Americans have hardly become any more secure in their own skins, however. To the contrary, the loss of a second Vietnam and the economic disaster which continually seems looming right around the personal debt / government debt / trade debt / mortgage meltdown / globalization corner is only going to make things worse on that score.
Ironically, what saved us (if we are saved) in the long-term from a predatory regime of regressive kleptocrats was the short-term experience of living under a predatory regime of regressive kleptocrats. After the utter and complete hash these people have made of everything they’ve touched, who now wants anything to do with this absurdly deluded ideology, apart from the frightened old ladies who still allow their pastors to tell them how to think and vote (oh, and how to donate too)?
There is massive opportunity here. The combination of increasingly insecure Americans and the patent failures of a disastrous turn to the right meant to address those insecurities leaves one obvious prescription on the table – a turn to the left. Already there is overwhelming public support for a national healthcare system (wow, and to think – only sixty years after every other industrialized democracy in the world got theirs!). This would have been unthinkable as little as five years ago. Expect similar attitudinal swings as the trap door continues to open underneath Americans on issues like pensions, global warming, jobs and more. It is not exactly in the American tradition to favor governmental solutions to personal and social problems. It just so happens, though, that in so many of these domains they tend to work (however imperfectly – which imperfections usually having most to do with insufficient funding), and that the alternative of the conservative market deity (Praise the one true lord!) does not.
Americans have been slow to learn this, and have paid the price accordingly. But learn they now appear to be doing (it would sure help if somebody out there from the so-called liberal party would frame the question properly, and vocally), and we should perhaps be thankful that the damage done during this particular life lesson wasn’t greater than what has in fact been visited upon us. As awful as its been, it could have been much worse.
There is hope, especially, in the narcissistic selfishness of the Baby Boomers, whose only consistent attribute has been a tendency to take very good care indeed of Me (and, after all, who else really matters?). In their formative years, that meant playing at socialism. When, during their middle years, the bill for such policies would have come due in the form of higher taxes (and therefore fewer wide screen televisions), that meant playing – much more seriously this time – at capitalism. Now that they are getting ready to retire and will be dependent on external revenue sources to maintain a decent lifestyle, they’ll be back to the government teat again. You can bet, as Boomers usually do, somebody else’s bottom dollar on that one.
John Stuart Mill once said that "Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people... it is true that most stupid people are conservative." Mill was certainly on to something there, though I prefer the term ‘ignorant’ (in its non-pejorative sense, that of simply lacking knowledge) to his use of ‘stupid’.
Regardless, I suspect that what is more significant to the determination of political dispositions than even the absence of education, knowledge or intellect is the question of personal security. We’d understand our current predicament much better by realizing that not all conservatives are insecure, but that most insecure people are conservative.
Fortunately, conservatism is not the only answer to insecurity, and in the end it’s no answer at all. Writing in "The Origins of Totalitarianism", Hannah Arendt described how such movements "conjure up a lying world of consistency which is more adequate to the needs of the human mind than reality itself; in which, through sheer imagination, uprooted masses can feel at home and are spared the never-ending shocks which real life and real experiences deal to human beings and their expectations".
It’s great magic, but, of course it never lasts. However powerful your imagination, that empty belly of yours is still going to require food. However potent their propaganda, that medical condition you have is still going to require treatment.
Given a bit more courage, a smart progressive movement could successfully pitch its ideas to an insecure public hungry for protection from a threatening world, especially because the facts are so manifestly in our corner.
Fortunately, this process has already begun. Now it only remains to be seen just how courageous and smart we are, and just how desperate is the reaction of the regressive right to its own implosion.
The moment is ours.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
