I was in Ireland recently. When I arrived, I watched a prime time current affairs debate on Irish television. It turned out to be about the proposal to set up a “bad bank” in Ireland. The discussion as incredibly sophisticated. The guests included professors of finance and economics, and issues debated included the merits of mark-to-market accounting and the best way to maximize taxpayer upside. And then I returned to the United States, where the topic was, of course, health care. The difference could not have been more stark. Instead of a sober fact-based discussion among experts, we are treated to wild allegations and meaningless slogans (liberals! socialists! big government!). Why is the state of pubic debate so depressing in this country?
I don’t think it because there are more kooks in the United States. Dig a little below the surface and you will find some crazies in Ireland. The difference is that the crazies are not typically granted a public platform. The difference is that the media are sober and serious. The difference is that experts are respected for their knowledge, not denigrated as “liberal” elitists. Part of the problem with public debate in the US is democratization gone awry — every person is deemed equally capable of commenting on any issue. Exhibit A, Joe the Plumber! A real conservative (as opposed to the fake laissez-faire liberals in the US who have mis-appropriated that term) would endorse a healthy elitism, a respect for informed opinion. But the US brand of “conservatism” favors instead the shifting and frequently irrational foibles of the mob.
And then there are the media. It was not always so. Current affairs used to be the sober affair that is now exiled to the far corners of PBS. But now, news must be blended with entertainment. The viewer must be engaged at all costs — and these costs include eschewing fact and reason where necessary. There is more to it. One of the pillars of the US media is its much-touted neutrality — everything always boils down to a political difference of opinion. The Bush administration exploited this weakness beautifully, most notably in the “debate” leading up to the Iraq war. What this means is that the media are embracing a form of relativism bordering on cynicism, and truth becomes a victim.
One reason why the healthcare debate has become the nadir of public debate is that one side — the Republicans– have embraced the extremists and the kooks more than ever before. They were always there, but they were never taken seriously. When some denounced the Civil Rights Act for being hatched in Moscow and for planning to enslave whites, the Republican party did not run with this. Whatever else about this period, it was a serious time. And Republicans were not afraid of denouncing demagogues, as they did with Fr. Coughlan and Joseph McCarthy. Today, they run scared of the likes of Rush Limbaugh, the man who compares Obama to Hitler on a daily basis. As Joe Klein puts it, “Republicans are curling themselves into a tight, white, extremist bubble — but there may be enough of them raising dust to render creative public policy impossible”.
And that is really the goal. Quite simply, it is to destroy a leadership it deems illigimate, and to regain political power. That’s it — it’s all very cynical. Lenin and Nietzsche would be proud. Joe Klein says it well:
“To be sure, there are honorable conservatives, trying to do the right thing. … But they have been overwhelmed by nihilists and hypocrites more interested in destroying the opposition and gaining power than in the public weal. The philosophically supple party that existed as recently as George H.W. Bush’s presidency has been obliterated. The party’s putative intellectuals — people like the Weekly Standard‘s William Kristol — are prosaic tacticians who make precious few substantive arguments but oppose health-care reform mostly because passage would help Barack Obama’s political prospects. In 1993, when the Clintons tried health-care reform, the Republican John Chafee offered a creative (in fact, superior) alternative — which Kristol quashed with his famous “Don’t Help Clinton” fax to the troops. There is no Republican health-care alternative in 2009. The same people who rail against a government takeover of health care tried to enforce a government takeover of Terri Schiavo’s end-of-life decisions. And when Palin floated the “death panel” canard, the number of prominent Republicans who rose up to call her out could be counted on one hand.”
Some of it becomes farcical. Senator Isakson of Georgia, the inspiration behind the end-of-life counseling provisions, quickly jumped to the Palin side and abandoned the ship of the reality-based community. As Obama’s healthcare reform vision looks more and more like Romney’s, Mr. “Double Guantanamo” does his best to distance himself from his own record. Must not go against the mob, you know. Just as in the days of Byzantium, mobs can be fickle..and violent. (The ironic thing. of course, is that the mob outrage is being orchestrated behind the scenes by the special interests). As Klein asks in despair, “Why are these men so reluctant to be rational in public?” Why, indeed.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In