Consensus in America is Dead

August 29, 2008 on 11:03 am | In Cultural Commentary |

I didn’t see Obama’s speech last night, I’ll start there.

But I did see the rapturous comments on Facebook, including one that said, “After that amazing speech, how can we not win?”

Which made me groan.

Are you kidding me?

How long will it take for starry-eyed liberals to get that no matter how badly any administration screws up, no matter how impeachable a president might be (and they don’t get more impeachable than George W. Bush), no matter how egregiously people are lied to, manipulated and run around the mulberry bush, there will never be broad consensus in America ever again about anything, including the question of who should be the president.

We are a fractured nation. Hating each other’s opinions and fighting over them with the most uncivil, irrational and accusatory language we can muster is the national pasttime. We are no longer citizens, we are gladiators. Sure, you and I might be bridge-builders in our communities (as Unitarian Universalists, we are certainly called to be), but we are up against massive economic forces that are intensely invested in a divided America and a nasty public discourse.

I’m watching some of the convention, but not much. I am saving myself for the Republican National Convention. Why? Because it’s so easy to get swept up in the thrill of my own values being articulated by my chosen candidate, to groove on his fabulous wife, to get rah-rah in my deepest soul about what can happen for America if Obama wins (and therefore to pretty much ignore huge portions of reality)… and to develop a rock hard “us vs them” good guy-bad guy mentality that I don’t want to indulge myself in that way.

Let’s hear it for hope and enthusiasm. Sure. But let’s remember that what makes you and me hopeful and enthusiastic is very different what makes millions of our fellow Americans hopeful and enthusiastic, and let’s guard against fantasy visions of landslide victories that will occur when millions are converted to my (our) superior point of view. It just doesn’t work that way. And after the last election, we should all know better.

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  1. Have your friend check out the Facebook group: “Stop Barack Obama (One Million Strong and Growing)” to see how many people were won over.

    Comment by UUpdater — August 29, 2008 #

  2. IMHO, there has never been consensus, just a willingness to only listen to certain groups of people, which I guess gave the appearance of consensus.

    That said, Barack Obama doesn’t need consensus, he just needs 270 electoral votes.

    CC

    Comment by Chalicechick — August 29, 2008 #

  3. But let’s remember that what makes you and me hopeful and enthusiastic is very different what makes millions of our fellow Americans hopeful and enthusiastic, and let’s guard against fantasy visions of landslide victories that will occur when millions are converted to my (our) superior point of view.

    Is the you and me here the universe of UUs that somehow excludes UU’s like myself who think McCain’s a pretty good guy, and far better than a guy mentored by Chicago’s State Senator Emil Jones? (And before that by Bill Ayer’s Dad of ComEd CEO fame?)

    And that at some point all will be converted to your point of view which will be the consensus UU view…leaving us UU’s for McCain apostates indeed… apostates in a Church which professes no creed to from which to apostasize.

    That is a bit of a jumble to reflect on.

    Comment by Bill Baar — August 29, 2008 #

  4. Bill, my point — and I’m sorry it wasn’t clearer– was to caution against that kind of assumption. The “you and me” was meant ironically. I serve a congregation with plenty of Republicans and have always been incredibly frustrated with the assumption that to be a UU is to be politically as well as religiously liberal.

    Comment by PeaceBang — August 29, 2008 #

  5. Obama is the only guy who can restore America’s prestige in the world right now. But can he win? Maybe not. Maybe we are all overestimating the cool, liberal, advanced America that is trusting Obama to move forward from the Dark Age we have been going through.

    But if he doesn’t win, if the little soldier with a supposedly heroic past wins, then the America that I used to love will be, if not dead, certainly in an almost irreversible comma. And it would be a pity, because it probably never was the greatest nation in the world as they like to say and believe, but it was a pretty good place after all.

    Comment by Jaume — August 29, 2008 #

  6. ok…thanks…

    Comment by Bill Baar — August 29, 2008 #

  7. I don’t think people are going to stop coming to America regardless of who wins Jaume.

    Comment by Bill Baar — August 29, 2008 #

  8. How very sad that McCain’s pandering to first this squeaky wheel, then that one, led him to choose a thoroughly inexperienced woman, Alaska’s new governor and former mayor of a town of 8.500, to be his running mate! And he’s the one who harped on a vice president being ready to hit the ground running if anything happened to the president? And isn’t he the man who said he would only serve for one term, then step aside?

    Comment by Linda Senn — August 29, 2008 #

  9. I’m not sure consensus ever really existed. While it is true that we are more fragmented and polarized, if you look back on history one sees that one party dominated the past for extended periods of time, which gave way for total domination by another party for another lengthy period.

    The modern era has seen us wage pitched battle across stark differences in ideology. I’m not sure we’ll ever see another landslide election for a long while.

    And as for starry-eyed believers, I think about Mencken’s statement that “I’ve never met a true believer worth knowing”.

    Comment by Comrade Kevin — August 29, 2008 #

  10. I’m with you on this one, PB.

    Comment by h sofia — August 29, 2008 #

  11. As i read history, there never was a consensus in America. Or if there was consensus on thing like “America is great”, there was no consensus on why that was so. every President has had their foes, starting with the newspapers that accused Geo. Washington of burning down the War Department to destroy its records.

    Comment by StevenR — August 29, 2008 #

  12. I appreciate PB’s encouragement to remember discourse and not Crossfire-style shouting matches. That’s my problem with political (or religious) “discussions” now-a-days. It seems to me like everyone forgot how to discuss without arguing. My very wise husband says it best: “I’ll discuss anything with you, but I won’t argue with you.” What he means by that is, “I will share my opinion with you and enjoy listening to you share yours. I will not try to convert you to my way of thinking if you don’t try to convert me to yours. But as soon as you start shouting, I’m outta here.”

    It’d be nice if the majority of folks could remember that’s how discussion is intended to be and not like one of those timed sports shows where the talking head gets so many seconds to shout his opinion before the next person goes off.

    Ugh.

    As always, thanks PB.

    Comment by Lynette — August 29, 2008 #

  13. Well, I’m the friend that wrote that on facebook, but we’re obviously not friends enough for you to know that I have been negative about Obama’s chances of winning since before he ran, and continue to be. My commentary was around the fact that I can’t believe that the rest of America does not have the same values that I do–quality education for our children, affordable health care for all Americans, ending this war, ending tax cuts for the rich. “How can he not win?” means to me, “how come people don’t want this as bad as I do?” Just to clarify. Thanks.

    Comment by Robin Barraza — August 29, 2008 #

  14. A quote from Brink Lindsey’s Age of Abundance website (the title of his thoughtful book on this topic). He lays out the history of my time: the 60’s to today and I think the challange it gave us:

    The two movements thus offered conflicting half-truths. On the left were gathered those elements of American society most open to the new possibilities of mass affluence and most eager to explore them – in other words, the people at the forefront of the push for civil rights, feminism, and environmentalism, as well as sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. At the same time, however, many on the left harbored a deep antagonism toward the institutions of capitalism and middle-class life that had created all those exciting new possibilities. On the right, meanwhile, were the faithful defenders of capitalism and middle-class mores. But included in this group were the people most repelled by and hostile to the social and cultural ferment that capitalism and middle-class mores were producing. This is the blind vs. blind struggle of the culture wars: one side attacked capitalism while rejoicing in its fruits; the other side celebrated capitalism while denouncing its fruits as poisonous.

    This conflict is still with us today, in the form of the polarized politics of Red America vs. Blue America. The good news, though, is that this polarization mostly concerns minorities of true believers and their media talking heads rather the bulk of ordinary Americans. Most Americans, it turns out, have moved on since the ’60s toward a common ground whose coloration is not recognizably red or blue – call it a purplish, libertarianish centrism. On the one hand, they embrace the traditional, Middle American values of patriotism, law and order, the work ethic, and commitment to family life. At the same time, though, they hold attitudes on race and sex that are dramatically more liberal than those that held sway a generation or two ago. Likewise, they are deeply skeptical of authority, and are strongly committed to open-mindedness and tolerance. Such an amalgamation of views is flatly inconsistent with current definitions of ideological purity. Despite all the talk of raging culture wars, most Americans are nonbelligerents.

    I’m betting without knowing much about here, Gov. Palin is going to over the winning synthesis of libertarianism and traditionalism.

    Liberalism in both it’s Political and Theological faces, committed to a notion of being in the vanguard, of needing to teach people not quite theologically or politically where they should be, people who don’t vote their self interests because they’re not educated.

    That runs counter to the Libertarian consensus and I think McCain\Palin better equiped to harness it than Obama\Biden will be able too.

    Comment by Bill Baar — August 29, 2008 #

  15. geez…

    sorry:

    I’m betting, without knowing much about her, Gov. Palin is going to offer the winning synthesis of libertarianism and traditionalism.

    And the link to Lindsey’s site: http://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/07/09/brink-lindsey/the-libertarian-center/

    Comment by Bill Baar — August 29, 2008 #

  16. I don’t think this country is polarized. I think there is a remarkable consensus in this country, on many many fronts: the environment, civil rights, the free market, and so on. The difference between the two parties is really not great. The difference in the principles of our two candidates is not great, either. Of course, when you address particular pieces of legislation, you will naturally find two approaches, but the deeper intentions and principles of the people involved are the same.

    Why is that people can see so much in common among the religions of the world, but so little in common between Democrats and Republicans?

    Comment by Kevin Holsapple — August 29, 2008 #

  17. I watched part of the McCain/Palin announcement at noon today. When Palin announced that McCain would be the President who will keep nuclear weapons out of Iran, that’s when I started barking at my TV. Not long after, the crowd stated cheering and shouting “USA! USA! USA!”. While I “enjoy the fruits of capitalism”, at the same time my stomach turns when a group like this (republican or democratic) appears to have little regard for the rest of the world and how America is relating to it.

    I realize that so much hot air is being thrown around at BOTH conventions, and that’s why (much like the Olympics) I don’t make any special effort to watch either of them.

    BTW, i’ts been easy for me to remember Palin’s name because I’m a Monty Python fan (Michael Palin) :)

    Comment by Jim B. — August 29, 2008 #

  18. Hey, Bob, as someone who pals around with quite a few libertarians, I can assure you that NONE of them are thrilled with the choice of Sarah “OK, fine, I won’t build the bridge, but Alaska’s keeping the pork money.” Palin.

    It’s the traditionalist folks who are happy, and them alone.

    CC

    Comment by Chalicechick — August 30, 2008 #

  19. PB, I do hope you watch the speech.

    And “never” is a very long time.

    Laura

    Comment by Laura Toepfer — August 30, 2008 #

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