The People Have Grumbled, the Bastards
I agree with Daniel Larison about how annoying so-called “Restless and Anxious Moderates” are. Their assumptions are stupid: that there’s an objective “fix” for their complaints beyond reference to and dispute over values, and that the political process could somehow deliver such a fix without political means. When you object to “political rhetoric” and “five-point programs,” you’ve eliminated everything a political party can actually offer. At that point you either agree to move as much of daily life as possible beyond the purview of politics or buy a t-shirt that reads “I AM A NARCISSISTIC IDIOT.”
“My sink is leaking, just fix it,” is something you can meaningfully say to a plumber sometimes. If a J-trap needs replacing or a length of pipe has gone bad, it’s a straightforward, isolated issue – fixing that problem won’t put your washer out of commission or frag your electrical system. But even with your sink, it may turn out that there’s an okay way to fix it for cheap and a fabulous way to fix it for boatloads of money, and now you have to figure out where that fits in with your plans for the roof and summer vacation and paying down the HELOC. So you’re thrown back on values questions the plumber can’t avoid for you. And in politics, everything is connected.
Comment by stuck in my craw —
February 10, 2008 @ 10:45 am
I deeply doubt the existence of this post. It is physically impossible to put that much wisdom into two paragraphs.
Comment by Eric Scharf —
February 10, 2008 @ 11:35 am
Surely this is the result of 15+ years of the media treating “Conservative” and “Liberal” as branding exercises. When viewers finally come to the not-unreasonable conclusion that all politicians must be as insincere and collusive as Ann Coulter and Dick Morris, affecting a demand for “apolitical solutions” seems like less work than actual civil engagement. Fortunately, these situations never last long; eventually a “non-political” demagogue comes along and offers to be angry in their stead.
Comment by Steven Taylor —
February 10, 2008 @ 12:01 pm
It’s a classic and persistent fantasy in American politics that there is an objective “fix” that could be achieved if people would just “get along” and “do the right thing”–and yet people who usually make that argument are in denial about how much they think that their way is the right way.
The syndrome you are are talking about tracks with what I blogged yesterday regarding Mark Cuban’s “Presidential endorsement.”
Comment by bryan —
February 10, 2008 @ 2:40 pm
I doubt the first comment of this post is supposed to be a comment on this post and not a comment on the infamous ‘Blog’ post.
Comment by Jim Henley —
February 10, 2008 @ 10:04 pm
stuck: this guy needs to set you straight. Thanks, though.
Comment by lemuel pitkin —
February 11, 2008 @ 4:02 pm
There’s a great book to be written on anti-politics in America (and elsewhere).
One good starting point would be this article by Peter Mair, tho sadly it does not seem to be freely available online.
Comment by Avedon —
February 13, 2008 @ 6:50 am
The trouble with wanting “them” to fix things is that you have the Democrats saying, “We’ll fix it,” with the unspoken, “if the Republicans let us,” on the one hand, and the Republicans, who mean, but do not say, “No.”