While reading Joseph Stiglitz’s Guardian column today, I began thinking about the Republicans I’ve talked to and watched on TV in recent weeks. When you’re distanced from the infuriating political and business practices of the US, it’s easy enough to fall back into the position that people are being cuckolded and a “WHY DON’T THEY SEE?” mentality. The left likes to take the position that the political right is pulling the wool over the eyes of the people, especially in the case of the Tea Party. To some extent, this is definitely happening. I would like to think that anyone who reads that Stiglitz article would understand the problems that the Republicans have created, and that anyone who disagrees is simply being lied to and coerced into an ideology by politicians and their mouthpiece, Fox News. Again, to some extent, this is definitely happening.
But what’s really striking is just how much these practices are considered good and correct. America has a definite issue with blaming the poor for their own problems and failing to see that the cards are stacked against a certain amount of the populous. Predatory lending led to people who couldn’t afford it and didn’t know any better to get mortgages that they were bound to default on, having been ignorant of the fine print. Republicans might say that it was their own damn fault for not being smart enough, and why should we pay for their idiocy? A friend of mine said as much the other day, stating that the world is unfair and there are plenty of opportunities for the downtrodden if they just work hard enough. It’s the typical ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ mentality, because so and so’s father did and his father did it before him etc…
I think the left has an issue in treating these people as dumb or the Republicans as evil. The Iraq War wasn’t about oil, and it wasn’t about pumping money into Halliburton. Those (at least the latter) were just fringe benefits. The real issue was ideology. The CPA was stocked with young Republicans, fresh out of college, who thought that their mission was just and true. They’re believers. The same way that a lot of people believe that the American Dream can only be achieved through hard work. Handouts don’t help anybody, and they cost the taxpayer money. They also, crucially, genuinely believe that corporations need a free reign and that their success leads to the best possible result for most of America. There’s social darwinism going on here, of course, as they don’t tend to believe that everyone will benefit. It isn’t immoral to them to say that the deserving will prosper and to those that don’t, well, tough luck. It’s either Randian Objectivism or Prosperity Theology (or, confusingly, both).
For me, the key to studying history is interpretation and context. Reading Gregory of Tours can be confusing, for Clovis is a bloodthirsty, unrepentant murderer in one paragraph and an ordained soldier of God the next. Motivation is key here, for if you know who was paying for Gregory to write this, the religious context of the time, the crucial role of the Church in tearing down Aryanism, etc…, then it makes sense. Simply screaming at Republicans and saying “you’re being taken for a ride, idiots” does nothing, because I don’t believe they are.
It’s frustrating as hell, but that’s America, man.
