I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry about former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. In it he first asserts several points on which he says that Democrats and Republicans disagree, the “Roots of Political Polarization”. They are:
- Truth vs. social justice
- Individual vs. group identity
- Growth vs. redistribution
- Religious vs. secular
He follows with this conclusion:
It’s insufficient for Republicans to argue that cutting taxes and regulations will result in higher wages and profits. They must return to first principles, and start by reminding voters why growth matters. Conservatives must make the case for individual autonomy. Before arguing about the rights of evangelical bakers, conservatives need to show why all Americans, regardless of faith, should fight to protect each other’s religious liberties. If not, the left and right will continue talking past each other, wondering why the other side doesn’t understand its self-evident virtues.
While I agree that the only thing that Republicans can apparently agree on amongst themselves is cutting taxes, the problem is that Democratic and Republican politicians have everything in common. They have no principles. All they have is the urge to power.
How in the world can a Republican talk about truth with a straight face while Donald Trump is president? He’s the epitome of personal, subjective truth rather than objective truth. The phrase “speak your truth”, from Max Ehrmann’s 90 year old poem, was plastered on many a Baby Boomer’s dorm room wall and adopted as a sort of motto. Who speaks his truth more than Trump? But it remains a subjective truth only tangentially related to everyday, empirically observable, objective truth.
But how can Democrats talk about social justice with a straight face when most redistribution goes on, not from rich to poor, but from one group of rich people to a different group of rich people? A more just federal tax system wouldn’t rely so heavily on the payroll tax as at present. A Democratic Congress restored the payroll tax to its present height, the largest tax increase on the poor in recent history.
Rather than fisking the op-ed phrase at a time I’ll just conclude this way. There are no principles in politics. There is only winning and losing. Talk of principles is just for the rubes.
I’m not sure how many Democrats did talk about social justice beyond normal liberal gestures. They have been scared, forever, about alienating Nixon’s Silent Majority. And that meant taking a series of terrible events–9/11, the Iraq occupation, and the 2008 crash–and running as the status quo and talking about balancing budgets, etc, etc.. And then out came Trump.
Personally, I’m very interested to see what happens if either Stacey Abrams or Andrew Gillum win. African-Americans in the south are conservative, socially, but way less corporate economically. By that I mean would trust a politician who took 50K to give a speech because they wanted the money more than I would a politician who claimed they took the money because an audience of bankers really wanted to hear their views.
“How in the world can a Republican talk about truth with a straight face while Donald Trump is president?”
It has become quite fashionable to single out Trump. And yet how is he different from the vast majority of upper echelon politicians of at least the last 4 administrations (as one can more easily think of examples more recently) and probably forever? Over at OTB Dr Taylor recently took his turn at bat with selective outrage over Trump. So I went to one of those fact checking sites and looked at Obama’s record. Just sticking to quantitative issues, not those of interpretation, you could fill a small notebook. And do we really need to talk about the Clinton’s? And how about the press, Don Lemon’s execrable butchering of the White Men-are-terrorists conclusion in a GAO report just the latest?
But then you finish with this: “There are no principles in politics. There is only winning and losing.” Well, that seems to be the case. And yet I’ve read numerous of your pieces citing policy prescriptions reliant on execution by “good government.” Good luck with that.
I’ve said it numerous times, but once again. Expect the worst out of government, politicians and government agency employees. Hope for the best in the things that government must do, but expect the worst, and avoid giving government power for things it need not do.
“I’m not sure how many Democrats did talk about social justice beyond normal liberal gestures.”
I think it depends on which Democrats you’re talking about. The “centrist” Clintonista wing is definitely sticking to “normal liberal gestures” but factions are not. It remains to be seen which faction in the shrinking Democratic coalition will become ascendant.
Well, yes. There is an expression that describes my approach to politics and government pretty well: “whistling past a graveyard”.
Not exactly germane to the topic of this post, but I wanted to share a piece that’s coming out in the next issue of Time. It’s touched on themes discussed here before, including the recent topic on civility:
http://time.com/5434373/phil-klay-american-public-rage/
The rage isn’t intended to solve the problems. It’s intended to change the occupants of the deckchairs.
“And yet how is he different from the vast majority of upper echelon politicians of at least the last 4 administrations (as one can more easily think of examples more recently) and probably forever?”
Because he lies so blatantly and obviously all of the time, even about stuff he doesn’t need to lie about. One of the biggest electoral victories ever. Biggest inaugural crowd. It is on a scale we have never seen before. Then, add in the level of outrageous things he says that no one at his level has ever said before. I had totally forgotten that Trump accused Obama of founding ISIS. When Hewitt (he was the interviewer) tried to give him a chance to make that not sound so bad by pointing out Obama had sent troops to kill ISIS, Trump stuck by his guns. Obama found ISIS, literally. No one at his level says those kinds of things. Sure, you can find some celebrity, maybe some minor politician, but not a president.
I would agree that Democrats emphasize redistribution too much. Individual vs group identity? OMG, he has to be kidding. This is the group that made up the term RINO for someone who doesn’t vote with the group all of the time. Fail the litmus test and get booted. Religious vs secular. That used to be true. Now the evangelicals are just another political group hiding behind the facade of religion.
Steve