All the Truth is Out There: A Lesson for Voters

This otherwise insightful book on the Gary Hart scandal is in line with the general attitude of the highly influential books on politics in the punditry.

Richard Ben Cramer’s book on the 1988 election What It Takes is both fascinating and infuriating.  It is a scholar’s nightmare: it claims sourcing, and I have reason to doubt the work was done,  but Cramer writes as if he knows what a candidate is thinking and feeling. He doesn’t just tell you what Dole did. He tells you what Dole is thinking. Vice President Bush did not really like or admire President Reagan. He has an almost pathological inability not to be friends with anyone he wanted to be his friends.

The genius of these books is that you cannot argue with them. The footnotes are not there. Maybe George HW Bush told Cramer this  . . . or his therapist (!) did, if Bush had a therapist. Cramer’s opinions are hidden as Bush’s actual thoughts.

What politicians are never thinking is about God unless it is escaping the God of the Nazarenes like Gary Hart or placating nut cases in the Republican Party like George Bush. When it comes to religion, there are only two good kinds: a childlike faith that helps “simple” people do good works until government can save them and a progressive religion that motivates a Biden, Dukakis, or Hart to do those good works.

When I am asked why Christians are so cynical of the media or experts, these books are a good place to start. 1988 was my first “grown up” campaign. I played a tiny part as a GOP delegate, part of the “religious right” while getting a doctorate in philosophy at a secular graduate school in upstate New York. Nobody I know is represented in these books . . . and people I know are misrepresented. Our faith is either belittled or demonized. When we try to learn, we are given books that are not true and we know are not true, because we were there. We are the people being marginalized, demonized, and belittled.

That doesn’t justify support for grifters and frauds like David Barton. It does not mean the Christian book industry and paid hack authors should puff up stories about Dr. Ben Carson (how stupid and unnecessary) in “his” books. However, the influence of David Barton is nothing compared to books that slander serious Christianity and influence the opinion makers. David Barton could not source his lies about Thomas Jefferson, but Joe Biden is right: the river of power (Cramer. 497) does not flow through schools where David Barton is read. Instead, the rivers of power flow through the Ivy Leagues where even Republican operatives read Cramer who does psychology without training on all his subjects.

Lie like Gary Hart with the right ideology and Cramer will spend pages softening the blow. Attack liberals in a Texas race like George HW Bush and Cramer will assume you are lying and the brilliant thing is that he never has to tell you how he knows what Hart and Bush are thinking. He just knows.

Combine this with any number of experiences many of us have had: we were in seventh grade and the teachers, following the establishment opinion, told us that we would have no gasoline. I was made to chant about “ecology” in seventh grade and told that the world would run out of oil long before I could be 52 writing this in a state (Texas) worried about recession as gasoline heads toward a dollar. We recall smart opinion mocked Newt Gingrich for proposing getting gasoline to a price higher than the current price of gas. “That Newt,” the punditry said. Newt was right. Where is his apology?

None of this justifies following blowhards or grifters, but it does explain why exposing them is so hard. When your every religious belief is mocked at best or viewed as so wrong as not even deserving refutation, folks can grow surly. They start to listen to extremists.

The good news is this: we will not. We know the bigotry of the punditry. We know that Washington GOP establishment types too often prattle about “school prayer” when we want jobs and our values protected. I once went to a meeting to talk about free trade as a young adult . . . only to have a GOP “player” say: “I favor school prayer.” They had me in a box and I was not allowed out.

Here is a warning for the GOP: you have educated yourself on books full of lies about your own base. You have fed us a steady diet of condescension and smarmy posturing. The folks are done with you. The good news is that the folks are still sound. They will not confuse Jim Geraghty with Richard Cramer forever. But somebody needs to tell those in the rivers of power that they have allowed know-nothing bigots to write books with unexamined lies to pollute their flow. They don’t get many of us, because even many of our leaders can no longer understand us. They see us through the lens that cuts Hart slack (he had ideas!), but would give Evangelicals none.

The first GOP candidate who understand that we don’t want Barton, but we want someone to defend who we really are will get millions of votes. Cruz should lose Barton or the great, youthful Evangelical middle will flee him. He assumes we are who Cramer says we are . . . and some are . . . tell a group they are lazy, shiftless, or fools long enough and some will make a virtue of being lazy, shiftless or fools. Most are waiting for someone who will tell the bigots, the lazy anti-Evangelicals they are wrong, and appeal to our better angels.

I see no desire to “blow up” the nation. People are still moved by a positive mission of service. They don’t like big government, big religion, or big business. What if someone spoke for them without anger, rancor, or condescension?

Who will dare swim against the “rivers of power?” This is the year to try.