Political Amnesia
Political Amnesia
"Not long ago, Bret Stephens, who left the Wall Street Journal for the Times and has been an admirable mainstay of the anti-Trumpist movement among conservatives, wrote a touching piece about his father, and the decency of the values that he exemplified, especially when it came to the treatment of women, in the workplace and outside it. “Our culture could sorely use a common set of ideas about male decorum and restraint in the 21st century, along with role models for those ideas,” Stephens wrote. “Who, in the age of Trump, is teaching boys why not to grope—even when they can, even when ‘you can do anything’?” But nowhere did Stephens acknowledge that, less than a year ago, America did have, in President Barack Obama, a near-perfect model of male decorum and restraint, who in his own behavior and words taught boys how to be men who honored and respected women.
The point is not that what Obama did was necessarily always admirable, but that amnesia about even the very recent past has become essential to the most decent conservative politics…” (https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/a-year-of-donald-trump-in-the-white-house - Adam Gopnik)
I wonder if, amid the analyzing of why people seem to forget the damage one politician or political party does, turning around to vote for the offending party (think GOP 2010), what we witness instead are simple, unshakeable biases that we ubiquitously inherit and — one way or another — hold onto; that too much attention is paid to a triumphant mid-term election and too little attention is paid to voting trends from one generation to the next. While it’s cliche to state that politics and psychology are interwoven, is the cliche itself sufficiently examined by the commentariat, much less voters themselves?
Although the concept of speaking to people’s hearts instead of their minds is conceptually simple, I find it remarkable how easily that golden rule of politics is either ignored or bungled by failed campaigns/politicians (1). However, even if a politician truly does ‘get through’ to people, how likely is any leader going to alter the beliefs a voter — or voters — have build and held their entire lives? Figures like Eisenhower, Nixon and Clinton come to mind when reckoning with this question, i.e. politicians who — regardless of their political expertise and cultural reverence — didn’t radically shift the policy dynamics of the government.
I’d argue Trump's offered the United States an opportunity to make use of generational folly and force a change in governmental dynamics. His movement assigns agency and responsibility to the population of which it’s capable of undertaking but that, however, it lacks in direction, energy and resources. Trump’s politics, although diseased, is nevertheless a politics of the heart, speaking to recesses of our collective being we’d rather ignore yet, if properly examined, could do us a tremendous service. The rational and irrational biases of any voting bloc is, for the first time in a long time, being shaken.
How?
Thanks to the Iraq/Afghan Wars, Great Recession, healthcare and student debt crises — coupled with the dying off the WWII Generation, I think we’re at a moment in which biases are being reworked. Further, I’d argue Trump did us a favor in what he unearthed with his campaign, his rhetoric and Presidency, for Trump the Man and Trump the Movement have forced us into an internal reckoning which we as a country have avoided but deserve. Fundamental questions have to be asked, if not among the current generation of officeholders then the next: Do we want an oligarchy or a democracy? Is authoritarianism better than republican rule? Should the environment be spared any more trauma? Should we fight more endless wars and conduct ourselves with further fiscal irresponsibility? Should we care for the sick and underprivileged? Does socialism for the wealthy create a stable society?
If leaders are brought to the fore who advocate collective sacrifice (a national service program); taxation that properly distributes wealth, and a safety net that enhances citizens’ abilities to take control over their own lives (practical/affordable education and universal healthcare), I believe we’ll be able to look back on the Trump Presidency as one of America’s finest moments, for it can prove the catalyst in forcing the country to remake its own greatness; ironically, we really will be able to say that Donald Trump — Donald fucking Trump, of all people — helped make American great again. However, it’ll be up to us to remember the responsibilities of the task at hand, the tasks’ inherent challenges. We’ll have to remember what a just and equitable society looks like, and the dangers of foregoing our responsibilities to ourselves and generations to come.
Perhaps if we can properly remember that which has had to be reworked from one political majority to the next, we’ll be able to put political amnesia to good use. After all, a majority of the country at one time or another tolerated slavery, child labor, female subjugation and Native American genocide. If we can put that amnesia to good use, maybe we’ll be able to forget the dogmas of trickle down economics, endless wars and the Moral Majority, and instead create a new foundation of norms that’ll strengthen America, short and long-term; it’ll start with a kind gesture or two, some hope and the hard, practical work it demands.
(1) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/books/review/Brooks-t.html