Ezra Klein once called me a "cynical optimist" and I think that's just right -- once you lose your illusions about the past, you'll see that live in George Bush's America is pretty darn good, compared to the historical alternatives.
Another way of putting this is that a lot of people confuse the pace and direction of change with the actual merits of the situation. The New Deal, clearly, was the high tide of progressive politics in the sense that lots of progressive steps were being taken, but America in 2004 is a far, far, far juster society than was America in 1938 or 1967 or other moments of greater progressive change.
This is something to keep in mind, but, well...maybe I just tend to be a pessimistic guy about political things, or maybe I'm just pessimistic about things when it's not my guy in power, but I would amend Matthew's words a bit.
First of all, I would by no stretch call what we have now "George Bush's America". Better, I think, to say that we have "America at the time of George Bush's ascendence". Clunky, yes, but what bothers me -- and, I suspect, many liberals -- is what America would look like if George Bush could wave a hand and in one instant actually create his version of America. At the very least, we'd be talking about a country in which discrimination against homosexuals would be actually codified in the law of the land. I don't oppose Bush despite George Bush's America; I oppose Bush because I don't want to live in what I think George Bush's America would be.
Secondly, America in 2004 may be "a far, far, far juster society" than the America of 1938 or 1967, but there is absolutely no guarantee that it will stay that way. To invoke a historical analogy, I doubt very much if a citizen of Romulus Augustulus's Rome would make any such comparison to, say, Constantine's Rome. Great gains, won over the course of many decades or even centuries, can be undone.
No comments:
Post a Comment