasonably, that more money is not the answer."
Well, you could knock me over with a hammer. But please don't.
It is, indeed, a struggle to recognize what's often right in front of our faces. And when people do — like Fareed Zakaria just did — they ought to be applauded.
Well done, Mr. Zakaria.
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