Brooks's Challenge

David Brooks column today seems to me like a real challenge, not only to Republicana, but to Democrats. I want to write a lengthier appraisal tonight, but for now I'll just say that it's likely that, with this column and his Moderate Manifesto, he is giving voice to a not-insignificant group of centrists, from both sides, who, while they know that certain extreme things need to be done in this crisis, are still skepitical of the response so far. While these centrists (I'm one of them) think the Republicans are incapable of looking at the world through anything but Reagan-colored glasses (thus offering no plan and no thoughtful challenge to the Democrats), they are a little worried that the Democratic response has not been focused enough on the here and now. Obama's budget, from what Brooks argues, possibly makes too many assumptions about economic conditions over the next year, and consequently, is swinging for the fences when the better play is to go for a double. I disagree with Brooks in that some problems, like health care, simply can't wait to be fixed and are part of the overall problem (as the Obama Administration itself argues). But I think he offers a useful counterpoint to Obama's desire to want to do everything at once. It's a an argument that would have real resonance in the country, I think, Will the Republicans make it? Of course not.

Epistemological Modesty, Ctd.

Three for three. George Packer also critiques Brooks along roughly the same lines as Sullivan.

Brooks pits a rigid, abstraction-loving liberalism against a wise, experience-loving conservatism. But recent American history has shown the truth to be closer to the opposite. We are where we are because the ruling conservative ideology of the past few decades refused to face facts, like the effect of private insurance on health-care costs, or the effect of deregulation on investment banking. Facts drove the Republicans out of power.

Obviously, I just like these three guys a lot. For my money, Sullivan, Packer and Brooks together have their collective finger on the pulse of Obama and his relationship with the country and with history.

Epistemological Modesty, Ctd.

Andrew Sullivan has a good post which pulls back on Brooks worry and skepticism. He has more patience than me and makes some good points.

I don't think it's fair to conflate a practical plan to tackle [the financial crisis] in all its aspects with a utopian and rationalist approach to remaking the world. The truth is: the world has already been un-made. Obama has no choice but to think big. Americans understand this, as anyone outside the Washington cable-chatter cocoon would. Although I cannot see through the unknowns any better than David can, it does seem to me that so far, the main criticism of Obama's plans - on foreclosure, the banks, the stimulus - is that they may not be bold enough. And addressing long-term fiscal health at the same time is not an over-confident over-reach. It's a recognition of reality.

Epistemological Modesty

David Brooks in his column from Monday articulates a big fear I have about Obama's agenda: the potentially vast difference between his enormous ambitions and what a complex, top-down organization like the U.S. government is actually able to achieve, the difference between what we would like to do and what we can know and effectively achieve.

The political history of the 20th century is the history of social-engineering projects executed by well-intentioned people that began well and ended badly. There were big errors like communism, but also lesser ones, like a Vietnam War designed by the best and the brightest, urban renewal efforts that decimated neighborhoods, welfare policies that had the unintended effect of weakening families and development programs that left a string of white elephant projects across the world.

Brooks then talks about some of the 20th century intellectuals that pointed out liberalism's faults:

These writers... had a sense of epistemological modesty. They knew how little we can know. They understood that we are strangers to ourselves and society is an immeasurably complex organism. They tended to be skeptical of technocratic, rationalist planning and suspicious of schemes to reorganize society from the top down.

Though he goes on to point out that Obama's people have a policy humility that the creators of previous social-engineering failures did not, he is still worried by the tremendous scope of Obama's agenda. And, I have to say that I agree a bit. Though I am a liberal and have more faith that we've learned how to do top-down social change, listening to Obama's speech on Tuesday, the scale of the ambition just got to me: millions of jobs created, radical changes in health care, energy and education, new climate change policy, cutting the deficit in half, tax cuts for the middle class, and a promise not to raise them (during what time period, it's not clear). He even hopes for a cure, literally, for cancer. I mean, come on!

I do think Obama can't be timid. Now is the time for bold plans -- the problems we face are simply not problems that can be postponed. The world is already broken. And some of the things he wants to do, like re-vamping health care, might be part of the solution, placing the country on a better long-term path to health (in the case of health care by, I think, dealing with costs that will eventually strangle us if left alone.) Still, I'm a little skeptical -- can we really take seriously the idea that taxes will not have to be raised on the middle class at some point in the next eight years? But, as Brooks notes, the stakes are too high, and we all have to hope that Obama proves the skeptics wrong.

Brooks: The Republicans Response Was "Insane"

I've been watching David Brooks on the Newshour for years and I've never seen him this upset about anything, let alone his own party.

Don't Let Me Down, Barack

In his column today, David Brooks picks up the idea that I suggested here, that Obama's greatest impact will be on the process of governing and not policy substance.

Barack Obama is a potentially transformational figure. In political style and intellectual outlook, he is unlike anything that has come before. On matters of policy substance, however, he’s been pretty conventional. The policies he offered during the campaign matched those of just about every other Democrat.

It's a good column. Brooks goes on to notice that the moderates in Congress, that are trying to trim and focus the stimulus, present a real opportunity for Obama:

The big news here is that there are many Democrats who don’t want to move in a conventional liberal direction and there some Republicans willing to work with them to create a functioning center. These moderates — who are not a party, but a gang — seemed willing to seize control of legislation from the party leaders. They separated themselves from both the left and right.

...Obama didn’t plan them. He didn’t create them. He isn’t yet leading them. But the gangs could be the big new fact in domestic politics. If nurtured and used creatively, they can be the lever by which Obama transforms the landscape of government and creates a broad postpartisan coalition.

We’ll see if he seizes this opportunity, or whether it’s just business as usual.

I agree. This is a real test for him.

Against The Auto Bailout

I think this might be the first thing that Obama does that I will disagree with. It remains to be seen what the deal that he wants looks like -- though, according to the Times, it doesn't look like Congress has the votes -- but even so, I'm very skeptical that saving the auto industry is the right thing to do. My gut reaction is to agree with David Brooks:

This is a different sort of endeavor than the $750 billion bailout of Wall Street. That money was used to save the financial system itself. It was used to save the capital markets on which the process of creative destruction depends.

Granting immortality to Detroit’s Big Three does not enhance creative destruction. It retards it. It crosses a line, a bright line. It is not about saving a system; there will still be cars made and sold in America. It is about saving politically powerful corporations.A Detroit bailout would set a precedent for every single politically connected corporation in America.

While I readily admit that I know next to nothing about the issue, it seems to me that the big U.S. car companies have been slowly dying for decades. This emergency bailout would merely postpone the inevitable. I mean, Honda, Toyota show how you can be a successful, innovative car company. Thomas Friedman wrote yesterday about how the vice-chairman of G.M. said that Prius-like hybrids aren't profitable. But things look differently when demand for oil is increasing and will keep increasing over the long term. I suppose the car companies would have said that high gas prices are a recent, unpredictable phenomena. But my guess is they'd be wrong. It's a no brainer to see that over the decades, as poorer countries industrialize they will demand more energy and oil prices will go up. The Big Three are guilty of short-term tactical business strategies based on things like SUVs and trucks (where the profit margins are higher, I believe) when they should have been preparing for the inevitable.

An argument for the bailout would be the ripple effect of letting a car company go bankrupt in the middle of a recession, and I guess that I'm simply ignorant of the effect of this on the already tough economies of Michigan, Ohio, etc. But it seems to me that the failure of these companies represents something that won't be solved by an emergency bailout. These companies need massive, foundational-level change in order to compete in the 21st century and, as I said, the bailout merely postpones the inevitable.

Re-Post: What Obama Forgot: It's All About The Narrative.

Earlier this week, I wrote about what Obama must do to regain the advantage in the race. I said that he should put out a new ad that takes the fight to McCain and challenges him on his core qualities. Well, its clear that the campaign reads this blog because they followed my advice and within a day came out with an ad which does just that: take on his maverick-ness.

But the question is: Is it enough? It’s not clear enough to me that it is.

Continue Reading "What Obama Forgot: It's All About The Narrative"

What Obama forgot: It’s All About The Narrative.

Earlier this week, I wrote about what Obama must do to regain the advantage in the race. I said that he should put out a new ad that takes the fight to McCain and challenges him on his core qualities. Well, its clear that the campaign reads this blog because they followed my advice and within a day came out with an ad which does just that: take on his maverick-ness.

But the question is: Is it enough? It’s not clear enough to me that it is.

Right now the campaign has become battle of character. That’s all the Republicans have to run on and, with the “sex ed for kindergarteners” ad and the “lipstick on a pig” issue they are running with it as far as it will take them. Its a very smart strategy. When Obama responds, as he must, to these ridiculous attacks by saying McCain is shameless and has no character, he eventually comes up against the brick wall that is John McCain’s story. A man who has been tortured in the name of the country can say pretty much anything and keep his character intact. And, my feeling is that, so far, Obama’s responses -- the ad and the “enough is enough!” comments today – have done nothing to change the terms of the fight in any fundamental way.

And this got me thinking: Obama used to have character issues as part of his campaign. In January, he promised to run a new kind of race. Unfortunately, over the summer, the persona the public fell in love with over the course of the primaries disappeared. For my money, what Obama forgot is that a race is all about creating a compelling narrative and sticking to it. It was always a vague narrative, but the bits that shown through were compelling: the possibilities of moving past partisan divisions, running a race that was more willing to challenge conventional liberal thinking, and that held the promise of moving to a new place in race relations. But then the campaign changed. David Brooks takes it from here:

...over the course of the spring, Obama’s campaign got less weird. The crucial pivot came when he failed to seize on McCain’s offer to do a series of joint town-hall meetings across the country. Those meetings would have elevated the race and shown that Obama is willing to take risks in order to truly change the way things are done.

Instead, Obama’s speeches became more conventional, more policy-specific and more orthodox. His Denver acceptance speech was different from his Iowa speeches. It was more traditionally anti-Republican and pro-Democratic.

Brooks is right. The town-hall meetings would have been truly new and potentially transformative. Not doing them Obama showed that his message of changing the system was at least partially hollow. Obama had started to tell a story about where the country could go and how it could get there (though it needed to be fleshed out a lot). But then he threw the story out. At that moment, he laid the groundwork that has given McCain the opening of the last two weeks.

The thing is, I can understand why threw it out. The story he was telling was new and unfamiliar – Bipartisanship?? Moving “beyond” race?? Talking to our enemies in a post 9-11 world?? Were these things possible or just fantasies? To tell the story fully was to really break with the past in a radical way and embrace a new and uncertain future. The story (like Obama) doesn’t fit into the country’s known categories. When Reagan declared that it was “Morning in America,” he, too, told a story of where the country could go (an interesting article that doesn't quite get it right is here):



This ad was one of familiar images that the country had of itself – of hard-working families, marriage, etc. – AND it connected with the image people had of Reagan, an image formed over decades as a movie star and politician. People believed that message coming from Reagan. But, the same can’t be said for Obama. No one knew what a future with Obama would feel like. What he had to do from the beginning, and what he never did, was SHOW people what change meant. Without a track record, without any actual examples to point to, he needed to use his campaign’s actions as the example of change. This is what the town-hall meetings could have helped accomplish.

So, can he regain the narrative again? Probably not in a significant way -- there’s just not enough time. Though – a happy thought, just in case I’m giving the impression all is lost -- I still think he can regain the advantage and win. Now, since he can’t change his own narrative, what he has to do is tear down the other guy’s narrative. This is what he’s been trying to do for the last few days. Tough, he may even have to go farther and goad McCain into sinking to lower and lower depths and hope that at some point McCain just goes too far. It could happen. These guys are shameless and could easily overstep themselves -- McCain’s reputation as a man of honor can work both ways. If it works, then issues are all that’s left, and the campaign will be fought on his turf.