Wednesday, September 30, 2009

No More "We"?

I know that several of my Republican friends are tired of hearing me say it -- but I think we have a serious problem with the level of political discourse in American society today.

Thomas Friedman devoted his column in today's New York Times to this topic.

For your consideration:

... Our leaders, even the president, can no longer utter the word “we” with a straight face. There is no more “we” in American politics at a time when “we” have these huge problems — the deficit, the recession, health care, climate change and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — that “we” can only manage, let alone fix, if there is a collective “we” at work.

Sometimes I wonder whether George H.W. Bush, president “41,” will be remembered as our last “legitimate” president. The right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from Day 1 with the bogus Whitewater “scandal.” George W. Bush was elected under a cloud because of the Florida voting mess, and his critics on the left never let him forget it.

And Mr. Obama is now having his legitimacy attacked by a concerted campaign from the right fringe. They are using everything from smears that he is a closet “socialist” to calling him a “liar” in the middle of a joint session of Congress to fabricating doubts about his birth in America and whether he is even a citizen. And these attacks are not just coming from the fringe. Now they come from Lou Dobbs on CNN and from members of the House of Representatives.

Again, hack away at the man’s policies and even his character all you want. I know politics is a tough business. But if we destroy the legitimacy of another president to lead or to pull the country together for what most Americans want most right now — nation-building at home — we are in serious trouble. We can’t go 24 years without a legitimate president — not without being swamped by the problems that we will end up postponing because we can’t address them rationally.

The American political system was, as the saying goes, “designed by geniuses so it could be run by idiots.” But a cocktail of political and technological trends have converged in the last decade that are making it possible for the idiots of all political stripes to overwhelm and paralyze the genius of our system.

Those factors are: the wild excess of money in politics; the gerrymandering of political districts, making them permanently Republican or Democratic and erasing the political middle; a 24/7 cable news cycle that makes all politics a daily battle of tactics that overwhelm strategic thinking; and a blogosphere that at its best enriches our debates, adding new checks on the establishment, and at its worst coarsens our debates to a whole new level, giving a new power to anonymous slanderers to send lies around the world. Finally, on top of it all, we now have a permanent presidential campaign that encourages all partisanship, all the time among our leading politicians.

I would argue that together these changes add up to a difference of degree that is a difference in kind — a different kind of American political scene that makes me wonder whether we can seriously discuss serious issues any longer and make decisions on the basis of the national interest.

We can’t change this overnight, but what we can change, and must change, is people crossing the line between criticizing the president and tacitly encouraging the unthinkable and the unforgivable.


1 comment:

Fran said...

Paul, you and I share faith and friendship but we do not share political affiliations. Yet we do share this common view of "we" that Friedman so eloquently discusses.

I am not a huge Friedman fan, but he is spot on here.

The dangers are great. I keep saying that people would rather be right than do right.

Honestly I don't go into most situations expecting that I will get my way 100%, nor do I truly want to. I am not being an altruist or wimp, but rather being realistic.

What did Tertullian once say? "One Christian is no Christian." I think that is it. I agree with that and I also think it is true for our country.

And might I add that all those who wish for "failure" need to reconsider. I was not happy with the prior administration (nor am I in love with the current one) but I never wished for failure.

Cut off one's nose to spite one's face?

*sigh*

We are in trouble and I fear for what will come.