Friday, October 28, 2016

A Nation Demoralized, Disappointed and Disunited

Can you really draw any conclusions from a focus group of a dozen people? The focus group in question, run by Democratic pollster Peter Hart in North Carolina, consisted of three Democrats, three Independents and six Republicans. They were all classed as late-deciders. So, let’s say it skews to the right, but not to the hard right.

Anyway, Peggy Noonan was fascinated by some of the group’s answers to Hart’s questions. Allow her to describe them:

What struck me about the group wasn’t its new insights, which were few. What was powerful was its averageness, its confirmation of what you’ve already observed. The members weren’t sad, precisely, but they were unillusioned. They were seeing things with clean eyes and they were disappointed. They wanted a candidate they could trust and believe in.

Which when you think about it shouldn’t be too much to ask.

Raise your hand, said Mr. Hart, if you like both candidates. No one did. Raise your hand if you like one candidate. No one did. Raise if you don’t like either. All 12 did.

Fair enough, these are undecided voters. They find both candidates disappointing. They feel that the political parties have let them down. Then again, who doesn’t?

What did they say about the candidates?

Donald Trump’s behavior in 2016 reminds you of what? asked Mr. Hart. The answers: “schoolboy,” “brat,” “child tantrum,” “rich kid” and “bully middle-schooler.” Hillary Clinton’s? “Robotic,” “liar,” “privileged,” “cool operator” and, if I heard right, “satellite dish.”

But, you have probably guessed that I am not introducing the Noonan column in order to say some more unflattering things about our presidential  candidates, neither of whom is remotely presidential.

Not at all. Noonan has a larger point, a point that I have been making myself. That is: most of these people are fed up with the cult of American individuality and are bemoaning our divided nation, our shredded social fabric. They are seeking social harmony and are finding nothing but self-creating individuals, people who are largely out for themselves, no matter the cost for others.

To be Biblical, they are suffering because they are living in a divided house. To be more pedestrian, they do not, because they are not allowed, recognize that they are suffering anomie because they live in Barack Obama’s America. President Obama has worked as long and hard to divide the nation, by race, by class, by ethnic group? He has apologized for the nation at every opportunity and has routinely trashed American exceptionalism. Better yet, he was front and center when it came to mistaking Colin Kaepernick’s disloyalty for dissent.

In Noonan’s words:

When asked to describe the America they want, they wrote things like “a solid education system,” “no longer at war,” “people have joy in their work,” “leading the world in everything, including morals,” “equal opportunity and reward based on work,” “people haven’t lost their homes” and “a culture that improves us as a people.”

They want to end foreign wars. True enough. They also want to restore America’s place as a world leader. You will recall that President Obama squandered that, on purpose. They want rewards to be based on work. Which means that they are tired of diversity quotas and affirmative action programs. They must be especially tired of not being able to criticize the president because he is African-American or to criticize Hillary because she is a woman.

Noonan continues:

Many of their hopes were communal, societal, not individual. A great instructive lesson for conservatives this year is that Margaret Thatcher’s individualist vision, expressed with the words “There’s no such thing as society,” has given way, or rather shifted weight. The individual is key and crucial, but everyone is worried about our society and culture now; they see the nation as a shared entity with shared problem.

To be fair to Margaret Thatcher, she was effectively arguing against big government solutions to everyone’s problems. As you know, some people believed that, for every problem we need a government program.

Here is her larger quotation, from 1987:

I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.

Now that we have saved Lady Thatcher from a remark that can be easily misinterpreted, we will return to Noonan’s point. She sees people who want merely to belong to their society, not just to their tribe or faction or special interest group. They want to be united not divided, to work with others, not to feel that they are in it on their own.

So, enough with the individualism. Enough with the lone ranger mentality, the person charged merely with the task of self-actualizing. As I said yesterday, one presidential candidate embodies a cult to individual self-actualization. The other acts as though she is in it for herself.

Noonan concludes that the focus group members are good people. We all concur. They do not have lofty aspirations about saving the planet or about going to the barricades to fight for social justice. They just want to live normal, peaceful lives. They want to live in harmony with every other American. They want to allow their children to go out and play without having to supervise their every movement. They want to be able to say a prayer in public schools, to base their moral values on something other than the survival of the strongest or on the will to power.

And they do not want to spend their evenings explaining the sexual antics of presidents and presidential candidates to their children.

In Noonan’s words:

Mr. Hart asked about how they see the 2016 campaign in historical terms. A man who appeared to be in his 30s said it was “like a soldier going to Vietnam,” by which he meant “no good outcome” and “no choice.” Twenty sixteen reminded another of the Monica Lewinsky scandal—low, embarrassing and leaving you “hurt for our country.” Another respondent remembered a talk from those days with a precocious 2½-year-old relative. She looked up at him one day and asked, “Uncle John, what’s a blow job?” He wanted to punch Bill Clinton in the face. Later a respondent, being asked what has happened to America, said: “Moral failure from the top starts to trickle down.”

The only thing missing from these reflections is the name of the person who is responsible for America’s moral failure. That would be our current president. But, all things considered, you are not allowed to say it, in public, at least.

21 comments:

Trigger Warning said...

"Can you really draw any conclusions from a focus group of a dozen people?"

Sure! About those 12 people.

"I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it."

Or, as Dorothy Day called it, Holy Mother State.

Yes, it's a silly idea that the government exists to "solve" problems, and it is empirically false (just ask modern-day, Iosef Six-pack Greeks, who have been fantasizing about it for 2500 years). But that doesn't make it less appealing to people.

We are who we consume intellectually (read, listen to, look at, and watch) in exactly the same sense as we are what we eat. To understand who we are, all one need do is look at our media. The most popular book among women in the last few decades is 50 Shades of Gray (> 125 million copies sold), so the Left can spare me the pious caterwauling; mIllions of women fantasize about having their p***ies grabbed. Trump is no outlier. His crass behavior is, if anything, mild in comparison to Bill Clinton, and aligned with the mainstream.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

America is being ruined by government-run, government-mandated social programs, and it's destroying every element of American society, culture and character. To the point of this blog, this is a therapy nation, and we're fast-becoming a matriarchy, where a gigantic, nameless, faceless institution -- GOVERNMENT -- is being charged with providing a level of provision, protection and support it cannot possibly provide. Government cannot provide what the human soul desires most: LOVE. And we have a political class that is using this most basic human desire as a means to make promises they cannot fulfill so as to enrich themselves: calculated, institutionalized graft.

Let's go through Peggy's point on what the focus group said in describing the America they want, and what's in the way of them having it:

“a solid education system”
This is not possible with rapidly expanding administration, legal requirements and union rules. Education costs more and more, and returns less and less. Americans want schools to raise their kids. Meanwhile, schools are operated as adult public works programs. American schools are tasked with the social welfare of every kid in the country, rather than educating them for a better future. Schools are a giant social program failing at their core mission. Our university system is a bloated, patriarchal, expensive disgrace.

“no longer at war"
We don't fight wars to win anymore. We're trying to do the "feel good" social work: winning the hearts and minds. We don't go home anymore. We stay for years and years on end, then go back again. It's the idea of military policy as a social program. War is tremendous violence used to achieve practical ends. We aren't pursuing practical ends anymore. We're promoting utopian visions promulgated by political operators whose children aren't in the military. And we're told our greatest strategic threat in the world is... Climate Change.

“people have joy in their work"
Obama's America is a place where the labor force participation is low, real work is for suckers, and manufacturing jobs continue to vanish. We have environmentalist religion instead of conservation, at the expense of people being able to work. We've passed laws that make American businesses resemble social programs.

“leading the world in everything, including morals”
We live in a moral vacuum. We have Democrats saying "whose values?" and "whose morals?" and diminishing the value of character to get Bill Clinton elected and prevent his successful impeachment. And Hillary is the walking embodiment of corruption and graft.

“equal opportunity and reward based on work“
The government lives by robotic statistics. Obama's vision is not equal opportunity, but equal outcome. Reward and work have nothing to do with it. It's just supposed to... happen... for everyone.

"people haven’t lost their homes”
Manufacturing jobs are fast-vanishing, and the elites do not care. Americans lost their homes because the government turned a blind eye to Wall Street, which used the government's implicit Fannie/Freddie mortgage guarantees to bundle MBS/CDO products as vehicles to serve their wealthy domestic and (especially) foreign investors in a 0% interest environment. When the conventional/conforming mortgages began to dry up, they worked through government channels (FCA, CRA) to radically lower standards to feed the MBS/CDO beast. They donated heavily to D.C. politicians to keep the gravy train running. Then, in 2008, this scheme failed us. This is why Americans lost their homes – their government made it all possible.

“a culture that improves us as a people.”
Our culture is a cesspool of daily novelty, based on fringe lifestyles and fascination with reality shows based on stereotypically horrible lives that allow us to feel better about ourselves. As John Silber said, daytime television is "the museum of American societal decay."

Trigger Warning said...

America is not being ruined by The Government. Unless I'm missing something and we are being governed by the Czechs.

The government(s) are Americans. And, yes, government policies developed and executed by Americans are damaging, but The Government is not some alien entity that landed on our shores and started ruining the country.

You have some legitimate complaints, IAC, many of which, if not most, I share.

But Americans are the problem with America.

Trigger Warning said...

If anything, Americans are ruining The Government.

Dennis said...

TW and IAC,

I agree with much of what you both have stated. The real enemy of Americans are Americans. We get the government we vote for. Being a citizen requires a desire to stay involved and knowledgeable about the issues that govern one's life. Until Americans realize that they have a responsibility to be informed they will gradually become subjects governed by a group of experts who have never solve any real problems.
I don't blame government for seeking control because that is what governments always do. I blame Americans for allowing it to happen. We have a Republic, but we have to be cognizant of the responsibilities that are required to keep it.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

And in other news today, the top law enforcement official in the United States -- Attorney General Loretta Lynch -- is effectively exercising her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination regarding Congressional inquiries about massive, clandestine cash payments to our greatest enemy in the world: the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

Trigger Warning @October 28, 2016 at 8:39 AM:

Yes, to Dennis' point, we get the government we deserve. My point is that the this pernicious, growing perversity is predictably human, captured in the Progressivist delusion of the perfectibility of man. The American people have created this government as Santa Claus. Where I disagree with you is the likelihood that we can turn this tide back through the democratic franchise. People adapt. We've adapted to having Christmas every day, and we're going bankrupt. At the top, real work is for suckers.

The biggest reason we have the government we have today is the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment for the direct election of Senators. Once that happened, all of today's outcomes become predictable. With no check on Federal power (and the invention of air conditioning), Washington, D.C. became Santa's Workshop. One could argue that the Nineteenth Amendment led to our government's "matriarchal evolution," but on a principled level, I think the full federalization of popularly-elected government is what really did us in. From there begin the manipulations and machinations necessary for centralized control. Government action becomes the path of least resistance for the clever, wealthy and powerful to get what they want. It's effectively imposing one's desires at the end of a gun.

The other thing I will say to you is that this is an educational issue, and speaks to the most basic, human level... a place we don't go anymore because it's not "nice." The Founders created our government in its original form because they recognized human nature and our tendency to avarice and consolidation of power. In many ways, the Founders were ahead of the curve, our Constitution predating by more than a century the Catholic social teachings of of subsidiarity and distributism (Pope Francis' Marxist delights notwithstanding). The Founders believed in a great nation, but they also acknowledged the shortcomings of man. We don't really do this anymore. Everyone is okay, and everyone deserves a trophy (and, and, and...). The Left believes that human beings are a pestilence (themselves excepted, of course). The Right believes that people have to be controlled. I disagree with both mindsets, and it is in the spirit of cautious, sober optimism that our country was originally founded, guns and all.

Structure determines performance.

So yes, "Americans are the problem with America." That said, the Federal government has too much power, and is consolidating. Government is the means bad people are using to ultimately oppress others. Government is a tool. We need to contain the idea of Santa Claus government or we won't have any freedoms anymore, and the Grinch will stop Christmas from coming... if we're even allowed to say "Christmas" without offending everyone.

Trigger Warning said...

"The biggest reason we have the government we have today is the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment for the direct election of Senators."

That Amendment was an egregious and short-sighted act, but to find the real cause, you must back up one Amendment to the 16th. Stimulated by SCOTUS' tax repudiation in Pollock, the 16th allowed Federal taxation "without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration." It was also the first Amendment to recognize the "right" of the Federal government to simply and baldly seize private property without limit. That an astute observer such as yourself would miss that is a not evidence to your lack of scholarship, but rather a testament to how deeply the idea of Federal property seizure has been embedded in our civic DNA. Not paying Federal taxes is as unimaginable to modern productive citizens as the idea of Federal income-based taxation would have been to the Founders. And Federal taxation without regard to apportionment and without limit is the fount from which the bread and circuses flow.

Trigger Warning said...

Bets are being accepted on the time elapsed until we hear Lynch quote Steve Martin's famous SNL monologue, "I forgot."

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/77/77imono.phtml

If you've never heard it, the audio is priceless.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

Trigger Warning @October 28, 2016 at 12:26 PM:

Indeed you are correct. I am embarrassed to say that, despite your compliments of me being an "astute observer," I've never really paid a great deal of attention to the Sixteenth Amendment. I now see the error of my ways.

What we are really talking about here is the morass created by the "Proglodyte Horde" of the late-19th and early-20th centuries. These were the Constitutional amendments during the so-called Progressive era. They are the Sixteenth (1913), Seventeenth (1913), Eighteenth (1919), and the Nineteenth (1920). These were all initiated within a 10-year span. This, I suppose, is what the intelligent and clever thought "democracy" is. Initiated in the presidencies of Taft (Teddy Roosevelt's handpicked successor) and Wilson (the Great Evil One), they represent the high point of the Progressive movement, with all it's, er, wisdom. Teddy's foolhardy, egomaniacal challenge of Taft in 1912 gave us Wilson. Now we have the Federal colossus today.

I am not keen on any of the four Amendments, because they reflect that most disgusting trait of Progressivism: the perfectibility of man. Women huff and puff at any challenge of the Nineteenth Amendment around suffrage, but women's suffrage was prevalent in most of America at this time. Progressives seemed to be in an orgy of Constitutional meddling by this point, seeing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow... in the form of Federal supremacy "from whatever source derived."

Yet what I contend is that these amendments largely ignore is human nature, and they are postured to transcend man's nature for some "higher" goal, which results in bloated government and the disproportionate power of politicians, all fueled by the delusional, idealistic notion that they, the morally magnificent -- those blindly believing in their expert, morality, righteousness and goodness -- are above, and can solve, every human problem. And there's never enough money. Our government today takes in record tax receipts, yet we still can't seem to spend at/under what we take in. More, more, more!

So yes, I see your point, and I hope you will allow me my foible and stick with the overall context of my comments, which certainly do not argue against the larger point you're making. The "real cause," if I may, is Progressivism itself: its delusional idealism that ultimately creates what it claims it is seeking to destroy. It did not reform our political system, it deformed it. And now we have the Progressive political class as the center of corruption, using the tools they were given during the Progressive Era. Now we have Progressives that aren't really modern at all, but who have this romantic longing to create self-imposed privation (on others, of course), in the form of primitive environmentalism and a medieval conceptualization of social justice.

As an aside, what is also interesting is Article I, Section 9, Clause 5: "No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State." Then why are the states attorneys general bullying Amazon and other Internet merchants into paying sales taxes?

Trigger Warning said...

As we might say back in the sweet green hollers of WV, yore a'preachin' to th' choir, brother! Amen.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

The great question this afternoon in this "Nation Demoralized, Disappointed and Disunited" is...

What is FBI Director James Comey up to?

Anyone who tells you that they know what's going to happen with this election is more nuts than the candidates themselves.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Sam L. said...

I must first express my amazement that Ares has not chimed in as yet.

"That is: most of these people are fed up with the cult of American individuality and are bemoaning our divided nation, our shredded social fabric. They are seeking social harmony and are finding nothing but self-creating individuals, people who are largely out for themselves, no matter the cost for others." I don't think so, There are too many people who want us divided (divide and conquer, doncha know), starting at the top by Obama, though this has been going on for more than 60 years.

Trigger Warning said...

"They are seeking social harmony and are finding nothing but self-creating individuals, people who are largely out for themselves, no matter the cost for others."

Welcome to The Hive.

Anyway, I encourage Comrade Ares to look up straw man.

"Cult of American Individuality."
:-D

It's nearly Halloween. Tinfoil hats going on sale soon.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

Sam L. @October 28, 2016 at 3:25 PM:

"I must first express my amazement that Ares has not chimed in as yet."

Just you wait. He's out there... lurking, plotting, conniving.

Be very, very afraid. He's in theatre. The threat is real.

Expect shock and awe.

AesopFan said...

Excellent commentary today.
Trigger Warning said...
If anything, Americans are ruining The Government.
October 28, 2016 at 8:43 AM
* * *
The Air Conditioning made them do it.

Ares Olympus said...

Strangely the focus group didn't indict the media for any of this, a media that creates and sells 24 hour hyped drama and potential scandal of who said what about whom, that can't be very inspiring to anyone who is interested in paying attention. And not even third party candidates Johnson or Stein can get a break. While 5th party candidate Castle for the Constitution party can't even get talked about at all.

Of course its all no-drama Obama who is at fault for everything. If only he'd have his own sex scandal or disapproving photo from Michelle to talk about and distract us from the depressing articles about the current candidates.

I though the story of the day would be the acquital of the Ammon Bundy gang by a jury of their peers for taking over park buildings last winter.
http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/10/bundy_acquittal_emboldens_mili.html

This contrasts to the "Good people" of the focus group, but really, who doesn't want to live "normal, peaceful lives"?

Stuart: Noonan concludes that the focus group members are good people. We all concur. They do not have lofty aspirations about saving the planet or about going to the barricades to fight for social justice. They just want to live normal, peaceful lives. They want to live in harmony with every other American. They want to allow their children to go out and play without having to supervise their every movement. They want to be able to say a prayer in public schools, to base their moral values on something other than the survival of the strongest or on the will to power.

And there's a reason only 50% of the people vote, even in a presidental election. Everyone wants to live "normal, peaceful lives" and trust the goverment is run by competent people who can handle responsibility we pay them to carry with out taxes, so we can keep our attention to the things close to us, and not worry so much.

But people like Trump are being called to service by followers who can't trust that its safe to live "normal, peaceful lives" any more. They're prepared to scare the rest of us silly, to pay attention, whether to the freedoms being take away, or the jobs exported to China.

And the other story of the day is November 1 coming up where many of us will be shopping for affordable health insurance rates for the new year, just in case the promised 50% premiums can be side-stepped by a better bronze age plan.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/10/24/obama-administration-confirms-double-digit-premium-hikes.html

If only we could believe Trump really would end ObamaCare and replace it by good old fashioned low rates like we want, but its just hard to believe him when he says "Only I can fix it." Who does he think he is, God?

Ares Olympus said...

Oh, perhaps the other issue of the day or the decade, yet another point of disunity.

The Republicans are now working on expanding their rationalizations, that not only should Obama be disallowed from a hearing for Scalia's seat in the SCOTUS, not just waiting for the next presidential election (The people's choice) as Mitch McConnell suggested last winter, but now we learn its quite reasonable for the Republicans to refuse a hearing for any candidate, until a Republican can win the presidency (and Senate I guess).

Maybe the "9 old men" will soon be only 7? This is "unpacking" is the opposite of FDR's "court packing" scandal. Of course if the Republicans force it down to 7, you know it'll be civil war if they try to "repack" it back up to 9 when they hold a moment of united power.

https://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2016/10/ted-cruz-and-new-norms-supreme-court-nominations
---
Now comes Sen. Ted Cruz to one-up even McCain’s first, half-taken-back statement. Speaking at a campaign rally for yet another endangered Senate Republican, Cruz said Wednesday that there is plenty of precedent for running the court with less than nine justices.

So if the vacancy created by the death of Antonin Scalia stays open for a few years, the court will manage just fine, Cruz suggested.

Cruz avoided openly advocating for a stonewall-all-Clinton-nominees approach, although that idea is present between the lines.

Conservative legal scholar Michael Stokes Paulsen wrote “A smaller court means diminished judicial activism. As the Court’s size shrinks, activist majorities become mathematically harder to put together. Four votes out of seven is harder to achieve than five of nine.”

It’s easy to suspect some partisanship in that idea, if one expects Hillary Clinton to be the next president, since it basically removes her power to even nominate a justice for several years. And Clinton would almost certainly veto such a bill if it reached her desk. But I have some sympathy for Paulsen’s “judicial activism” point.

A lot of things we believe about the Constitution are not really facts but are cherished myths. But our common belief in those myths binds us as a nation, as long as we mostly believe in them.

Recent developments in the overt politicization of Supreme Court appointments and rulings undermine those myths and, one might fear, loosen their power to bind us together.
---

But the short term game is (1) Whether Clinton wins the presidency and the Democrats win the Senate majority (2) Whether the minority Republicans filibuster to avoid voting on confirmation (3) Whether the Senate democrats go "full nuclear" and ban the filibuster, or at least the gentlemanly version (4) Whether the Democrats will be "punished" by the American people in 2018 for "ramming a SCOTUS justice down their throats when the will of the GOP has spoken." ...

If partisan politics make us Demoralized, Disappointed and Disunited, there seems no end in sight.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

AesopFan @October 28, 2016 at 5:20 PM:

Precisely. Freon-induced megalomaniacal insanity!

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

Any bets on Ares being a creepy clown in his spare time?

Dennis said...

Just when I was about to comment on the quality of the commentary Ares steps in to immediately lower it and my joy in what is a well thought out and reasoned dialogue.
Ignoring Ares this has been one of the best discussions I have seen on the internet. Notwithstanding that I have mentioned before the damage that the 17th amendment has done to this country. It helped in creating the establishment we now see in DC. It took away the states' and its citizens right to control their Senators and ensure their Senators interests were in the state they where elected. the Senate was specifically designed to protect state authority from federal government intrusion and to cool the emotional whims of the peoples’ branch—the House of Representatives. http://libertyunderfire.org/tag/17th-amendment-damaged-the-republic/
I, like others, have not spent much time of the 16th amendment and now after some research am sorry I did not. Thanks for the emphasis on these amendments.