Thomas Friedman hit a grand slam with his recent column in the New York Times entitled, "We Need a Second Party." In so many ways, he echoes much of the analysis that I have been discussing on here for the last few years.
There’s a reason for that: Their pile is out of date. The party has let itself become the captive of conflicting ideological bases: anti-abortion advocates, anti-immigration activists, social conservatives worried about the sanctity of marriage, libertarians who want to shrink government, and anti-tax advocates who want to drown government in a bathtub.
Sorry, but you can’t address the great challenges America faces today with that incoherent mix of hardened positions.
Damn straight.
I predicted after the president got elected that we were seeing the end of the Republican Party. I was wrong in the timing of my prediction and didn't take into account the hate, anger, and fear that would bubble up after we elected Barack Obama. Obviously, I was naive in thinking that we were (ahem) past certain things but we aren't. I also failed to consider such low voter turnout in the midterms (42 percent or less in most areas). That always means a problem for the Democrats as old people are the ones who always turn out and vote and many of them are Republican.
Yet today the writing is on the wall. We are seeing it now with their nominating process in the presidential primaries. They can't seem to settle on one candidate and are now desperately trying to spin their chaos as some sort of fight that will make them all stronger. That's not going to happen.
Instead, what we see are the very serious cracks in a coalition that is at war with itself and cannot survive. Sure, they'll always be able to have a decent showing in Congress but with the current edition garnering the lowest approval ratings ever, how long will even that last? As Friedman notes,
Because when I look at America’s three greatest challenges today, I don’t see the Republican candidates offering realistic answers to any of them.
That's right. Because they are too bent on winning the argument and proving the other side wrong. In short, they are being childish.
Friedman lays out a series of points which I am going to issue as challenges to my regular, conservative/libertarian readers. Here they are.
1. Respond to the challenges and opportunities of an era in which globalization and the information technology revolution have dramatically intensified, creating a hyperconnected world. How would you foster education, innovation in talent for our country? What would you do to be a HIE (high-imagination-enabling countries) as opposed to a LIE (low-imagination-enabling countries)? Do you agree with Friedman's answer? Why or why not?
2. Offer a realistic answer to our debt and entitlement obligations. Do you agree with Friedman's answer? Why or why not?
3. How would you power the future? Again, realistic answers not the current dogma being spewed by conservatives. Do you agree with Friedman's answer? Why or why not?
These are Big Three in a perfectly concise nutshell. What I've seen so far from the split pea soup that is the GOP these days doesn't even come close to addressing any of these issues seriously. I'm hoping that my right leaning readers are better than that and can honestly look at some real solutions.
Well?
21 comments:
1. I have no idea what his babbling about "imagination-enabling" is. I note that he says post-secondary education for all - does it really take a college degree to be a carpenter or auto mechanic. How is that Microsoft was founded by a college drop-out? When everyone has a college education, the economic distinction of a college education evaporates. Isn't it ironic that we still have a shortage of STEM-educated persons with so many getting college degrees?
2. He didn't say anything new or useful. If you don't carve into defense and entitlements, you cannot balance the budget - unless perhaps as "tax reform" you want to introduce a European style VAT (which I shouldn't have to remind you is a highly regressive tax). That is how the European govts consume greater percentages of GDP than our govt.
3. Other than being "against oil and coal" he didn't suggest anything. Coal is used mostly for generating electricity. You agree with going nuclear for that - so you are probably out of line with most of Friedman's readers on that. Maybe his theory is if we all have highly enabled imaginations energy will be produced at no cost and with no environmental consequences.
Typical Friedman nonsense. Why don't you read some Mead for a change, it would do you good.
1. Well, what happens when BRIC has more college educated citizens than we do? I don't think that is going to happen but that's what he is driving at here. I think we all need to consider how serious the competition is in the global marketplace.
2. That's because there's nothing new and useful to offer. We know what we have to do. We aren't doing it.
3. Regarding nuclear, did you catch this?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/09/us-usa-nuclear-license-idUSTRE8181T420120209
What I have read so far of Mead hasn't really impressed me. I'll do a full post on one his pieces sometime soon.
Well, what happens when BRIC has more college educated citizens than we do?
BRIC? Brazil, Russia, India, China I guess. Anyway, then they too will have Starbucks barristas with economically valueless college degrees.
I'd be willing to bet that technically savvy, entrepreneurial talent in those countries would still move to the U.S. in a heartbeat if they could.
But I think I'm getting a sense of where you are going. That international trade is a competition with winners and losers and it is ultimately zero-sum. Am I close?
What I have read so far of Mead hasn't really impressed me.
I should've guessed that, given your fondness for Friedman and Krugman. Mead writes for liberals who can think.
Mead writes for liberals who can think.
There aren't any.... they just BELIEVE!
This short comment by 6Kings quite nicely illustrates the central problem with the right: they think that the left operates in the same sort of framework as they do. This is why their criticism perfectly describes themselves. It's how THEY perceive the world.
they think that the left operates in the same sort of framework as they do.
In your case it is true, but that doesn't make true in all cases.
So I'm betting that I wasn't just close on your view of international trade. You ever heard of mercantilism?
What a case of projection Mark.
In the other post you are surprised that one can agree with Ayn Rand about some things and not others - because your worldview on those things approaches the level of religion. Your faith - faith in progressivism and Christianity (as flawed as it appears your understanding of both are) cloud your ability to think that others have to choose between Christ and Rand.
You treat progressivism as a faith and expect that the right has to treat Rand as a prophet.
It's not a matter of faith, GD, it's a matter of fact. Teddy Roosevelt (a Republican) streamlined progressivism here in the US and, despite its spread throughout our culture in the 20th century, we still managed to survive. And, honestly, thrive, right? Or are you saying that we did not become the world's leading superpower?
Now, if our country had lost the wars and was sitting in economic ruin, then you might have an argument. But that's not what happened. I know, I know...our demise is imminent, right? Collapse, due to failed liberal and progressive policies, is going to hit us hard and...when exactly? It seems to me it's obvious who the ones are with "belief"--the Apocalyptic Cult.
Or are you saying that we did not become the world's leading superpower?
What exactly is that question supposed to prove or illustrate? Is this your version of American exceptionalism?
Collapse, due to failed liberal and progressive policies, is going to hit us hard and...when exactly?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What date exactly is global cooling...errr....global warming....err, climate change going to destroy the earth again? Hmmm?
Quit mis-characterizing others arguments. Either you do it deliberately because you are an asshat, or you don't realize you are doing it and are a moron.
Some would argue that it's already happening. Last winter we had nearly 90 inches of snow. This year we've had less than 10 and it's February. We had several days of 80 degrees in October and, on January 5, it was 62 degrees in Marshall, Minnesota. The previous record was 48. Here's a nice map to look at.
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/us/2012/jan/monthlysigeventmap-012012.gif
It's not that the earth is going to be destroyed. The earth will be just fine. The problem is the extremes in weather and the effect that will have on us-the people that live on the earth. It's already happening, dude, and now we are going to have to deal with the security implications as a result of it.
If you don't agree, refute the evidence. And do so without citing oil/coal company shills and incomplete (by their own admission) cosmic ray studies.
If I mis-characterized your view on what liberal and progressive policies will do to us, then explain how? I'd be happy to hear that you don't think they will destroy our country.
What exactly is that question supposed to prove or illustrate? Is this your version of American exceptionalism?
My point in this has always been the same. Despite tight government regulation, high taxes, and social welfare programs like Social Security, we have somehow managed to still be vastly successful as an economic power, right? If all the things the right says are true, why aren't we a failure?
Jesus Mark you are dense.
Me asking you what the exact date that global warming will destroy the earth is similar to you asking what date deficit spending/socialism will destroy America.
See the similarity? No?
Then perhaps if you look at your several replies to me when I asked what date global warming will destroy the earth...........
See?
And I answered it. Again,
1. The Earth will not be destroyed by climate change.
2. The exact date when we start to have detrimental effects due to climate change is now.
So, can you give me a ball park when all socialism is going to destroy our country? 10 years? 20 years?
Great.
1. The country will not fall into a boiling pit of sewage because of socialism.
2. The exact date when we start to have detrimental effect due to socialism is now.
Your last paragraph continues to prove that you don't listen to what is posted here. Again and again and again.
And I answered it.
That's why you are so dense. I wasn't actually asking a question - it was rhetorical - again and again and again.....
It is strange what weather we have had all this winter; no cold at all; but the ways are dusty, and the flies fly up and down, and the rose-bushes are full of leaves, such a time of the year as was never known in this world before here.
Diary of Samuel Pepys,January 21, 1661
And yet many years at that time, Frost Fairs were held on the frozen Thames.
In other words, it's called weather, dude. When you have decades of it, it begins to cross over into climate. We've had both significantly colder and significantly warmer periods of climate during recorded history, and the cold periods have been a lot worse for most people than the warmer periods.
we have somehow managed to still be vastly successful as an economic power, right?
Which has what to do with being "the world's leading superpower"?
You see when people talk about power in the world it usually isn't in the context of economics.
Larry, you're really not listening. The earth is going to be just fine. The problem is how habitable it's going to be for us given the likelihood of man made climate change. I'm imploring you to break out of the "Must prove liberals wrong" cycle, stop reading right wing blogs that talk about climate change and look at the evidence.
juris, our economy and wealth are what made us a superpower. And soft power--or economic power--is more important today than it ever has been.
GD,
1. Well, that's a relief:)
2. I suppose it depends on how you define socialism. With Cuba, I would agree. Socialism has isolated that country from the world and now, because of the nature of the global marketplace, they are having to change their ways. But I suppose you think we are socialists, right?
It also depends on how you define detrimental effects.
Mark, you're being silly. YOU brought up this warm winter (for the lower 48, but unusually cold for Alaska and Europe) as an example of "anthropogenic climate change that's hurting us." I only pointed out what nonsense your example is. I certainly never claimed climate change is going to destroy the Earth. There's a lot of alarmist claptrap and it's for damned sure not the skeptics claiming it's going to destroy anything at all.
I brought up the warmer winter as part of a larger discussion of weather extremes that do have very much everything to do with climate change, likely man made.
I have no problem with a health dose of skepticism. But when it becomes a religion spread on right wing blogs based on nothing but an insatiable drive to always prove liberals wrong, mouth foaming and stomping your feet red faced the whole way, then I say, "Please take a fucking chill pill and start thinking critically."
That's your delusional paranoia speaking, Mark. You're the one claiming the world as we know is going to end. If you so often wrong, there'd be nothing to prove, now would there. Just don't be so laughably wrong no more, it's really quite simple.
juris, our economy and wealth are what made us a superpower.
You do know what it means to be a superpower, or even just a plain old "power", don't you? You seem to think this is an unequivocally good thing - to be powerful.
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