Derek Thompson, who writes on business/economics for The Atlantic, sees the latest Pew Research poll somewhat differently. He sees schizophrenia in the American public rather than a clear win or loss for either major political party.
A poll is just a poll, but there is evidence that economic downturns and collapsing distrust in government leave lasting scars on the body politic. In their NBER working paper Growing up in a Recession, co-authors Paola Giuliano and Antonio Spilimbergo found that individuals going through a recession trust Congress less, but rely on it more. It is difficult to determine whether recessions set the stage for rising Democratic or Republican tendencies: "on the one hand, recession-hit individuals believe that the government should intervene more, so they lean more to the left. On the other hand, these individuals distrust institutions, believing them to be ineffective, therefore leaning more to the right."
If this sounds schizophrenic, it's hardly different from the schizophrenia Americans already suffer when we blast the government for deficit spending even as we largely defend entitlements (40% of the budget), defense spending (20%), relief for the unemployed, and the historically low tax rates that make the deficit the deficit. What does it mean that we've become a country that expects a government we don't trust to provide growing benefits from taxes we don't want to pay?
Thompson gets it right. The problem, so far, is that we Americans -- from libs to Tea Party fantasists -- have not recognized that we're our own worst enemies. So much easier to blame gubment or our opposition.
But if you're determined to excoriate the political party you don't belong to, I think EJ Dionne, writing in the Washington Post, has a good response. After all, we may have separated ourselves from Britain (and cling to our numero uno fantasy that we're the best in the whole wide world), but we're like the Brits in many ways and can learn from them.
In my column today, I argue that the Tea Party movement is not a generalized protest movement, but the old right wing in new clothes. My colleague Dan Balz made a related point yesterday, tracing the differences between the Tea Party and Ross Perot’s movement in 1992.
But there is an authentic movement against the two major parties -- and it’s happening in Britain, smack in the middle of its general election campaign. For the first time ever, the party leaders (essentially, the candidates for prime minister) joined in a television debate last Thursday. The big winner was neither Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the Labor Party nor David Cameron of the Conservative Party, but Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats. ...
... If there is a lesson here for the U.S., it’s that an extreme movement like the Tea Party is not the most likely vehicle for a mass protest party. A lot of voters are more grumpy than angry, searching for palatable and reasonable alternatives rather than an ideological adventure. Clegg and the Lib Dems definitely offer that in Britain. In our election, we will see normal mid-term shifting away from the party in power, even if we don’t yet know how big that shift will be. But there’s nothing on the horizon like the Lib Dems, who are creating the same kind of excitement in Britain that Barack Obama aroused here not so long ago.
The hitch is that what we don't want is a party that's a little bit Democratic and a little bit Republican. Hell no! Some in the Tea Party are out for a kill. On the left, we yearn for clean laundry, fresh nourishment, a surge in energy, and some new friends -- along with a foundation and roof which have been inspected, fixed, and deemed sound.
On the left, at least, we'd like to find -- beyond the pew -- not new priests with different tastes in sexual exploitation but no priests. Whether we're talking about the horrendous corruption in a church or in elected officials, we want institutions which rule out hierarchies, exploitation, secrecy and corruption. That applies to all branches of government, business, and the media. I guess that means we have to get rid of exploitation and corruption in our own lives first.
The hardest part about electing the leadership in a democracy is that who we are is what we get. Schizy, manichean and self-indulgent voters get... well, you know.
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Andrew Sullivan reminds us that it's not just government that we don't like. We don't like nuthin' and we don't like nobody!
