I believe the consistent quality that marks members of older generations is a wizened pragmatism. With years, our elders seem to become more patient, harder to ruffle, better judges of people, and surprisingly more tolerant. So it’s striking to me how extreme our politics has become as America’s irrational exuberance has turned from stocks to statesmen.
Young people are remarkably more dramatic in their everyday lives than their elders. For instance, the passion displayed by my five year old daughter knows no bounds when it comes to Barbie’s hairstyle or the seasoning on her vegetables. In their later years, our youth have a history of taking ideas and ideals to extremes, as they did during the turbulent 1960’s when the country cried out for social change. Fast forward, and the last twenty years have seen the rise of the religious right as a truly young and potent force in national policy debate. Likewise, politically immature countries also tend toward extremes (these may be newly formed, or simply have undergone dramatic socio-economic shift). Politically maturing countries exhibit wild uncertainty in policy direction and cultural norms, such as the myriad Middle Eastern nations which abruptly reversed their trends toward westernization during the 1970’s, installing religious leaders as heads of state, and whose populations now live under the tight thumb of thought police and economic oppression.
Here at home, recent election results from the nation’s capital and Delaware, in particular, expose an ominous immaturity and irrationality. The unseating of a moderate conservative in Mike Castle (R – DE) by a novice candidate with vague slogans and questionable personal dealings, and the ousting of a mayor widely acknowledged as effective in a city clamoring for progress demonstrates a profound eschewing of realism among voters. It’s difficult to understand the mindset of the two-thirds of Democratic constituents who agree that Mayor Adrian Fenty “brought needed change to the District”, and who thought he’d improved schools by 2:1 (Washington Post poll), yet booted him from office for a councilman of the Barry era whose campaign platform was basically that he’s a nicer guy than the mayor. It’s difficult unless you consider that many constituents are teachers who bristle at the possibility they could ever be fired from a job (like the rest of us) or taxi drivers who decry the honest fares they must now charge using regulated meters. Anyone who’s ever been driven through three zones in four blocks knows what I mean. We like to talk about turning Washington around, but it turns out that it’s just too painful once someone actually does it.
While we might expect otherwise questionable choices from the city that once elected a mayor straight out of prison, the conservative voting block of Delaware has possibly bested Washingtonians by nominating a youthful candidate with no discernible job, no sources of personal income, no home, no short history of litigation, and finally no real policy specifics on which to run. Mike Castle was known to be honest, moderate, and more concerned with getting legislation right than keeping his day job. With last week’s primary, that became clear. Voters wanted rhetoric, not realism. They allowed themselves to be whipped into a populist fervor, tossing out incumbents who were actually doing a good job, simply because they were… incumbents.
The youth can be light on details, but heavy on gut and emotion, and it is displayed at these “Tea Party” rallies everywhere; the detail and fact that gets lost at them is astonishing. From the “birthers”, to the hammer-and-sickle emblazoned signs that disparage the socialist Obama’s bailout of big business (do I need to even explain this one?), we seem to be awash in vitriolic assertions that don’t make any sense. How did it get so easy to overcome reality? Isn’t anyone aware that the bailout began under a Republican administration? One literally staffed by many of the same officials retained by the current administration? Are any of these people aware that they may have the jobs they have now in part because an auto parts factory or coatings plant did not close? How would the shut down and liquidation of more car companies and banks have reduced the current unemployment rate? And finally, if you believe at all that Keynes had a point or two, how does one propose to stimulate without direct spending? The banks and large corporations, left on their own, have demonstrated that they will not do it by themselves as they aggressively hoard cash to rebuild their balance sheets.
The United States must, and must soon, open itself up to the idea that it is not being taken over by Kenyan anti-colonial big business socialists, that family values means policies that support people that want to be families, that the private sector which brought us the financial crisis, left completely to its own devices, will not fix health care, and finally that while excessive public debt is indeed a bad thing, it cannot simply be wished away or absolved by politicians who cry that it can be erased without either a decrease in expectations of public services or an increase in tax revenues. These people are not telling us the truth, and in at least one case, they are shown to be in serious need of a job.
