Election 2004

What Did the Election Mean?

Where Do We Go From Here?

Musings of Ken Collins

Fall 2004

Most of the people I know and cherish – family and friends - are very disappointed in the outcome of the 2004 Presidential Election. Disappointed is a mild word – for most, there is a crushing sense that the terrible direction the country has gone in for the past four years will now get much worse.

I share that sense of foreboding. Looking back on the first four years, it is impossible to think of any actions or approaches emerging from the Administration and the Congress that felt right to me. In fact, regardless of the focus – civil rights, education, health care, the environment, foreign policy, women’s issues, separation of church and state, openness and honesty in government, the courts, perhaps most seriously, the Constitution under which we live, it felt like the basic consensus through which we have lived our lives had completely broken down.

For me, at 62, this sense that everything I have grown up believing in and treasuring as what defines “America” for me, was being trashed and destroyed, has been very difficult. And yet a big part of the problem may be me. I grew up and matured during what may have been a highly unusual period in U.S. history, which shaped my view of what my country is, could be, should be. But historically, the picture looks somewhat different. I have taken my own growing-up times and assumed that it represented a kind of constant in America, when in fact, that may not be the case at all.

One of the very interesting aspects of this election is that most of you with whom I will share this letter believe in scientific analysis, a rational view of how one conducts oneself in the world, how one thinks about issues. For us, “nuance” is not a crime or some kind of moral weakness. It is the very nature of the beast, and the failure to take into account the many vague and unclear sides of an issue, is a recipe for making serious mistakes. What we are seeing is a significant part of the American public, and this Administration, taking a very different approach. It is based on “faith” – which means something very particular to those who most use the term, and it seems to mean that certainty of view, religiously derived, is how one determines how to operate in the world.

As a result, the articles and editorials we have all been circulating amongst ourselves, the movies, such as Fahrenheit 9/11 that we have flocked to, the scary tales about what this Administration is up to and how threatening it is to our way of life, almost seem besides the point. The continued focus on rational arguments - on why we should not be in Iraq and how things are going badly wrong, are not even engaging a significant portion of the American people.

I think that spirituality and faith can mean many different things to many different people, but the point is – for those coming from the evangelical, born-again Christian populace, it seems to mean that engaging with others in factual discussions to arrive at some kind of understanding, is not at all relevant. So, while we send our articles to each other and feel good about the rightness of our point of view, we are not persuading anyone. The New York Times comes out with a very well-argued editorial on why it is supporting Kerry. The New Yorker, for the first time in its 80-year history, comes out for a presidential candidate (Kerry of course) in an extremely well-argued piece (see my reference below if you have not seen it already). Ron Reagan, some months back, wrote an excellent piece in Esquire, not about the policy mistakes, per se, of the Bush Administration, but on some much deeper concerns about its basic operations. Did any of these pieces, from our best national publications, persuade even one person to change his or her mind who was not already in the choir that was being preached to? I suspect not.

We are dealing with a whole new animal in this Administration – a faith-based certainty on where it is going that is impervious to the facts, to doubt, to a sense that it needs to be accountable to anyone other than who it determines it is inwardly accountable to. One of the most fascinating things I have read recently, and which I think provides a lot of insight into this Administration, was an article by Ron Suskind in The New York Times Magazine, Oct. 17, 2004. (Unfortunately, it is not on the Web – the Times requires you to purchase it from its Archives) titled Without a Doubt. For most of us, it is one hell of a scary piece – we are dealing with folks who have the same kind of ideological certainty as other religious fanatics, and most of us feel that history provides endless lessons on how religious certainty, translated into the political sphere, tends to lead to large scale misery and uncounted deaths. Much of the world gets it and realizes that the U.S. is becoming another zealot on the world stage, and that this does not bode well. I would recommend seeking out this article and reading it carefully – it is tremendously insightful but also tremendously scary.

My fear is that we are entering a kind of Dark Ages or Ice Ages for our values. Science will be distorted to meet religious certainties. Wars will be fought as battles between conflicting religious ideologies. And one very narrow, anti-rational kind of religion will enter our public life. None of this seems to have anything to do with the wisdom achieved by the Founders of our country, and I pine to read their words and realize how terribly far we have moved away from their understanding, based on hard-won experience and a deep understanding of history.

I am deeply concerned, particularly, about two developments. First, “the media” (it used to be called “the press”) is going in two very troubling directions. First, we have the rise of large, influential conglomerates that are ideologically based and closely tied to the viewpoint of this Administration. The Administration and they, if not explicitly, still work towards the same goals and thus the role of the media to take a somewhat independent stand vis-à-vis the ruling powers has been turned on its head, meaning that much of the country now gets its “news” in the same way that populace in the old Soviet Union got it from Pravda. But at least in the Soviet Union, most everyone knew that Pravda and Izvestia lied, and the only way you had an inkling of what was going on was to read subtly between the lines. We in America are far more innocent in this regard. The other troubling development is that those organs of the media remaining, who have not become adjuncts of the Administration, such as Fox, Sinclair Broadcasting, are increasingly intimidated from doing their job. And furthermore, even when they do, large swaths of the country are totally uninterested.

The second development that we have to worry about is that the appointment of judges at all levels of the Federal court system, up to and including the Supreme Court, may mean that for countless decades ahead, even if the country should return to its senses, the courts will make it very difficult to carry out badly needed approaches.

Some other troubling developments. First, the degree to which the House, and now I am afraid, the Senate, is in the hands of ideologues who have changed the spirit of at least minimal cooperation between members of Congress. There is almost a kind of Jacobin mercilessness in their glinting eyes as they impose on the country a program bereft of practical considerations. The other development is that within the mantra of turning power back to the people, of clipping the wings of the Government, we are seeing people who are using power to interfere in our lives in just the ways that concerned the founders of this country.

Personally, the greatest pain for me comes from the reversal of environmental protections that we built up by a basic consensus over the past 40 years. I am not saying this is the area of highest priority, but it happens to be what touches me at a very deep level. What perhaps hurt the most is that this whole area of very worrisome concern did not even make it on the radar screen of the issues that drove the election.

I actually think it is far too soon for the Democratic Party, liberal organizations, all of us, to state with certainty why this election was lost. For one thing, we must accept that a huge part of the population goes along with the direction we have taken. This was not simply a ruse foisted by Bush, Cheney, and Rove, on the American people. This is what a majority of the people, ill informed as they may be, convinced that faith alone carries the day in world affairs – whatever – want, and thus they may get their wish.

Clearly, some significant changes in the “opposition” will need to be made if there is a chance of reversing course, and I think some time is needed to let the dust settle and think straight. Already, lots of folks have jumped right in, certain that Kerry failed to do this or that, and that next time around, we have to react differently. I ignore all of this.

From a historical perspective, I see a few things to consider that may be consoling – whether they will be relevant to how we turn things around, I do not know.

1. What we are seeing now is not unprecedented. American history has been quite cyclical with periods (sometimes decades long) of extreme inward turning, of evangelical upwellings, and yet we have cycled out of them. While I cannot say how long it might take, the chances are good that the direction the country has gone in will not last forever.

2. The Soviet Union crumbled internally. It had a stranglehold on the mass media, its propaganda in the schools and all other public institutions was almost total and absolutely overwhelming. It lasted 70 years, but it crumbled from within, despite the government’s total control of all organs that interacted with the population at a large. No matter how much power this Administration accrues, no matter how much secrecy and distortion of information it implements, we have good examples that things do change in far worse circumstances than ours, miraculously enough.

3. Things don’t always develop as feared. The Gingrich “revolution” and Republican Congressional victory of 1994 led to some very unexpected consequences and much of the Contract with America never got further than being put out for bid (mercifully). Now that the Republicans have the Executive and both houses of the Legislative branch, there could be some interesting internal rifts, breakdowns, etc., which will mean that our sense of a massive steamrollering may be significantly moderated. Who can say for sure, but if it happens, it won’t be the first time.

4. We have to bear in mind that particularly in this country, we have many levels of power, many power centers. While the national government wields tremendous influence, there are other sources of power. So, in California, the state government will be fostering stem cell research –who knows where that will lead? New interest groups may coalesce on the state and county and regional levels exploring very different approaches to environmental health. While these developments won’t entirely negate where we feel our national government is heading, they can be quite significant, and we ought to realize that these countervailing power forces can hold great promise.

Part of hope is having faith (if I may use that term) in the unexpected. The course of human affairs is filled with endless surprises, and I have to believe that continues to be true today, as it has always been in the past. So while on the one hand, I don’t greatly look forward to the next four years and what it will bring in its wake, I also want to be alert to the endless surprises that life brings with it.

Somehow, we have to get hold of the terms and issues which seem to resonate with many Americans – religion and faith, family and values, and figure out ways to get beyond the polarization that says one side has a monopoly of these things and the other side does not have a clue what they mean. We believe we have spiritual values – faith if you will – I happen to think that liberals have a better track record of being totally committed family members, have incredibly strong moral commitments, etc., but somehow this has all gotten hijacked so that we have allowed ourselves to be painted into a corner.

I am not entirely sure how we get on track, but I know we have to. Much as I hated to admit it to myself, and much as it feels distasteful, my sense was that the Republicans almost always got hold of the persuasive arguments, and were better on the attack. It was absurd that someone who sought refuge in the National Guard during the Vietnam War, and then did not show up much of the time, becomes the military hero and the real military hero was treated as a coward and traitor. While I hate the fact that elections are heavily influenced by who has the better advertising strategy, I found that generally the Republicans were more hard-hitting and more effective. Is it because the liberal message simply is muddled or is not unambiguously stated? I also feel that Republicans are prepared to fight tenaciously, viciously even, and by the very nature of what it is to be liberal – to think through issues from many perspectives, the drive to go for the jugular is self-limiting.

This is not my area of expertise, but clearly, we are going to need a few geniuses in this department who help re-direct the arguments in ways that reverberate for many Americans.

I believe all of us need to spend time coming together, really doing some tough, unconventional thinking, putting our heads together, and trying to figure out where we go from here. How do we persuade the country that our issues and concerns are important ones for everybody?

We’re in for some depressing times ahead, but if past experience is any guide, often at the lowest moment, the seeds of change appear.

Ken

New Yorker Editorial:

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?041101ta_talk_editors

What follows are David’s own thoughts on what the election might mean – I have appended it to my own musings.

Thoughts on the Election

David Jenness

November 2004

More or less for my own record, I want to set down some conclusions and speculations. I will try to do so tersely.

1) The country is deeply divided. So? It has been throughout most of its existence, and often as passionately as in recent years. We have never had a unitary political culture: an exception may be the period of moderate-liberal-consensus from the early 1940s through about the time of Nixon and Carter. This is the period most of us lived through, so it seems normal to us. I suspect that reflects an unusual combination of demographic and economic factors, together with a crucial multi-national project necessitated by the collapse of nations after WWII, a wave of disestablishment of colonies, scientific breakthroughs, and the “framing” of the Cold War.

The nation has been riven, in terms of political philosophy, since its inception. I sometimes like to play with the notion that the U.S. is defined by this tension more than other Western nations, for the basic reason that it began with such issues in the foreground. Before there was France, or England, or Germany, there were “nations” with deep cultural-historical roots, which may give a sort of deep identity. This is not true of the U.S.

2) I am especially struck by the analysis, which seems roughly accurate, that the correlation between the support for Bush and the GOP, and that for Gore/Kerry and the Democrats, 2000 compared with 2004, is very high. Bush/GOP won what they did before, but a little more so. There was not, this time, an obvious make-or-break outpouring of evangelical and fundamentalist voting; there was not a huge benefit to the Democrats from the young and newly registered. Iraq was not the single deciding issue, nor was the economy. True, Hispanics seem to be trending gradually toward the GOP; middle-class women did seem to trend somewhat away from their recent pattern of support for Democrats, with issues of domestic security being cited by them. But this extent of voting shift is reversible, and does not make for “sea-change.”

3) What about the exit polls and the citing of “values”? Many have pointed out serious conceptual and procedural problems with such data. However, I daresay this is indeed the fault-line of the divided political culture in which we live. It doesn’t work for liberals to complain indignantly that they have values too, and then try to argue them, one by one.

I find myself needing to use a term like “values-complex” or “cultural master metaphor.”

The linguist and anthropologist George Lakoff has pointed out how deeply our culture splits along two forms of a master-metaphor -- in terms of language, social behavior, judgments of morality, etc. One model is the authoritarian family / strict-father model. The other involves the organic family (i.e., each person working out his/her own destiny within the family, and then outside it) and the nurturant parent model. Fundamentalist ideas about God map easily onto the first. The secular values of the Scottish philosophers and the French philosophes, and the precepts set down in our Declaration of Independence, map onto the second.

These are not just concepts that clash verbally: they are assumptions about reality and the nature of politics that underlie almost everything. For example, many theorists puzzle over why, in our democratic society, such a large number of people seem to vote against their own economic and personal self-interest. The answer lies, surely, in their belief that the “natural order” of our politics involves trusting the leaders, going to war when told to, assuming that free-market procedures will take care of most problems pretty soon, the belief that “experts” don’t know much that’s truly useful, and accepting that one’s personal freedom is not a paramount goal.

So there is a basic tension between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, which is a facet of the existential puzzle we all face, the balance between doxa and praxis.

If all this is true, a lot follows, including pervasive aspects of cultural style. I have believed for many years that, absent a disastrous war or huge depression, at the state and national level the candidate will win who sounds like a regular guy, behaves like one of us, and doesn’t say complicated things whose relevance to implementable policies seem vague.

I do not want these comments to be interpreted as complacent. I believe that the actions of the current government have created, or worsened, some problems that deeply threaten our stability as a nation and a society. But I see this more as a matter of praxis than doxa. I do not think that slogans like, “Who stole my country, dude?,”or plaints like, “This isn’t the way that American democracy is supposed to work,” are helpful. Saying that half the country are morons is, may I say, arrogant? I myself would prefer to live in a parliamentary democracy, where strong-minority views must be respected, than in a (temporary) winner-take-all system. But we don’t have this choice, and it’s more important to try to figure out what other avenues could practically be explored in order to limit the excesses of the system we have. [A place to start would be to begin to put in place a new standard of responsible media practice … but that is another memo.]

Of course the GOP hegemony will break down eventually. The recognition of some of the problems we now face will overtake the government -- and their stated belief that it us useless to worry about “reality” will do them in. The other party eventually will prevail if it frames some essential issues effectively. These, I believe, are (1) fairness and (2) prudence; neither was framed well in the last few elections. A Clintonesque head-toward-the-middle approach will not work. But this too is the subject of another memo.