McCain economic advisor Phil Gramm accomplished a lot of things during his career (most of them bad), but he'll probably always be best remembered for a couple sentences uttered in July of 2008, when he made some unwelcome press for the campaign in response to a question on the economy.
"We have sort of become a nation of whiners," [Gramm] said. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy."
Gramm's remark, of course, is the kind that's easy to condemn. Lately though, I've started to wonder if he didn't have some sort of point here. Not in his casual (and it would turn out, wrong-headed) dismissal of the coming recession, but in his more general implication that Americans had lost the ability to objectively judge their circumstances, and had replaced problem solving with complaining.
As we approach July of 2010, the country's right track/ wrong track numbers are once again heading to new heights (or is that lows) of disapproval - a full 62% think the country is headed in the wrong direction, according to Pollster.com. Obama's approval is underwater. We hear from the media every day that the electorate is fed up and hungry for change - again.
The anger at our country's direction, of course, is aimed almost exclusively at the government, and not at individuals or private institutions. And this view is pushed by politicians, Democratic and Republican, who praise the greatness of the American people, while dismissing its leadership (except for them). In Mark Lilla's excellent piece "The Tea Party Jacobins" the author ties this movement in with the broader impulse towards "individual freedom" that has been happening since the 60s on both the right and the left, producing a mentality that is equal parts WTO anarchist and Gordon Gekko.
A new strain of populism is metastasizing before our eyes, nourished by the same libertarian impulses that have unsettled American society for half a century now. Anarchistic like the Sixties, selfish like the Eighties, contradicting neither, it is estranged, aimless, and as juvenile as our new century. It appeals to petulant individuals convinced that they can do everything themselves if they are only left alone, and that others are conspiring to keep them from doing just that.....The new American populism is not, by and large, directed against immigrants. Its political target is an abstract noun, “the government,” which has been a source of disenchantment since the late Sixties.
Words like "aimless," "juvenile," and "petulant," might sound harsh, but aren't entirely off course. Consider the fact that many of those currently filled with rage over deficits idolize Ronald Reagan - a President that made America a debtor nation in one decade (largely by cutting the top tax rate from 70% to 30%). In other words, much of America is currently furious over policies they themselves support, and possibly even voted for.
Nor is whining at all exclusive to the right anymore. Look no further than the current story headlining the Huffington Post, which throws blame at the President for seemingly every problem in existence. Unfortunately, what Huffington and Spitzer have to offer by way of criticism, much less solutions, is pretty thin gruel.
Spitzer said that Obama needs to do more to take charge of the oil spill response. "He trusts people too much," Spitzer said. "He trusted Wall Street. He trusted the Republicans to engage in a meaningful way. He trusted BP. He's 0 for three."
"What Eliot said is absolutely critical," Arianna continued. "It's not just trust. I think there is almost like a reverence that the president has for authority. You know, a reverence for establishments. You know, the Wall Street establishment. The military establishment. The BP establishment, you know?"
What I'm increasingly fed up with, in fact, isn't Obama's personality ticks, or whatever Arianna imagines them to be, but a country that is largely oblivious to the true nature of the problems we face. We seem to be stuck in complaining, rather than problem-solving mode, passing the responsibility to a series of leaders who inevitably fail to deliver on our impossible expectations.
Turn on your TV, visit your average news site, scan through the headlines of the Huffington Post and it's easy to see WHY we're stuck in this situation. The "news" is dominated by trivial sniping that is closer to celebrity gossip than useful coverage of what's happening in the world. 90% of the so-called big stories these days are simply some politician or celebrity making a controversial statement of some kind, almost always one that has almost zero long-term relevance.
Personally, I couldn't care less about what whether Obama displayed the appropriate of anger and policy proposals in his Oval Office speech, or whether Joe Barton apologized to BP. Despite media saturation, most people don't even understand WHY we are taking the risk of drilling offshore. The uncomfortable fact that, whether you buy the most dire predictions of "peak oil" types or not, we are most likely facing an end to cheap, abundant energy sometime in the near future absent technological innovation on a huge scale.
Instead of directing all of our rage at government, perhaps it's time for us to reevaluate what our standard should be in terms of public dialogue. Far from standing apart from society, the media are in fact a part of society, and a critical part of the social and political conversation we all participate in every day. And the giant cage match it's turned into doesn't seem to do anyone much good.
With the advent of the web, there's been an increase in the power of media organizations to disseminate their message, but little thought around what that message should be. Is a short, "hard news" approach to everything - providing a quick read but little depth - accompanied by the occasional editorial still the ideal format in an age when complex problems may demand deep understanding not just by elites but by the public at large? As many media organizations find themselves in challenging economic circumstances and begin to question some of the fundamentals of their approach, maybe it's time to rethink not just the medium or the business model but the message itself.