The human impulse, when confronted with a train wreck or a car crash, is to stop and stare. A few heroes may run in to try to help, but most people just watch, unsure what to do.
The current American presidential contest is just such a disaster, and most of us are watching, mouths open, knowing that something awful is happening, uncertain what to do about it. Of course, given the powerful political forces and huge amounts of money at work, there’s little the average person can do. Except vote. So I very much hope that you will vote your conscience on November 8th. Don’t use the tawdriness of the campaign as an excuse for you not to do the right thing.
Growing up, I was taught that it was not right, when you were caught out doing something wrong, to try to blame someone else. That was cowardly. I was taught that if little fibs were occasionally permitted (dinner was delicious, Dad!), making stuff up wholesale was not. That was and is known as lying and it was and is wrong. And I was taught that meanness of comment about another human being revealed a meanness of spirit – yours.
All of that, and more, is daily fodder for the current presidential campaign. And that’s bad enough. But what’s really wrong with the current debate is that nothing useful or of substance is being said about important issues of the day.
We have some truly intractable and difficult problems facing our country and the world today. We need to have a vigorous debate about what to do about them. We need to develop some answers that involve both parties and the entire political spectrum.
That’s not happening now. For the country and its problems, this presidential campaign is an expensive waste of time.
Just to take one example, among many. Three long-term trends have created several generations of jobless men (women too, but especially men) in the United States. First of all, technological change has given manufacturing jobs to robots that once were handled by people. Second, low-cost competition from China and other countries has moved some of those jobs elsewhere. And third, lack of education has left many of those men inadequately prepared to take up the new jobs that are replacing the old ones – like building the robots that are taking away the old jobs.
These are large demographic trends that have nothing to do with one political party or another. And the solutions have little to do with what one political party or another has proposed. These jobs are not coming back. Negotiations with China, no matter how tough, will not suddenly create a manufacturing base in the US again – and even if it did, thanks to those labor-saving robots, the jobs would not be there. And the displaced men would not be ready to take those jobs, because they would involve mostly tending to software, not nuts and bolts or steel and iron.
So we have a complicated challenge, lots of real human suffering, and a desperate need for a vigorous debate and our best thinking about how we might help solve this problem. What are we getting instead?
Character assassination.
The Ancient Greeks, who knew a thing or two about oratory, pointed out that when your opponent changed the subject and attacked you personally, it was called an ad hominem attack, and it was not a logical refutation of your point of view.
It was just character assassination. And it was despicable.
Today, it’s virtually all that’s left of political discourse. But that doesn’t make it any less despicable.
Politics has become more and more trivial as the challenges facing our country and world have become more and more dire. How can we turn the public discourse back to become once again a substantial, useful dialogue?
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Excellent observation Nick.
No matter who wins, how is Congress going t ever work together to solve problems after “trash talking” each other for months. Why is it that commentators like yourself have more sense about getting things done than those running for office who say they are going to solve the countries’ problems.
No matter who wins the ugly debates, we the American people lose.
Thanks, Dennis, for your kind comment. Commentators like me don’t have to answer to the voters, so we have it easier in that sense than the politicians, but still, as you say, we’re all losing this election.
I’m old enough to remember when the news we read and saw was actually news–issues-based, objective reporting. Not that everyone back then was paying attention to content-rich news, but we had some, and it was the norm. Much of today’s “news” appeals to fears and other emotions, and distorting (and ignoring!) facts. This election reflects that.
Once we made the news media responsible for generating profit, we replaced an informed electorate with an inflamed one.
I’m coming to an unsettling conclusion that calls back to the maxim that “you get the leaders you deserve”. Perhaps the good ol’ days weren’t as good as we remember them, but in the past, we would not have tolerated the lack of character exhibited by both candidates in this race. But, as much as I hate to admit it, they are perhaps more of a reflection of our culture than we may want to admit. We have been offered up two massively flawed options, not by accident, but because we voted them in (or chose not to vote). Neither candidate, after winning, will reduce the gridlock and animosity because we, as a culture, have become so polarized that we feed it. If we don’t punish the compromiser, the benefactors funding the machine will.
As pessimistic as this sounds, here’s how I’m trying to look at it:
* If I don’t vote, I have no standing to complain. If someone can cast a ballot this time around without holding their nose, they are seriously uninformed. But hold your nose and vote because I’d like to suggest you have no right to complain if you don’t.
* Keep close friendships with people who hold contrary political views. Dan Shapiro founded Harvard’s International Program on Negotiation. In my interview with him earlier this year, he shared some excellent ideas from his book Negotiating the Nonnegotiables about how our tribal natures drive us to our peril. Keeping some close friends who hold radically different views reminds me that smart, well-intentioned people think differently. It helps address the problem that Tim Harford expresses in his excellent new book entitled Messy. He observes that from the middle of our tribes, “surrounded by outrage expressed by like-minded people, it is easy to believe that the world agrees with you.” They don’t. But if you never leave Huffington Post or Fox News ( and only hang with people like you), you’d never know it.
See you at the polling station. I’ll be the one with a clothes pin on my nose.
Andy, thanks so much for your thoughtful comment. I love both points. Bridging the divide is difficult but essential.
I would have you consider a slightly different reading of today’s political discourse than that it is either a waste of time or trivial. While this election cycle’s rhetoric is not what some of us would want, the language being used and the messages being sent are full of explicit and well understood ideas and meanings for each of the intended audiences. That’s because , of course, elections don’t happen in a vacuum. Whether it’s “Crooked Hillary,” “Benghazi,” “Basket of deplorables,” or “Never Trump,” and all the rest, we are being inundated with quite specific perspectives and policies, problems and solutions — on a wide array of issues in foreign and domestic policy, and on norms and values of various demographics and constituencies. Partisans on all sides can easily unpack almost every utterance — and ad — and tell you with great passion and certainty what it means for the candidates and for the way forward. All of this rhetoric is simply very signifier-rich shorthand by which all of us and our tribes declare, reinforce, and justify our views on the most important issues of the day. I think it actually behooves us take all of this rhetoric very seriously especially because it is the dominant communications paradigm at the moment, and does resonate with the thinking and feelings of tens of millions of people who are and will be motivated to act (e.g., advocate, vote, recoil in disgust) as a result!
Thanks, Jon, for your comment. But I disagree — I think it’s precisely that kind of sloganeering and shortcut that doesn’t serve the public well. As I was trying to say, the real issues are complicated, and slogans, as much as they appeal to one side or the other, don’t address the complexities of each situation.
I agree the Election 2016 is a train wreck, but let’s be kind to Amtrak: Train wrecks are accidental. Our present political situation is anything but an accident.
While we all agree the system is broken, no one can blame a sinister political machine for forcing Clinton and Trump upon us. Blame for these deeply troubling, hopelessly polarizing candidates goes to millions of everyday Americans who, very early on, selected Trump and Clinton as their dream candidates, and simply wouldn’t let go. Confronted by disturbing evidence, voters had every opportunity to repudiate these unsavory candidates, but instead cheered themselves hoarse at the conventions. Bernstein is right that the media refused to ask the hard questions, but it’s also true that tens of millions of voters (a) weren’t listening anyway and (b) had no interest in a “real debate,” as their presidential choices were fixed and not subject to critical review.
Meanwhile, as the national debt races toward $20 trillion and rogue players seek to test our resolve on the global stage, it appears tens of millions of our fellow countrymen have simply walked away from their caretaker responsibilities and are just living day to day in their silos, watching reality TV and wondering how those crazy Kardashians keep getting themselves into a mess.
Getting back to metaphors, this election reminds me of 1912. No, not the race between Wilson and Roosevelt, but the fateful collision of destiny and the S.S. Titanic somewhere out in the Atlantic.
Thanks, Matthew. Let’s hope our fellow citizens get back off the deck, grab the wheel, and steer the Good Ship Titanic away from the icebergs.