Dear Abby: Comment Response March 17, 2009
Posted by jdf15 in Politics.Tags: Democrats, Politics, Republicans, Youth Vote
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*UPDATE*
Thrust, parry. Instead of reposting, I will just redirect you once again to my good friends at NextGenGOP.
A bored google image search just led me to this gem. Just thought I'd share.
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Original Post:
A fellow Duke student posted a comment on my column today. While I cannot engage her criticisms about my column (and was happy to see that other people basically said what I would have anyways), I did decide to check out her blog, NextGenGOP. She also posted today, on the topic of youth liberalism.
After reading her piece, I decided that I ought to return the favor and leave her a similarly helpful albeit longer comment. Below, I have reposted her piece “Kids These Days,” followed by my response. Alternatively, you may read her post (and my response) on her blog (here), which I actually recommend – it is very nicely designed. Enjoy:
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Kids These Days – Abby Alger
The question I am asked most often is why I am a Republican. It’s a query accompanied with a smirk by liberals, particularly Baby Boomers. (They hope my answer will contain overtly racist, sexist, classist, ageist, heterosupremacist, insertcategoryhereist opinions or—better yet!—upbringing of the same type so that I can be made to recognize my sins, repent, and achieve salvation/redemption/eternal life on the government dole.) And it’s a query increasingly accompanied with a bit of anxiety, edge, even desperation when it comes from Republicans mainly—conservatives, less so.
I’m in the generation that’s the least Republican since Pew started tracking such things. Depressing, not dire as a statistic, but indicative of a broad force at work. It’s something in the cultural water that turns the kids these days into knee-jerk Democrats of the leftist stripe. And it’s got to be in the water—and not just in being liberal at 20 because you have a heart etc.—because it’s a sort of blind, stupid activism that delights in conformity to the (now-confirmed) left-wing echo chamber, rather than overthrowing The Man to bring in a new era of enlightenment, happiness, peace, and drug legalization.
So what is it about Generation Me/Generation Next/Millennials that makes us so blindly leftist? Below are my initial thoughts. I invite fellow writers here to join in the chorus.
I think the answer, at that abstract, 30,000-foot view, is simple and explainable by characteristics of the era. The story goes something like this: being a limited-government, fiscally conservative Republican is, well, kind of boring. You let people do what they want to do. You provide for the common defense, the national infrastructure, some social goods (e.g. education), and enforce laws that keep people from stealing, killing, and the like. It is remote, even impersonal. The government does not care who you are or what you do. It just gets out of your damn way.
But I’m in the generation that believes it is amazingly interesting. The internet, which brought to us delights like LOLcats, rickrolling, and Rathergate, also brought us navel-gazing on a scale unseen before now. As Matt Labash put it in this week’s Weekly Standard, “The very fact that they are on Facebook has convinced people that every facet of their life is inherently interesting enough to alert everyone to its importance.” In other words, me me me now now now pay attention pay attention pay attention to me me me.
Unsurprisingly, this also affects political discourse. What I feel is infinitely more important than what I know or what you can prove with logic or numbers. “That offends me [or aggrieved groups X, Y, and Z]” is a sufficient answer to settle any intellectual debate. Take away your cold facts; my intuition and desires are enough to settle complex debates. Sound familiar yet?
And I’m in the generation that believes it depends on what the meaning of is…is. However young we were during Bill and Monica, we got the lesson. There are no moral absolutes, no unimpeachable standards of right and wrong. There is only legal and illegal. What the law prescribes is allowed; what it does not discuss is a black hole. (Here there be anarchy, so we never go there.) But then, even that is flexible. A tax cheat collects our taxes, a corrupt crook stayed governor of Illinois for weeks, and a perjurer held the highest office in the land.
This whole process makes us curiously dependent on the government and our legislators to decide what is good, what is bad, and what the penalties are for transgressing those boundaries. We dwell, quite literally, in the nanny state. Even worse, we enjoy it. We press for its growth and slow encroachment on each part of our lives.
As Republicans and conservatives, how do we communicate to this generation? We tell them to grow up or we wait until they do (i.e. when they get their first paychecks). The only upshot of Obama’s budget is that he may hasten that process nicely…
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Dear Abby – My Response
As much as I hate to add a discordant voice to your one-woman “chorus,” I accept your invitation.
Do you honestly believe that young people lean left just because we seek conformity? Or because fiscally responsible governance is “boring?” Wake up.
Liberalism is not in the water (that apparently only young people drink). It is a product of an open mind that cares about the world it lives in. The free market and <6 year election cycle are ill-suited to addressing long-term challenges. Yet somehow I still care about my long-term future. I’d like the world to be a clean, safe place both for myself now and my kids later. And sadly, that makes me a Democrat.
We’re liberals because we think everyone deserves a chance. And we’re liberals because we think everyone deserves a choice. For a party that prides itself on government “getting out of your damn way,” you certainly enjoy legislating your values. But if you really want to know why our generation is so “blindly” Democratic, I’ll tell you the answer, but you’re not going to like it:
We are Democrats because of Republicans. Our generation awoke politically to the travesties of the Bush administration and its Congressional accomplices. I don’t have to list the deeds of that gang, you know them well. And we’re still paying for them today in money and blood.
Growing up in that climate, how could we become anything but Democrats? Even if we DIDN’T support the liberal policy agenda or happen to care about the environment, in a 2-party system we really had little choice BUT lean left. Our generation wasn’t born Democratic, we were pushed there, away from the Republicans abusing our government and hijacking our country.
And do you really want to talk about criminal politicians? People in glass houses, for god’s sake. Our guy got a blow job. Your guy deceived us into an unending war et plenty of al.. You do NOT want to go here. If our country were as interested in transparency as you claim to be (in your profile) and our current president wasn’t trying to turn a new leaf and leave the past where it is, we WOULD have to legalize drugs – to make room for Republicans in our prisons (perhaps not for quantity, just quality).
Also, it’s cute that you scoff at Democrats for wanting peace. You’re right, it IS confusing why more young people aren’t Republicans.
Unrelated point but worth mentioning: it’s a little hypocritical to disparage our generation because it “believes it is amazingly interesting” and draws undue attention to itself…on a blog that you started so the whole world can access your personal insights. Yes, I know I have a blog too. But my life and opinions are amazingly interesting.
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I lamented during the election about my inability to find active young Republicans. It is nice to have finally found them.
Power Vacuum March 17, 2009
Posted by jdf15 in Media, Politics.Tags: Bobby jindal, Democrats, Michael Steele, Obama, Politics, Republicans, RNC, Rush Limbaugh
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Chris Rock can predict the future. During Spring Break, I listened to a recording of his stand-up in which he identified the need for a charismatic black leader who could make people believe in themselves. That 1999 routine was just meant to generate laughs, but a decade later it is eerily prophetic.
After years of mismanagement, the Democratic Party finally has a capable, charismatic leader. The Republican Party does not.
With the political tides so thoroughly turned, parallels can be drawn between early Bush II Democrats (especially in 2003-2004) and the current Republicans in how they’ve handled their full minority status. It is early to judge the Republican response, but recent events and polling statistics can still offer insight.
During the last administration, Democrats faced an America that had [at least once] elected a “man of the people;” no Bush-bashing is necessary to establish that Republicans were benefiting from a simple, straightforward message and a president capable of little more. Oops.
Throughout that ordeal, though, the Democratic Party stuck to its goals instead of hopelessly recreating the contemporary success of their opponents. People liked Bush because it seemed like you could have a beer with him. Anybody could envision that a similar experience with John Kerry would be tedious, but Democrats rallied behind him to champion their message anyways.
Today, in a roughly comparable position, Republicans have adopted a different strategy. Ignoring the possibility that voters support President Obama’s policies and not merely his physical qualities, the Republican Party has been trying to emulate just the facade of the recent Democratic success.
During the campaign, the media and public were enthralled by Obama’s youthful vigor and followed each of his daily visits to the gym. The Republican response? Elevate young conservative rising star, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Only they appear to have picked this fruit a little early.
Despite Jindal’s relative youth, the unpolished, childish simplicity with which he talked down to the nation in his rebuttal to Obama’s speech to Congress was unfortunately familiar. That speech showed that Jindal’s age will have little impact on his party’s preference for the failed policies we voted against in November. And he clearly wasn’t ready for the national stage.
Sidenote: Jindal was so…underwhelming that immediately after his speech people around the country decided that he sounded exactly like Kenneth the Page, the dim country boy character from NBC’s 30Rock. Apparently he thought so too, and actor Jack McBrayer recorded a response to Jindal in character (video).
Similarly, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele’s performance to date casts doubt on the argument that he was selected simply because he was the most qualified candidate. It is perhaps fortunate, then, that neither of these men are really viewed as the party’s current leader.
According to many pundits, Rush Limbaugh is the de facto leader of the Republican Party. And while Limbaugh does have influence, he also has a penchant for saying things respectable people don’t. Steele briefly condemned his remarks as “incendiary” and “ugly,” only to grovel a day later when King Limbaugh got mad. That hierarchy seems clear, but the country is remarkably divided about Limbaugh.
A Rasmussen poll recently found that 44 percent of Democrats but just 11 percent of Republicans view Limbaugh as the leader of the Republican Party. How did that happen? Well, we appear to be witnessing the return an ancient phenomenon: Democrats controlling a media narrative.
Last October, Democratic strategists discovered that only one in ten voters under age 40 views the talk show host favorably. Since then, many Democrats and now even White House officials have engaged Limbaugh directly, propagating this unflattering caricature of conservative America. But while happy to bask in the spotlight, Limbaugh rejects any leadership responsibility.
This guy's been divorced three times and addicted to pain killers, but what the hell. Why shouldn't he be a figurehead for the party of "values"?
So while there is confusion about exactly who is leading the party, a January Rasmussen poll shed some light on the type of leader Republicans want; 43 percent of respondents thought that their party had become too moderate, and 55 percent said that Sarah Palin should be the model for the future. A scant 24 percent thought Sen. John McCain was the correct model.
And that’s fine with me. Not because I could tolerate a President Palin (that hurts just to type), but because the harder she pushes, the harder we push back. As David Plouffe explained, “[Palin] was our best fundraiser and organizer in the fall.” Extreme conservatives certainly mobilize their base, but it is clear that when these figures act on the national stage, they galvanize Democrats by alienating moderate, young, and minority voters. And this could explain why the Republicans have responded so differently.
The current Republican retreat to the right could yield wonderful results (for me). With many minorities and especially young voters heavily favoring Democrats, the Republican future is grim. At this rate, the current Republican recession will long outlast the financial one they bequeathed to us.
Recent Republican bumbling reveals an admission that something must change if the party is to have a future. But it must go more than skin deep. If conservatives aren’t prepared for this makeover, they will remain powerless. At least until a Democratic president trashes the country.
A version of the post ran in The Chronicle at Duke University.
Unfortunate Evolution February 24, 2009
Posted by jdf15 in Congress, Media, Politics.Tags: Bias, Creationism, Darwin, Democrats, Evolution, Fox News, Intelligent Design, Journalism, Media, Media Bias, Politics, Republicans
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On the cover of its November 2004 issue, National Geographic posed the question “Was Darwin wrong?” But when you flipped to the article inside, the answer was printed in big, bold font: NO. Even the main evolution page on Wikipedia doesn’t mention any controversy, and for all of the free encyclopedia’s faults, that’s saying something. Yet just in time for Darwin’s 200th birthday, Gallup released a new poll showing that a scant 39 percent of Americans “believe in the theory of evolution.”
That’s appalling. This shouldn’t need explaining, but there is no substantive controversy about evolution. There are still questions to be answered about some of its mechanisms and intricacies, but within the volumes of predictive, verifiable data we have gathered, there is not a single piece of evidence that refutes the theory. And for clarification, that’s scientific theory, rigorously tested and tantamount to fact, like the theories of gravity and plate tectonics. This differs from the colloquial “theory” you might use to guess how you made it home from the bar without remembering. To paraphrase physicist Murray Peshkin, saying evolution is “only a theory” is like saying it’s “only science.”
Yet just last month, Dr. Don McLeroy (a dentist) led conservatives on the Texas Board of Education in a renewed crusade to wedge religion into the classroom at the expense of basic education. This review of the state’s science standards will face a final vote next month, but similar battles have already been fought in at least ten states over the past decade, often buoyed by alarming levels of public support. In Kansas, the most infamous case, teaching evolution was actually banned for two years. Thank goodness we aren’t trying to pass any evolution legislation.
We are, however, expecting legislation on important science-based issues like climate change, and the outlook there is just as bleak. In my first column this semester, I wrote about a May 2008 poll showing a partisan divide among Americans who understand that humans contribute to climate change. A similar Rasmussen poll recently found that this rift has widened: now just 21 percent of Republicans acknowledge anthropogenic climate change, compared to 59 percent of Democrats. As Stephen Colbert once said, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias” (video in this previous post). So it is understandable that Republicans have not exactly championed our nation’s academic pursuits. But an anti-scientific sentiment can have dangerous consequences, especially if it goes unchecked.
Watching the major congressional battles since this summer (especially on offshore drilling and climate change) I have noticed a trend: the national media, particularly on TV, have largely abandoned their watchdog role and have been covering these debates without substantive fact-checking as “he said/she said” stories. Facts and fabrications have been placed on equal footing to avoid “taking a side.” The election was covered the same way. But this is a terrible journalistic paradigm.
Balance is nice, but isn’t accuracy a more important journalistic value? Calling out a politician for lying is not partisan, it’s the media’s responsibility. Obviously it would be best if people just told the truth, but that’s not happening. And the stimulus coverage was more of the same.
Media Matters analyzed twelve cable news programs’ coverage of the stimulus debate. Of the 460 guests interviewed, only 25 of them – that’s 5 percent – were actually economists. No wonder the potential impacts of the bill were so vulnerable to political spin. And Think Progress found that savvy Republicans were only too happy to exploit this opportunity, appearing on cable news programs twice as frequently as their Democratic counterparts. But one network took coverage to a new low.
The following may shock you, so brace yourself: Fox News has a Republican bias. And last week, they were as tactful as a skirted starlet stepping from a limo. On Feb. 10th, anchor Jon Scott put up a graphic showing the costs of the stimulus package that was copied verbatim from a press release by the Senate Republicans Communication Center, same damning typo and all. “Fair and balanced” my Democratic donkey. Kudos again to Media Matters for “exposing” such a blatant attempt to disseminate partisan propaganda as reporting. But at least Fox had the courage to apologize – for just the typo (video thanks to Howard Kurtz).
Um, yeah...not so much.
Our country is being steered by a misinformed public and polarized politicians unrestrained by accountability. Science itself is under attack. These are complex problems with varied causes. Yet they have one thing in common: objective media coverage could combat them all.
But that’s not going to happen. Believe it or not, journalism is evolving. With the expansion to the internet and growing popularity of blogs, niche news is on the rise. People seem to want their news told from their perspective, and media outlets will provide what consumers demand; Fox News, the Huffington Post, even Jon Stewart are thriving. And with newspapers experiencing serious financial difficulties, the days of the objective reporter could actually be numbered. If you think bipartisanship is a myth today, try to imagine it at the bottom of this slippery slope (a logical fallacy, I know, but the point stands).
I wish I could end this column with a solution, but I honestly don’t see one. It would be comforting to believe that some omnipotent, not explicitly Christian deity was guiding this media transformation, but judging from its current trajectory, this looks like anything but an Intelligent Design.
A version of the post ran in The Chronicle at Duke University.
The Spam We Need February 10, 2009
Posted by jdf15 in Congress, Election.Tags: Bipartisanship, Congress, Democrats, House of Representatives, Jim Demint, John McCain, Partisanship, Politics, Pork, Republicans, Senate, Spam, Stimulus, Zach Wamp
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For at least the next two years, the impotent Republican minority in the House of Representatives will produce nothing but drama and headlines. And the theme of this show will be partisanship. President Obama promised us a new era of bipartisanship, so whenever he supports a Democratic policy, Republicans are crying foul. Disregarding the fact that liberals got “partisan-ed” pretty hard during Bush II years, let’s examine what bipartisanship really means today.
First, “partisan” does not deserve such a negative connotation; it describes how our legislature functions. Two parties with widely differing ideologies will obviously support the solutions they believe will work, as they have for centuries.
When Obama won, the phrase ‘mandate for change’ surfaced – the sense that a clear majority of Americans trusted that this Democratic president had a better platform to fix our country. For Obama to now embrace Republican plans for a stimulus package (mainly tax breaks) would violate the trust of every person who voted for him. Americans elected Democrats into the White House and clear majorities in the House and the Senate. This is not a product of random chance.
2008 election results with states scaled by population. See all the blue?
Worthy or not, Republicans successfully cast themselves as the party of “tax breaks.” And if that is your single, shortsighted priority for our government, it seems clear you should vote Republican. But in November, America did not. So last month, when Obama was asked why there weren’t more Republican ideas in his stimulus plan and he replied “I won,” his response was not only delightfully honest but informative.
Bipartisanship means understanding, respecting, and listening to the opposition. Obama is doing that. Sometimes it means making compromises too, but not on everything. I’m no economist, so let’s try this from a civics perspective: in a democratic republic, citizens vote for the people they think will choose what is best for their country. Because Republican policies and leadership failed us so spectacularly during the last eight years, we voted them out of power. We already tried pure tax breaks – they didn’t work. And there’s a reason Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” So maybe this time our government should actually govern?
But no, Republicans want to give tax breaks another whirl. All 188 of them in the House voted against the stimulus bill (which still passed easily). But they are quite proud of their completely ineffective yet unanimous opposition. They even view it as a victory because Obama spent time meeting with them. Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.) explained, “if he comes and meets with us like that and it doesn’t have an impact, it begins to hurt his credibility.” …Or alternatively, one could interpret that to mean that Republicans are equally unwilling to compromise on their core beliefs and voted with their party. What’s that called again? Oh yeah, “partisan.” Bipartisanship is a two-way street, not the unilateral acquiescence of a ruling majority.
While Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) proposes a $3.1 trillion tax break “stimulus” alternative, his fellow Republicans oppose the current $838 billion plan as wastefully large. Highlighting minor expenditures (like the efficiency measures I last wrote about), they’ve framed the bill as a giant helping of congressional pork. But this label doesn’t quite fit.
Legislative “pork” is normally funding for projects that benefit only a small constituency, frequently within a single congressperson’s district. Most of the “controversial” stimulus expenditures fund broader objectives, such as anti-smoking campaigns. These seem more like “riders,” unrelated and often contentious provisions attached to a larger, important bill that is likely to pass. But this comparison doesn’t work either, because these expenditures themselves are the bill. That would make the stimulus package some kind of conglomeration of self-propelling riders, or maybe “meta-pork,” but that’s a little confusing.
Given the difficulty of classifying this project and our penchant for labeling legislation as meat, I propose that this bill is most like spam: nobody really knows quite what it is, it’s probably a lot of different things mashed together, and whatever it is, it’s going to be around for a while. It’s not your first choice, but you’d certainly eat it if you were starving.
...yum.
This stimulus spam is not perfect, but our economy is famished. Barring a government-wide “kumbaya” moment, continued debate will accomplish little. I concede that some of the proposed expenditures would not provide short-term economic stimulus and perhaps should be removed, but the Democratic agenda has long been stifled and a crisis is indeed a terrible thing to waste. And it’s worth mentioning that many of the “jobless” investments, like the anti-smoking campaign or computerizing medical records, would surely save money in the long run.
Regardless, the performance of our economy during this administration will be attributed to, or blamed on, Democrats; if we’re shouldering all the risk, we might as well do this our way (if we can get the votes in the Senate). Claims of partisanship are the crutch of an intellectually bankrupt Republican party that has nothing new to offer.
Last week, Sen. John McCain sent an email to his supporters with an anti-stimulus petition. He wrote, “With so much at stake, the last thing we need is partisanship driving our attempts to turn the economy around.” But is partisanship really worse than a prolonged, deeper recession? I don’t think so.
A version of this post ran in The Chronicle at Duke University.
