Do not Despair
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COMMON SENSE SEEMS TO BE DYING OUT, BUT DO NOT DESPAIR
I have three offerings. Two – excerpted and linked below -- are recent pieces containing the thoughtful and corrective analysis of Victor Davis Hanson, classicist, farmer and Hoover Fellow.
And the other is the completely charming account of a religious/spiritual surfing event in Orange County that I posted on my other Blog.
Here’s that link: http://jaygaskill.com/blog2/ .
Victor Davis Hanson remains one of the few sane, balanced and wise voices in the national discussion, a truly endangered species in the post-modern cacophony.
Hanson on the Obama Juggernaut
“When Iraq and Wall Street were off the front page, Obama went moribund in the last months of the Democratic primary. Why? Not because of racism, or even public weariness with Obama’s hope and change fluff, or his flip-flops, or occasional striking ignorance about basic history and geography. He finally began to wear on the public — as he continues to when events of the day do not smother the attention of the voter — for two reasons…”
LINK: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NWI5YjQ4OWFhZDFkOTYwZWRmNzAwZjYzZWNlYjUxNWM=
Hanson on David Brooks vs. Sarah Palin
Hanson on David Brooks vs. Sarah Palin
“David Brooks, the gifted New York Times columnist, has described Sarah Palin as a "fatal cancer" and part of a larger pernicious conservative trend…
“Wisdom can be, but surely is not confined to, or even assured by, degree certification, rhetorical brilliance, or the ability to talk off the cuff about Niebuhr — or the wit to write Brooks and advise him about his own ethical conduct, which Obama did and which now impresses Brooks:“ ‘For the next 20 minutes, he gave me a perfect description of Reinhold Niebuhr's thought, which is a very subtle thought process based on the idea that you have to use power while it corrupts you. And I was dazzled, I felt the tingle up my knee as Chris Matthews would say.’
“This is sad — since everything from the faux-seal with its vero possumus pretensions, the Greek temple backdrops, the efforts to speak at the Brandenburg Gate, the mantra ‘we are the change we've been waiting for,’ the messianic idea that the seas and planet will likewise heel to His wisdom, and the inane 'hope and change' banalities do not suggest real wisdom at all, but a dazzling veneer that overlays a great deal of megalomania.
“Nor does Brooks grasp that recall of Niebuhr apparently offers Obama little ethical protection from the close association with the virulently racist Wright or warns him not to talk after 2001 with the now boastful and proud ex-terrorist Ayers, and no judgment about the moral course in the earlier conduct of his disturbing Illinois campaigns, or principled consistency in his ideas about NAFTA, FISA, campaign financing reform, drilling, the surge, Iran, taxes, abortion, or capital punishment — or even the ability to distinguish between maintenance of proper tire air pressure and the need to expand American oil production. Perhaps salmon fishing or moose-hunting might have been of value in reifying the more abstract wisdom found in Niebuhr.”
http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson101008.html
MY OWN COMMENTS
Both America’s leading political parties are suffering from fractious irritation and petulance, each momentarily united (the democrats by Bush hatred and the republicans by Obama fear).
In each case I believe the real tension represents the resurgence of the long suppressed populist – elite schism.
David Brooks remains a paradigmic example of the conservative elite while Sarah Palin represents conservative populism.
I wrote about this in a series of “Populism 101” posts starting about three years ago. A reprise:
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“Here’s the deal: We’ve evolved two cooperating political elites, each of which runs one of the two parties and shares three common traits: (1) high education levels, (2) important wealth (3) a distrust of the populist vote bordering on fear. Winning elections for each requires a periodic courting ritual during which the populist vote (on which success depends) is earnestly sought, followed by a measure of post-election betrayal.
“The corporate country club conservatives and the Lexus limousine liberals have so far succeeded in achieving a rough division of the populist center: social populists on one side, economic populists on then other.
“But conditions are rapidly changing.
“While I still believe that a legitimate populist movement can accommodate local custom (when popular sentiment clearly differs from the mainstream, thinking of the accommodations for gay marriage in Vermont for example), I also believe that there can be no accommodation for the anti-democratic reversal of the popular will in the rest of the country in this important area of life, especially by judicial fiat. When judges abuse their trust by overriding the popular will on essential ‘family values’ issues, a populist rebellion is inevitable.
“The coming populist reformation will be driven by the events and exigencies of the next few years because these challenges will bring the failures of elites of right and left to address the core populist values and concerns into sharp relief.“There are three prominent threads in the reemerging American populism that will shape the parties and the political discussion over the next decade. They are:
Procedural populism. The signal anti-populist development of the last 65 years was the emergence of governance via non-elected institutions under the control of the non-populist elites of the two parties. Principally the courts and the administrative agencies, these new power centers have quietly and not so quietly set public policies in motion that never could have gathered sufficient popular support. Examples, many obvious, will follow as I expand this discussion. The signal pro-populist development in the same period was the emergence – principally in California producing what some political scientists are now calling “hybrid government” of the popular initiative as a tool for setting social and tax policy in ways that the legislative bodies – controlled by party elites – did not.
Me-first nationalism. Starting with Ross Perot several election cycles ago, this is the many headed hydra that the elites in both parties fear the most, and it is the most universal form of populism. The failure of the Soviet Empire is an international model is a classic case of a putative universal ideology hitting the nationalist wall. Note that party elites of all stripes tend to be more internationalist than the so called “common people”.
Tough minded populism vs. the wimp elites. This covers a whole range of issues that will be pivotal in the next decade, all interesting.
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I now need to add one more:
Common sense economics. The revolting specter of a broken financial system fueled by pampered executives (as many of them democrat-pandering as republican-pandering) who pursue ultra short term paper profits over long term real world gains is so profoundly unsettling that a populist rebellion is inevitable in some form. The fears and anxieties in the current electoral-economic situation introduce a mob psychology wild card effect that will mask the larger trend.
But just wait for the immediate storm to subside:
There will be hell to pay in both parties.
JBG
Comments
Regardless of whether you like that guy or can't stand him, you need to speculate if having those opinionated people on a information tv station is really doing good for The usa and democracy in general. I'd love to watch the media programmes return to talking about real facts, certainly not thoughts and opinions.
Posted by: left scissors | February 12, 2010 07:55 AM