I'm in Maryland, on the east coast of the United States, so it's only a few hours before the start of 2019. Since this is generally a time for reflections, I'm going to reflect, while at the same time commented on several recent events.
I can't quite escape the feeling that I should be happier than I feel at the moment. After all, the country has just experienced a national election in which the Democratic Party took control of the House of Representatives by a wide margin, and made other gains in state and local elections. In addition, a large number of progressive ballot initiatives were passed as well. Even in the Senate, where the electoral map was heavily stacked against Democrats, the party's net loss of seats was a relatively small one.
All of this opens up the possibility of a full-scale investigation of D***** T**** and the shenanigans in which he, his family, and his appointees have engaged over the past two years. It opens up the possibility of making progress on progressive issues at the state, if not the national level. It suggests that the possibility of removing T**** from office in the next two years, either by impeachment, resignation, or defeat at the polls.
So why is my face long tonight as I contemplate the new year?
Because even though the Democrats made huge gains, that fact doesn't seem to be translating into a resurgence of democracy in America.
Let's start with the fact that, as of the moment, the federal government has been partially shut down by T****, in a last-ditch effort to get the federal government to fund his frequently-promised wall along the southern border. You know, the one for which Mexico was going to pay.
This is obviously an act of pure desperation by T****, who has nothing else going for him at this point. The stock market is in a slow-motion collapse, the budget deficit is blowing up, our allies are deserting us, and the legal walls are closing in on the Administration (especially on T**** himself). But it is also a naked attempt at political blackmail, one which Democrats have no choice but to reject if they are to have any credibility as a political force and any chance of keeping their supporters with them. There is no political case for the wall; were it otherwise, it would have started to become reality during the past two years of all-GOP control of Washington.
So what's the endgame? Is there an endgame?
If you rely on the MSM for answers to those questions, all you get is the who''s-up-who's down sports-style of reporting that the work-the-refs approach to the press by conservatives has produced. You would end up concluding that, sooner or later, someone will blink, and life will go on.
But there's another alternative. It's probably the alternative only a madman would pursue. On the other hand, remember: T****. If he's not a madman, who is?
That alternative is to use the powers granted by Congress to the executive branch to declare a state of national emergency, which in turn would give him the opportunity to transform himself from a would-be dictator to being an actual one. Frankly, I was not aware that this potential power existed, until I saw this Daily Kos piece. If you have not read it yet, please feel free to step away from my blog for a few minutes and read it. You will discover that, by constitutional means, we have effectively granted the executive branch the power to subvert our constitutional order.
Now that you've had a chance to read it and come back, do you have any doubt that we may be in a position where elections have no consequences for T****?
To say nothing of his party?
Look at what has been going on in Wisconsin and Michigan, where Republican legislatures are determined to make sure that elections replacing Republican governors have no consequences.
In the case of Michigan, look at what the Republican legislature has done to ensure that a minimum wage increase and a sick leave proposal that the voters wanted will not happen. That's right: they're deliberately picking the pockets of the people they are sworn to serve, so that they can line their own pockets with even more campaign contributions.
Now, let's leave the Midwest and go back to Washington, where, I'm sorry to say, it gets even worse. We find a Republican senator who is actually willing to use the loaded words "civil war" when it comes to stopping the newly-elected House Democratic majority from doing its duty to hold T**** accountable. Query: how many of his colleagues feel the same way? Will the investigations that are about to begin actually lead to shots being fired? We may find out shortly, because there will be investigations, whether Mike Lee likes it or not.
And finally, let's stay in Washington, and take a very short trip from Capitol Hill to Maryland Avenue, where we find the Supreme Court, and its newest Justice, Brett Kavanaugh, who despite being the object of more than 80 complaints about his ethics, is essentially bullet-proof because the Court and its Justices apparently answer to no one when it comes to ethics. You can read all about this in painful detail here, while contemplating the fact that Kavanaugh will be on the Court for life, which, given his relative youth and barring some form of divine intervention, could very well be for a mighty long time. (For more background on the social cesspool that gave us Kavanaugh in the first place, take a look at this.)
So, here's where we are. No hope from the Supreme Court, or the Senate. Certainly no hope from a White House that is, to put it politely, a national embarrassment and a disgrace. No hope even where Democrats have taken governorships but still have to worry about state Republican legislators. If there's any hope at all, it rests, seemingly, solely on the shoulders of Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic members in the House.
Is it going to be enough?
I wish that I could give that question an unqualified "Yes." The history of the country itself gives me some reason to think that it will be. But nothing is guaranteed by our institutions.
The only guaranty that it will be enough--that we will get our democracy back, and continue to build upon the accomplishments of the past--is all of us. All of you.
We can only make this a Happy New Year if we become, in Barack Obama's words, the change we want to see. No one will save us but ourselves.
Stay alert. Keep in touch. Organize. Raise money. Vote. And never, ever, give in, despite the odds. It isn't about the odds. It's about how much you care.
And be assured, I will continue to do exactly that, here, and elsewhere.
Happy New Year.
Monday, December 31, 2018
Sunday, December 30, 2018
Can Federalism Be The Key To A Progressive Future?
Federalism. The concept that certain government powers belong to the national government, while certain others belong to state and local governments. It's a concept embedded in our Constitution, and it's also a concept at the heart of our national division of not just of opinion, but also of day-to-day reality. And, as a consequence, it's reflected in Washington right now in a particularly divisive way.
We have a House of Representatives that will, in just a few days, be controlled by the Democrats, because the majority of the people in this country, as election after election in this century has shown, identify either with the Democratic Party or the progressive ideals for which it has traditionally stood. On the other hand, we have a Senate that, for the foreseeable future (and I hope I'm wrong) will be controlled by Republicans because the minority of people in this country live in the majority of states, and consistently vote for Republicans despite the fact that Republicans have spent the past four decades on trickle-up-and-out policies that shift wealth from workers to investors and, ultimately, oversees (along with the workers' jobs). More on that later. Of course, we also have a President elected by a minority of the people because federalism, by way of the Electoral College and its allocation of electoral votes, allows the states to control who occupies the Oval Office.
And because the federal structure of our government is embedded in our Constitution, it's not going anywhere soon. Anytime.
Perhaps it shouldn't.
A key historical argument against it is the fact that, originally, its strongest proponents have been those who saw it as a convenient philosophical vehicle for transporting an inherently racist institution, slavery, into their own economic convenience without regard to its power to poison the lives of the enslaved and the larger character of the nation as a whole (think, for example, of those in the North who found it convenient to support slavery in the South through the Triangle Trade). Those advocates were successful, leaving us with a national curse that public and private institutions have slowly begun to unravel.
But that does not mean that federalism can't and doesn't have a valid purpose. Part of what has kept it alive over the centuries is the obvious fact that some issues, such as the prosecution of war and the regulation of trade "among the several States" is most easily and effectively done on a national scale, while others more dependent on an understanding of conditions on a smaller scale, such as police and education, are most effectively dealt with on a local scale. With that in mind, it may make sense for progressives to stop fighting or bemoaning the existence of federalism, but rather to start figuring out ways by which to make it work on behalf of the causes they care about.
Take economic development, for example.
Like it or not, government at all levels has been involved in the national, and in local, economic conditions. That has been even more true over the past century, as national government has been forced to deal with economic dislocations often caused by international events (i.e., the Great Depression), and state and local governments have likewise been forced to deal with changes in their communities and, relative to that, their tax bases (i.e., post-WWII suburbanization). Perhaps the most interesting feature about this trend, in fact, is the manner in which it has over time become one of the few truly bipartisan aspects of our politics, both pro and con. Thus, you have Republican governors offering Amazon taxpayer-funded "bribes" to add a new corporate headquarters within their boarders, but you also have Democrats decrying such "bribes (rightly, IMHO, as an Amazon member) as an unjustified form of corporate welfare.
Well, since government promotion of economic development is no longer a purely partisan issue, why not integrate it into our federal system? What if we did this promotion on a national scale, tethered to goals set at a national level, but with enough flexibility that states could, in fact, tailor it to their specific needs?
Take, for example, the concept of block grants, a concept beloved by conservatives as a way of funding social programs for states. What if we were to give each state a sum of money each year, with the specific sum for each state determined by its population, and with the stipulation that it had to be used to ensure a job for every able-bodied adult in the state--but with no other stipulations about how it was to be used? State and local governments could take these funds, and then tailor their use to local conditions. And they could be used to address unemployment caused by anything, whether historic poverty related to race, or rural poverty based on bigger structural changes in economics (such as the decline in extraction industries).
Don't like giving away taxpayer money? Then don't. Instead, create federal tax credits that can be used with the same flexibility as the block-grant proposal I just described. And again, tie those credits to federal oversight, to ensure full employment across the country. The point, ultimately, is that there are ways to take federalism and make it work for, rather than against, progressive goals.
I've been thinking about this subject for a while, and recently saw two New York Times articles that made me think that the time may now be ripe for making this approach a part of our political discussion.
This one, about the tendency of rural Kentucky voters to vote Republican despite their financial dependence on federal welfare programs, indirectly comes to the conclusion that this tendency is most logically explained by the fact that people in these communities would rather have jobs than welfare--a feeling that is doubtless universal. What I'm suggesting is a way that would directly address that desire, with the added benefit that local workers would be able through their votes to have some say in the types of jobs that are created.
And this one, about how to save small-town America, suggests from some of the suggestions about how to do it that people are ready for that type of approach. Think locally about solutions to poverty; build up mid-sized cities; create incentives for new industries to replace departed ones. All of these are ideas presented in this article, and all of them would be encouraged by what I'm proposing here.
I'm so convinced of the significance of what I'm proposing here (and no, not because I'm proposing it) that I'm willing to say that the presidential candidate who makes this central to his or her campaign will be the one who wins not only the nomination, but also the honor of being the person who will make us forget all about D****** T****. Any takers among the 20-plus hopefuls for that honor?
Maybe it'll happen if enough of us get behind us and push it. I know I'll be pushing hard, this year and next. I hope many of you will join me.
We have a House of Representatives that will, in just a few days, be controlled by the Democrats, because the majority of the people in this country, as election after election in this century has shown, identify either with the Democratic Party or the progressive ideals for which it has traditionally stood. On the other hand, we have a Senate that, for the foreseeable future (and I hope I'm wrong) will be controlled by Republicans because the minority of people in this country live in the majority of states, and consistently vote for Republicans despite the fact that Republicans have spent the past four decades on trickle-up-and-out policies that shift wealth from workers to investors and, ultimately, oversees (along with the workers' jobs). More on that later. Of course, we also have a President elected by a minority of the people because federalism, by way of the Electoral College and its allocation of electoral votes, allows the states to control who occupies the Oval Office.
And because the federal structure of our government is embedded in our Constitution, it's not going anywhere soon. Anytime.
Perhaps it shouldn't.
A key historical argument against it is the fact that, originally, its strongest proponents have been those who saw it as a convenient philosophical vehicle for transporting an inherently racist institution, slavery, into their own economic convenience without regard to its power to poison the lives of the enslaved and the larger character of the nation as a whole (think, for example, of those in the North who found it convenient to support slavery in the South through the Triangle Trade). Those advocates were successful, leaving us with a national curse that public and private institutions have slowly begun to unravel.
But that does not mean that federalism can't and doesn't have a valid purpose. Part of what has kept it alive over the centuries is the obvious fact that some issues, such as the prosecution of war and the regulation of trade "among the several States" is most easily and effectively done on a national scale, while others more dependent on an understanding of conditions on a smaller scale, such as police and education, are most effectively dealt with on a local scale. With that in mind, it may make sense for progressives to stop fighting or bemoaning the existence of federalism, but rather to start figuring out ways by which to make it work on behalf of the causes they care about.
Take economic development, for example.
Like it or not, government at all levels has been involved in the national, and in local, economic conditions. That has been even more true over the past century, as national government has been forced to deal with economic dislocations often caused by international events (i.e., the Great Depression), and state and local governments have likewise been forced to deal with changes in their communities and, relative to that, their tax bases (i.e., post-WWII suburbanization). Perhaps the most interesting feature about this trend, in fact, is the manner in which it has over time become one of the few truly bipartisan aspects of our politics, both pro and con. Thus, you have Republican governors offering Amazon taxpayer-funded "bribes" to add a new corporate headquarters within their boarders, but you also have Democrats decrying such "bribes (rightly, IMHO, as an Amazon member) as an unjustified form of corporate welfare.
Well, since government promotion of economic development is no longer a purely partisan issue, why not integrate it into our federal system? What if we did this promotion on a national scale, tethered to goals set at a national level, but with enough flexibility that states could, in fact, tailor it to their specific needs?
Take, for example, the concept of block grants, a concept beloved by conservatives as a way of funding social programs for states. What if we were to give each state a sum of money each year, with the specific sum for each state determined by its population, and with the stipulation that it had to be used to ensure a job for every able-bodied adult in the state--but with no other stipulations about how it was to be used? State and local governments could take these funds, and then tailor their use to local conditions. And they could be used to address unemployment caused by anything, whether historic poverty related to race, or rural poverty based on bigger structural changes in economics (such as the decline in extraction industries).
Don't like giving away taxpayer money? Then don't. Instead, create federal tax credits that can be used with the same flexibility as the block-grant proposal I just described. And again, tie those credits to federal oversight, to ensure full employment across the country. The point, ultimately, is that there are ways to take federalism and make it work for, rather than against, progressive goals.
I've been thinking about this subject for a while, and recently saw two New York Times articles that made me think that the time may now be ripe for making this approach a part of our political discussion.
This one, about the tendency of rural Kentucky voters to vote Republican despite their financial dependence on federal welfare programs, indirectly comes to the conclusion that this tendency is most logically explained by the fact that people in these communities would rather have jobs than welfare--a feeling that is doubtless universal. What I'm suggesting is a way that would directly address that desire, with the added benefit that local workers would be able through their votes to have some say in the types of jobs that are created.
And this one, about how to save small-town America, suggests from some of the suggestions about how to do it that people are ready for that type of approach. Think locally about solutions to poverty; build up mid-sized cities; create incentives for new industries to replace departed ones. All of these are ideas presented in this article, and all of them would be encouraged by what I'm proposing here.
I'm so convinced of the significance of what I'm proposing here (and no, not because I'm proposing it) that I'm willing to say that the presidential candidate who makes this central to his or her campaign will be the one who wins not only the nomination, but also the honor of being the person who will make us forget all about D****** T****. Any takers among the 20-plus hopefuls for that honor?
Maybe it'll happen if enough of us get behind us and push it. I know I'll be pushing hard, this year and next. I hope many of you will join me.
Saturday, December 29, 2018
George Herbert Walker Bush, And The Death Of WASP Culture
It's been several weeks since the death of George H.W. Bush, and quite a bit has happened since then, politically speaking. I always get behind in my blogging around this time of year, and 2018 has been no exception. I'll catch up with recent events in a few days, or at least do my best to do so. But it's impossible for me to allow Bush's death and funeral, and the media frenzy surrounding both events, without using some of the bandwidth available to me to make a few observations.
Bush was a one-term president, which might surprise some of you who did not live through his presidency as I did. If your view of him was or has been formed at least largely by the lionization of him by the MSM earlier this month, you would have thought that he was another FDR, someone who would have been elected to four terms had the Constitution permitted it. The truth of the matter is that the administration of the 41st President, even from the most non-partisan of perspectives, a decidedly mixed bag, one that, in the end, was undone at the polls in no small part because of a weak economy, and a violation of a campaign promise not to raise taxes.
I noticed that one of the wire services pointed that fact--and fact it is, as Yoda might say--in announcing the news of his death on Twitter. The tweet was immediately pounced upon by the usual right-wing media hookers looking for attention, and denounced by them as an insult to a deceased leader and World War II veteran. As a consequence, the tweet was subsequently followed up by a "correction." Well done, Michelle Malkin and your cohorts in libel; let's see you show the same posthumous respect to another one-term president and veteran, Jimmy Carter, when he passes away. I for one am not holding my breath.
Fortunately, although the MSM is instantly and complete cowed by professional media-hunters like Malkin who love to "work the refs" to promote their lies, the Internet proved to provide greater diversity in assessments of Bush and his public life. You can, for example, find a relatively complimentary piece here, one that also takes a number of Bush's critics to task for overlooking his accomplishments, including his volunteering to be a Navy pilot and his facilitation of a peaceful resolution to the Cold War. As for the critics, you can certainly find them as well; this piece, and this one as well, do a fairly comprehensive job of cataloging Bush's various sins, although I'm shocked that neither of them mentions Bush's pioneering work in placing a sexual harasser, Clarence Thomas, on the Supreme Court for life, paving the way for Brett Kavanaugh to join him.
What made it perhaps somewhat easier for MSM outlets to lavish praise on Bush was his stature as one of the last Rockefeller Republicans on the national stage, someone whose devotion to Wall Street and gunboat diplomacy was tempered by a desire to work collectively with those on the other side of the ideological fence. That desire is perhaps best reflected in the accomplishments for which I, as a card-carrying progressive Democrat, believe that he legitimately deserves genuine praise for achieving: the budget deal that, in conjunction with the one subsequently passed by the Clinton Administration, paved the way for the prosperity of the 1990s (and, of course, required him to break his earlier no-new-taxes pledge), and the prosecution of Gulf War I against Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Unlike the subsequent Gulf War prosecuted by Bush's son, GWI was based on principles of international law, with the consent and cooperation of the international community and the full authorization of Congress. Bush's handling of GWI reflected a commitment to the pillars of the post-WWII order that subsequently characterized his dealings with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations in ending the Cold War.
No doubt those accomplishments, as well as perhaps others, were based on the fact that Bush built his entire political career on connections, building a business and political Rolodex one card at a time that took him all the way up the Washington ladder and earned him the nickname "Mr. Resume." But a career built on connections can be something of a double-edged sword, depending on the nature of the connections themselves. Two names can be pulled out of the Bush Rolodex to illustrate that point: Roger Ailes, and Shafiq bin Laden. The former helped Bush build a electoral strategy for the 1988 presidential election that was built on racism and challenges to the patriotism and mental competency of his opponent, Michael Dukakis. The latter belongs to the family that used its access to American (gained through the Bush family) to savagely, tragically attack the United States on September 11, 2001, and change the history and culture of this country for the worse, perhaps forever.
I think it's precisely this mixed bag of his connections that informs, perhaps even dictated (in hindsight) the mixed bag that is George Bush's presidential legacy. And I think that the bag is mixed in the first instance because Bush, lacking a true ideological compass, just grabbed for whatever connections he could get as he moved up the political ladder. It didn't matter whether those connections were on the left or the right, whether they were friend or foe to this country, or whether they even genuinely liked Bush as much as he thought they like him. All that mattered was that they could help him "move up." And so, when he finally got to the top, he was beholden to too many people with too many conflicting interests to have a coherent presidency with a consistent focus and clear priorities. You can find a more extensive discussion of this here.
So, then, why the orgy of MSM worship on the occasion of his death?
I don't think that it was really all about Bush, or his presidency, or his fondness for handwritten notes (which, ironically, underscores the "connections" dimension of his career). I think that, in an age and a current presidency defined by racial animosity and the rise of the poor white class as the focus of our political debate, it was really a kind of media Viking funeral for the elite WASP culture into which Bush was born, and which for decades served in a number of ways to mediate the differences among the various demographic groups that make up America's famously multicultural mosaic. That culture is largely gone, its survivors in political retreat, and nothing has emerged to replace it as a mediating force. If anything, the Internet has emerged to further fracture an already fractured nation, while simultaneously giving it millions of "channels" by which to express its increasingly divided character.
But the elite WASP culture, however much it may have mitigated the influence of racism in America, also institutionalized it in order to preserve its credibility with poorer white Christians. That institutionalized racism harmed generations of people of color, and denied the country as a whole the benefit of the dreams and the talents these people possessed. And, even if WASPs themselves are in retreat as a political force, the racism (and, for that matter, sexism) they institutionalized still remains a sore subject in our national debate.
This is why the aforementioned orgy of worship is, with all due respect to Bush's family, friends, and other supporters, sadly and seriously misplaced. True, Bush was a former president; he deserves a certain level of respect, and his passing is unquestionably a major news story. But it is also an entirely appropriate to use the occasion of his death to take stock of his impact on the nation and its people. The power of the presidency is such that we as a people need to properly take stock of a president's actions and inactions, for better and for worse. And the natural and appropriate grief that an individual's death inspires should neither influence nor deter that assessment process. This is one of the many sacrifices a president's family makes for the sake of their family member's service. We owe them a debate carried on with respect. But we owe all of us, for the sake of our democracy, an otherwise honest debate.
As one of the pieces linked above puts it:
Bush was a one-term president, which might surprise some of you who did not live through his presidency as I did. If your view of him was or has been formed at least largely by the lionization of him by the MSM earlier this month, you would have thought that he was another FDR, someone who would have been elected to four terms had the Constitution permitted it. The truth of the matter is that the administration of the 41st President, even from the most non-partisan of perspectives, a decidedly mixed bag, one that, in the end, was undone at the polls in no small part because of a weak economy, and a violation of a campaign promise not to raise taxes.
I noticed that one of the wire services pointed that fact--and fact it is, as Yoda might say--in announcing the news of his death on Twitter. The tweet was immediately pounced upon by the usual right-wing media hookers looking for attention, and denounced by them as an insult to a deceased leader and World War II veteran. As a consequence, the tweet was subsequently followed up by a "correction." Well done, Michelle Malkin and your cohorts in libel; let's see you show the same posthumous respect to another one-term president and veteran, Jimmy Carter, when he passes away. I for one am not holding my breath.
Fortunately, although the MSM is instantly and complete cowed by professional media-hunters like Malkin who love to "work the refs" to promote their lies, the Internet proved to provide greater diversity in assessments of Bush and his public life. You can, for example, find a relatively complimentary piece here, one that also takes a number of Bush's critics to task for overlooking his accomplishments, including his volunteering to be a Navy pilot and his facilitation of a peaceful resolution to the Cold War. As for the critics, you can certainly find them as well; this piece, and this one as well, do a fairly comprehensive job of cataloging Bush's various sins, although I'm shocked that neither of them mentions Bush's pioneering work in placing a sexual harasser, Clarence Thomas, on the Supreme Court for life, paving the way for Brett Kavanaugh to join him.
What made it perhaps somewhat easier for MSM outlets to lavish praise on Bush was his stature as one of the last Rockefeller Republicans on the national stage, someone whose devotion to Wall Street and gunboat diplomacy was tempered by a desire to work collectively with those on the other side of the ideological fence. That desire is perhaps best reflected in the accomplishments for which I, as a card-carrying progressive Democrat, believe that he legitimately deserves genuine praise for achieving: the budget deal that, in conjunction with the one subsequently passed by the Clinton Administration, paved the way for the prosperity of the 1990s (and, of course, required him to break his earlier no-new-taxes pledge), and the prosecution of Gulf War I against Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Unlike the subsequent Gulf War prosecuted by Bush's son, GWI was based on principles of international law, with the consent and cooperation of the international community and the full authorization of Congress. Bush's handling of GWI reflected a commitment to the pillars of the post-WWII order that subsequently characterized his dealings with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations in ending the Cold War.
No doubt those accomplishments, as well as perhaps others, were based on the fact that Bush built his entire political career on connections, building a business and political Rolodex one card at a time that took him all the way up the Washington ladder and earned him the nickname "Mr. Resume." But a career built on connections can be something of a double-edged sword, depending on the nature of the connections themselves. Two names can be pulled out of the Bush Rolodex to illustrate that point: Roger Ailes, and Shafiq bin Laden. The former helped Bush build a electoral strategy for the 1988 presidential election that was built on racism and challenges to the patriotism and mental competency of his opponent, Michael Dukakis. The latter belongs to the family that used its access to American (gained through the Bush family) to savagely, tragically attack the United States on September 11, 2001, and change the history and culture of this country for the worse, perhaps forever.
I think it's precisely this mixed bag of his connections that informs, perhaps even dictated (in hindsight) the mixed bag that is George Bush's presidential legacy. And I think that the bag is mixed in the first instance because Bush, lacking a true ideological compass, just grabbed for whatever connections he could get as he moved up the political ladder. It didn't matter whether those connections were on the left or the right, whether they were friend or foe to this country, or whether they even genuinely liked Bush as much as he thought they like him. All that mattered was that they could help him "move up." And so, when he finally got to the top, he was beholden to too many people with too many conflicting interests to have a coherent presidency with a consistent focus and clear priorities. You can find a more extensive discussion of this here.
So, then, why the orgy of MSM worship on the occasion of his death?
I don't think that it was really all about Bush, or his presidency, or his fondness for handwritten notes (which, ironically, underscores the "connections" dimension of his career). I think that, in an age and a current presidency defined by racial animosity and the rise of the poor white class as the focus of our political debate, it was really a kind of media Viking funeral for the elite WASP culture into which Bush was born, and which for decades served in a number of ways to mediate the differences among the various demographic groups that make up America's famously multicultural mosaic. That culture is largely gone, its survivors in political retreat, and nothing has emerged to replace it as a mediating force. If anything, the Internet has emerged to further fracture an already fractured nation, while simultaneously giving it millions of "channels" by which to express its increasingly divided character.
But the elite WASP culture, however much it may have mitigated the influence of racism in America, also institutionalized it in order to preserve its credibility with poorer white Christians. That institutionalized racism harmed generations of people of color, and denied the country as a whole the benefit of the dreams and the talents these people possessed. And, even if WASPs themselves are in retreat as a political force, the racism (and, for that matter, sexism) they institutionalized still remains a sore subject in our national debate.
This is why the aforementioned orgy of worship is, with all due respect to Bush's family, friends, and other supporters, sadly and seriously misplaced. True, Bush was a former president; he deserves a certain level of respect, and his passing is unquestionably a major news story. But it is also an entirely appropriate to use the occasion of his death to take stock of his impact on the nation and its people. The power of the presidency is such that we as a people need to properly take stock of a president's actions and inactions, for better and for worse. And the natural and appropriate grief that an individual's death inspires should neither influence nor deter that assessment process. This is one of the many sacrifices a president's family makes for the sake of their family member's service. We owe them a debate carried on with respect. But we owe all of us, for the sake of our democracy, an otherwise honest debate.
As one of the pieces linked above puts it:
Rest in peace, Mr. President. Thank you for your service, and for your family's sacrifices. And rest assured that the rest of us will continue to respect both of those things, no matter how much we may disagree with each other. And we will continue to build a stronger, safer, more prosperous and peaceful nation on your legacy.A president lies in state, as Bush is to do beginning today, not because he is kind to his family or has delighted those closest to him with his thank-you notes and a patrician manner, though those stories are important for historians to gather. A president lies in state simply because he was president; because he held power over the fates of hundreds of millions of citizens, and the direction of the world.How he used that power, or failed to use it, must be reckoned with by any who seek to fully understand his legacy.
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