Idiots' Guide to Fixing our Politics

Trying to understand the rise of Trump, David Brooks points to our culture's "individualistic/autonomy mindset"  - as if that were a bad thing.   Actually, "rugged individualism", whether opportunistically celebrated by the right - or the by the left, should not be understood as being antithetical to any "community/membership mindset"  In fact, as conservatives rightly point out, the opposite is more true.  Individualism, as in some relative degree of "self-sufficiency", is absolutely necessary for affiliation between equals.  And there lies the rub!

Unrealistic images of rugged individualism have a powerful influence on our society. And there are many forces behind that power, not the least of which is our public relations industry, whether or not it's understood to include most forms of popular entertainment - including "team" sports.  But these unrealistic images are reinforced by almost all our secular institutions, something hotly resented by people on the left because it apparently justifies tax shrinking, union-busting and anti-communism: all tendencies that benefit the .01%.

Does Brooks give the game away when he professes he'd rather see more Americans subordinate themselves to institutions?  He does this even after quoting Daniel Yankelovich who observed more Americans believe our institutions use their power "to enhance their own interests at the expense of the public.” (The pollster noted this back in 1981 following Reagan’s “landslide” of 59% - of the 53% who actually bothered to turn out. . . . which I think means Ronnie won with support from 32% of eligible voters.)  

Brooks also claims the way to fix our politics is to shrink them.                                 (?)

I’m sure he doesn’t mean he’d rather see even lower turnouts. I doubt he’d want that even if more of us voted for Trump or Bernie.  He probably just wants us to be much happier and more fulfilled in other parts of our lives.   That way, maybe, we wouldn’t be so angry when we go to the polls.  (Or something like that.)

Brooks is on slightly more solid ground when he looks back to the days before “the Greatest Generation”.  But more solid does NOT mean less treacherous. Though our culture has long valorized  "rugged individualism", this became super-amplified in the consumerism that increasingly prevailed after World War II.  But it's really so much darker than that.

If you search Wikipedia for "Deaths in US Labor Disputes", you'll find a handy table showing that actual massacres* of striking workers pretty much ceased after 1935.  That's another way of saying that the Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act) plus the rise of military Keynsianism became part of a new social contract.  And that contract also provided middle-class level wages for many working-class families who could have sick time, vacations (maybe even a vacation home!) and comfortable retirements.  In return, the (mostly white) workers agreed to stop giving reasons for the government to shoot them down in the streets.

As Trump accurately points out, our leaders are idiots.  But the term "idiot" has nothing to do with intelligence.  It has everything to do with refusing to recognize civic responsibility. In ancient Athens an idiot was someone who could not see beyond his immediate circumstances.  That's why the idiots on top want us all to be idiots.  

They want us to be idiots who whistle while we work and vote for "acceptable" candidates.  They want us to be idiots who don’t know our place in history, just our place right now.  And unfortunately, we're not equal when it comes to economic power or political clout.  We never were.

But between 1935 and 1975 we were not as unequal.

And it's catching up to us.


*That's if you define a "massacre" as 5 or more killed.