An evolving narrative
In this post, I'm going to take a look at what is going on behind the backdrop of our evolving national conversations. There are several taking place at this moment: one, conducted and moderated by and through the media, another, taking place among ordinary Americans at dinner tables and bar counters around the country, and the smallest, among the political class in Washington, New York, and elsewhere. All are moving in uneasy parallel along much the same trajectory.
The media conversation is furthest behind, focusing as it does on questions - what questions? - of whether or not the Bush regime lied about taking us to war, whether Samuel Alito should be confirmed, on the made-up holiday controversy, and more tentatively and at the margins, about the entire faith-based regime of George W. Bush. This conversation, fettered as it is by notions of balance, equal time, and politeness, is studiously not connecting the dots of failure, scandal and deception; and in so doing, is far behind the other two narratives.
The civic conversation is far ahead of the media in realizing the extent and depth of our national predicament. The American people are not stupid, and we realize that we have been sold a bill of goods on many fronts. The spin machine continues to finely parse the question of blatant lies before the war - we're past that. We have moved on, as a nation, to peeking over the edge of an abyss that the media, so far, has managed to avoid: that things in America are moving in a disastrously wrong direction, and that something is fundamentally wrong in our country. It's not just the incessant stream of bad news from Iraq; it's the plant closings at former industrial powerhouses, the de-industrialization of vast swaths of territory, our deteriorating national health, the sub-par educational system, the failure to respond to disasters, the stream of illegals crossing our borders, and the burgeoning corruption in the government itself.
Understandably and rightly, republicans are paying what I would call the price of power in getting blamed for the national malaise; but there is more to it than that. The current regime has failed on so many levels - witness the response to hurricane Katrina, the failure, after three years, to provide sufficient body armor to troops deployed in a war zone, or today's big story, that over four years after 9/11, we still do not have adequate cabin security for our aircraft - that the country is doubting whether government as a whole, regardless of control, can function. The national crisis is moving past simple party politics and infecting confidence in the system itself.
This leads me to the last conversation, the one taking place in marble corridors and expensive offices in the nation's capital. Viewers of Fox might be surprised to hear this conversation. The fact of the matter is that republicans, contrary to widespread belief on the left, are not stupid; they see what is going on, and they are aghast. Republicans realize that, if they do not stop the bleeding soon, in Iraq and at home, that they will be swept away; hence the open hostility between the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. A vortex has opened that threatens to drag much down with it.
At the center of the narratives stands one man: George W. Bush. The powers that be in the republican party have always viewed him with some caution; George Bush, for all of his undoubted political skills, has one fatal flaw. He believes his own spin.
It's become a commonplace to say that Bush is isolated and in a bubble; hence, the rapidly widening disconnect between the Oval Office and the nation. This gap will not be closed as long as Bush drinks his own Kool-Aid; but there are precious few indications that he is even capable of doing so.
That leads me to my Democrats. As a party, we have finally come out of the complacency of being, as we saw it, the natural governing party; we now realize that power needs to be won and earned. In the current environment, we're quite confident that we can do so; but there is more to it than that. Underneath the optimism caused by our own natural strength and the death spiral of the other side is simple dismay at the breadth of interlocking crises the country faces. We're not going to be able to fix all of the problems the country now faces - neither Iraq, nor the trillion-dollar systemic national trade/budget deficit, or for that matter the catastrophic erosion of U.S. military or industrial strength. This will require leadership at the center - but the center is the constricting bubble inhabited by George Bush. Even impeachment and removal of the man in the bubble will not solve our national dilemma: in line after him are Dick Cheney, the architect of this crisis, and Dennis Hastert, a genial non-entity. In short, we are screwed. The closest comparison in our history to now is the Hoover era; but back then, America was not the linchpin of the global order.
Our three national conversations are heading toward one single vanishing point, somewhere on the near horizon: that the last five years of faith-based governance - see Ron Suskind's article on the subject here - have created and exacerbated problems that the nation may be unable to solve. Future historians, unburdened by spin, will see our time as the one when America fell prey to its own demons and threw away its status as a superpower. We are one major crisis away from the moment of truth; and all of us, except the most deluded BushBots, know we do not have the resources today to master an additional crisis.
Let's hope that we get through the next three years with as little damage as possible, and that a Roosevelt emerges from the wreckage. If I look at the contenders for the throne in 2008 - Hillary, Brownback, McCain, Giuliani, Pataki, and others - I see little hope; the man of the hour may be the outgoing governor of Virginia, or someone we're not yet aware of. Whoever the person is, he or she will face a daunting burden, unlike any other ever faced by an American President before: how to reverse a national disaster.
The media conversation is furthest behind, focusing as it does on questions - what questions? - of whether or not the Bush regime lied about taking us to war, whether Samuel Alito should be confirmed, on the made-up holiday controversy, and more tentatively and at the margins, about the entire faith-based regime of George W. Bush. This conversation, fettered as it is by notions of balance, equal time, and politeness, is studiously not connecting the dots of failure, scandal and deception; and in so doing, is far behind the other two narratives.
The civic conversation is far ahead of the media in realizing the extent and depth of our national predicament. The American people are not stupid, and we realize that we have been sold a bill of goods on many fronts. The spin machine continues to finely parse the question of blatant lies before the war - we're past that. We have moved on, as a nation, to peeking over the edge of an abyss that the media, so far, has managed to avoid: that things in America are moving in a disastrously wrong direction, and that something is fundamentally wrong in our country. It's not just the incessant stream of bad news from Iraq; it's the plant closings at former industrial powerhouses, the de-industrialization of vast swaths of territory, our deteriorating national health, the sub-par educational system, the failure to respond to disasters, the stream of illegals crossing our borders, and the burgeoning corruption in the government itself.
Understandably and rightly, republicans are paying what I would call the price of power in getting blamed for the national malaise; but there is more to it than that. The current regime has failed on so many levels - witness the response to hurricane Katrina, the failure, after three years, to provide sufficient body armor to troops deployed in a war zone, or today's big story, that over four years after 9/11, we still do not have adequate cabin security for our aircraft - that the country is doubting whether government as a whole, regardless of control, can function. The national crisis is moving past simple party politics and infecting confidence in the system itself.
This leads me to the last conversation, the one taking place in marble corridors and expensive offices in the nation's capital. Viewers of Fox might be surprised to hear this conversation. The fact of the matter is that republicans, contrary to widespread belief on the left, are not stupid; they see what is going on, and they are aghast. Republicans realize that, if they do not stop the bleeding soon, in Iraq and at home, that they will be swept away; hence the open hostility between the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. A vortex has opened that threatens to drag much down with it.
At the center of the narratives stands one man: George W. Bush. The powers that be in the republican party have always viewed him with some caution; George Bush, for all of his undoubted political skills, has one fatal flaw. He believes his own spin.
It's become a commonplace to say that Bush is isolated and in a bubble; hence, the rapidly widening disconnect between the Oval Office and the nation. This gap will not be closed as long as Bush drinks his own Kool-Aid; but there are precious few indications that he is even capable of doing so.
That leads me to my Democrats. As a party, we have finally come out of the complacency of being, as we saw it, the natural governing party; we now realize that power needs to be won and earned. In the current environment, we're quite confident that we can do so; but there is more to it than that. Underneath the optimism caused by our own natural strength and the death spiral of the other side is simple dismay at the breadth of interlocking crises the country faces. We're not going to be able to fix all of the problems the country now faces - neither Iraq, nor the trillion-dollar systemic national trade/budget deficit, or for that matter the catastrophic erosion of U.S. military or industrial strength. This will require leadership at the center - but the center is the constricting bubble inhabited by George Bush. Even impeachment and removal of the man in the bubble will not solve our national dilemma: in line after him are Dick Cheney, the architect of this crisis, and Dennis Hastert, a genial non-entity. In short, we are screwed. The closest comparison in our history to now is the Hoover era; but back then, America was not the linchpin of the global order.
Our three national conversations are heading toward one single vanishing point, somewhere on the near horizon: that the last five years of faith-based governance - see Ron Suskind's article on the subject here - have created and exacerbated problems that the nation may be unable to solve. Future historians, unburdened by spin, will see our time as the one when America fell prey to its own demons and threw away its status as a superpower. We are one major crisis away from the moment of truth; and all of us, except the most deluded BushBots, know we do not have the resources today to master an additional crisis.
Let's hope that we get through the next three years with as little damage as possible, and that a Roosevelt emerges from the wreckage. If I look at the contenders for the throne in 2008 - Hillary, Brownback, McCain, Giuliani, Pataki, and others - I see little hope; the man of the hour may be the outgoing governor of Virginia, or someone we're not yet aware of. Whoever the person is, he or she will face a daunting burden, unlike any other ever faced by an American President before: how to reverse a national disaster.
posted by Michael at 10:42 AM
<< Home