Chris
11-23-2013, 04:10 PM
A non-partisan criticism of partisan politics and Americans' expectations.
Democrats, Republicans Failing To Live Up To Brands (http://townhall.com/columnists/jonahgoldberg/2013/11/22/democrats-republicans-failing-to-live-up-to-brands-n1751159/page/2)
If the Republicans can't fight wars and the Democrats stink at socializing medicine, what good are they?
That would not be an altogether unreasonable question for a typical American today.
No doubt spokesmen for the respective political parties would offer all sorts of objections to that summation. And many of those objections would be fair. A defender of George W. Bush's stint as commander in chief would point to the quick toppling of Saddam and the Taliban. He or she might argue that the Democrats undermined a wartime president and fomented defeatism.
As for the Democrats, a partisan might claim that Obamacare was never intended to "socialize" medicine. While the president said that he'd prefer a single-payer system, what he proposed fell far short of that and included some Republican ideas. A Democrat-defender might also note that the Republicans are "invested in failure," as the president recently put it, and have done everything they can to undermine the Affordable Care Act.
Let's just concede there are many arguments and counterarguments to all of that.
But such arguments are for professional political protagonists. For the normal American who doesn't live and breathe politics, the simple fact is that Democrats and Republicans alike have failed to live up to their brands.
...Americans blame the parties for a lot, but a lot can be blamed on Americans. I don't necessarily mean that in a negative or accusatory way. I merely mean that the parties tend to lag behind the times. Culturally, Americans want all the upside and none of the downside....
In the aftermath of Iraq and Afghanistan, many Republicans are growing more skeptical about the national security state and foreign interventions. If Obamacare continues to unravel, it will be interesting to see if Democrats undergo a similar readjustment, and stop overpromising and underdelivering.
But the far more important development will be when Americans start to downgrade their expectations of what government can do.
Democrats, Republicans Failing To Live Up To Brands (http://townhall.com/columnists/jonahgoldberg/2013/11/22/democrats-republicans-failing-to-live-up-to-brands-n1751159/page/2)
If the Republicans can't fight wars and the Democrats stink at socializing medicine, what good are they?
That would not be an altogether unreasonable question for a typical American today.
No doubt spokesmen for the respective political parties would offer all sorts of objections to that summation. And many of those objections would be fair. A defender of George W. Bush's stint as commander in chief would point to the quick toppling of Saddam and the Taliban. He or she might argue that the Democrats undermined a wartime president and fomented defeatism.
As for the Democrats, a partisan might claim that Obamacare was never intended to "socialize" medicine. While the president said that he'd prefer a single-payer system, what he proposed fell far short of that and included some Republican ideas. A Democrat-defender might also note that the Republicans are "invested in failure," as the president recently put it, and have done everything they can to undermine the Affordable Care Act.
Let's just concede there are many arguments and counterarguments to all of that.
But such arguments are for professional political protagonists. For the normal American who doesn't live and breathe politics, the simple fact is that Democrats and Republicans alike have failed to live up to their brands.
...Americans blame the parties for a lot, but a lot can be blamed on Americans. I don't necessarily mean that in a negative or accusatory way. I merely mean that the parties tend to lag behind the times. Culturally, Americans want all the upside and none of the downside....
In the aftermath of Iraq and Afghanistan, many Republicans are growing more skeptical about the national security state and foreign interventions. If Obamacare continues to unravel, it will be interesting to see if Democrats undergo a similar readjustment, and stop overpromising and underdelivering.
But the far more important development will be when Americans start to downgrade their expectations of what government can do.