Down With the People

Blame the childish, ignorant American public—not politicians—for our political and
economic crisis.
simultaneously demands and rejects
By Jacob Weisberg
action on unemployment, deficits, health
care, climate change, and a whole host of
Updated Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010, at 7:07
other major problems. Sixty percent of
AM ET
Americans want stricter regulations of
In trying to explain why our political financial institutions. But nearly the
same proportion says we're suffering
paralysis seems to have gotten so much
from too much regulation on business.
worse over the past year, analysts have
rounded up a plausible collection of That kind of illogic—or, if you prefer,
reasons including: President Obama's susceptibility to rhetorical
tactical missteps, the obstinacy of manipulation—is what locks the status
congressional Republicans, rising quo in place.
partisanship in Washington, the
At the root of this kind of self-
blustering idiocracy of the cable-news
contradiction is our historical, nationally
stations, and the Senate filibuster, which
characterological ambivalence about
has devolved into a super-majority
government. We want Washington and
threshold for any important legislation.
the states to fix all of our problems now.
These are all large factors, to be sure, but
At the same time, we want government to
that list neglects what may be the biggest
shrink, spend less, and reduce our taxes.
culprit in our current predicament: the
We dislike government in the abstract:
childishness, ignorance, and growing
According to CNN, 67 percent of people
incoherence of the public at large.

Anybody who says you can't have it both Advertisement

ways clearly hasn't been spending much
time reading opinion polls lately. One
year ago, 59 percent of the American
public liked the stimulus plan, according
to Gallup. A few months later, with the
economy still deeply mired in recession, a
majority of the same size said Obama
was spending too much money on it.
There's nothing wrong with changing
your mind, of course, but opinion polls
over the last year reflect something
altogether more troubling: a country that

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Down With the People
really don't want to hear about sacrifices
favor balancing the budget even when
or trade-offs—except as flattering
the country is in a recession or a war,
descriptions about how ready we, as a
which is madness. But we love
people, are, or used to be, to accept them.
government in the particular: Even larger
We like the idea of hard choices in
majorities oppose the kind of spending
theory. When was the last time we made
cuts that would reduce projected deficits,
one in reality?
let alone eliminate them. Nearly half the
public wants to cancel the Obama
The politicians thriving at the moment
stimulus, and a strong majority doesn't are the ones who embody this live-for-
want another round of it. But 80-plus the-today mentality, those best able to
percent of people want to extend call for the impossible with a straight
unemployment benefits and to spend face. Take Scott Brown, the newly elected
more money on roads and bridges.
Senator from Massachusetts. Brown
There's another term for that stuff: more
wants government to take in less
stimulus spending. revenue: He has signed a no-new-taxes
pledge and called for an across-the-
The usual way to describe such
board tax cut on families and businesses.
inconsistent demands from voters is to s
But Brown doesn't want government to
ay that the public is an angry, populist,
spend any less money: He opposes
tea-partying mood. But a lot more people
reductions in Medicare payments and all
are watching American Idol than are
other spending cuts of any significance.
watching Glenn Beck, and our collective
He says we can lower deficits above 10
illogic is mostly negligent rather than
percent of GDP—the largest deficits since
militant. The more compelling
explanation is that the American public Advertisement

lives in Candyland, where government

can tackle the big problems and get out
of the way at the same time. In this
respect, the whole country is becoming
more and more like California, where
ignorance is bliss and the state's bonds
have dropped to an A- rating (the same
level as Libya's), thanks to a referendum
system that allows the people to be even m
ore irresponsible than their elected
representatives. Middle-class Americans

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Down With the People
entitlement spending as well as about
World War II, deficits so large that they
the cost of new programs.
threaten our future as the world's
leading military and economic power—
Our inability to address long-term
simply by cutting government waste. No
challenges makes a strong case that the
sensible person who has spent five
United States now faces an era of
minutes looking at the budget thinks historical decline. Our reluctance to
that's remotely possible. The charitable recognize economic choices also portends
interpretation is that Brown embodies
negative effects for the rest of the world.
naive optimism, an approach to politics
To change this story line, we need to stop
that Ronald Reagan left as one of his
blaming the rascals we elect to office and
more dubious legacies to Republican start looking to ourselves.
Party. A better explanation is that Brown
is consciously pandering to the public's Jacob Weisberg is chairman and editor-in-
ignorance and illusions the same way the chief of the Slate Groupand author of
rest of his Republican colleagues are. The Bush TragedyFollow him at http:
//twitter.com/jacobwe.
I don't mean to suggest that honesty is
what separates the two parties.
Increasingly, the crucial distinction is
between the minority of serious
politicians in either party who are
prepared to speak directly about our
choices, on the one hand, and the
majority who indulge the public's
delusions, on the other. I would put Advertisement

President Obama and his economic team

in the first group, along with California
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Republicans are more indulgent of the
public's unrealism in general, but
Democrats have spent years fostering
their own forms of denial. Where
Republicans encourage popular myths
about taxes, spending, and climate
change, Democrats tend to stoke our
fantasies about the sustainability of

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