Many reporters like to discuss the Republican Party as currently divided between the tea party and the establishment. But that line misunderstands what is actually going on. The biggest divide in politics is not between the tea party and the establishment. It is not even between Republicans and Democrats. The biggest divide is between career politicians—in both parties—and the American people.
There is a fundamental corruption in Washington—those in power get fatter and happier while the rest of America suffers as a consequence of their policies.
…The only way to fix Washington is to shift decision making from the smoke-filled rooms in Washington DC, back to the grassroots and the people. [Presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, from his book, “A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America”]
Ted Cruz means well, but he’s not quite right.
The American people don’t like the career politicians. But it’s most Americans telling the politicians what to do.
The vast majority of voters, time and again, are the ones creating all this ugliness. It’s time that somebody tell them the truth.
Imagine a politician who said the following: “Wake up people. You want us to keep spending, spending, spending. Especially on Social Security and Medicare. You say it’s your money, but your money is not enough to keep these programs going. Not even close. Taxes and debt are through the roof. The national debt is $18 trillion. Most of that is caused by Social Security and Medicare. You don’t like these facts. Tax the rich, many of you say. We could tax the top 1 percent of earners at 100 percent, confiscating all of their wealth. It would not make a dent, and it would also be the end of the jobs and businesses most of these wealthy people provide. You people need to get real. Either let us cut and privatize these programs, at least for the future, or shut up about our spending, taxing and borrowing.”
Imagine a politician saying such things. Even Ted Cruz would not say them. Neither would Donald Trump. I just finished Donald Trump’s new book, called “Crippled America: Making America Great Again.” In a lot of respects he means well. But he doesn’t get it, either. He maintains we can save Social Security and Medicare merely by growing the private economy. There isn’t a private economy that could ever pay for the literally unlimited demands of our present government, demands fueled–let’s face it–by an entitled electorate.
Trump has to be smart enough to know this. Surely he owns a calculator, or knows someone who does. But like the politicians in D.C. he properly condemns, he won’t face the truth, either. He has no plan to cut the debt other than cut the corporate tax (a wise move for the economy) and, in contradiction, “make the rich pay their fair share.” What does that mean? Socialism? Probably not, according to Trump. But he never specifies. (Ben Carson is even more vague.)
The problem is that Americans, by and large, dislike and distrust government programs and government control, in the abstract. But when it comes to any particular case, they want the programs they like funded forever. And more than ever before, it seems, more Americans want and like government programs. It’s not that they like them, really. It’s just that they believe nobody can live without them. Anything that’s considered desirable or useful must now be subsidized by the government. It’s not a need. It’s an entitlement.
And we wonder why the people these entitled-feeling Americans vote into office are ugly, corrupt, power-mongering and manipulative little dictators? We (most of us) made them this way!
Americans, at least when they vote, remind me of spoiled teenagers. (Not all teens are like this, but the spoiled and clueless kind). They want all the benefits and advantages of a comfortable life as they know it, but few or none of the responsibilities or effort required. Most Americans want the unlimited and imagined wealth of government to take care of them, but they don’t want to part with any of the benefits that previous eras of capitalism brought them. Capitalism and socialism: They want both, and they want to shrug off the issue by saying, “I’m not ideological.”
In this context, the only kind of President or leader who could make a difference would be a decisively unpopular one. It’s an unpopular one who would tell them the absolute truth. If that man or woman managed to get elected, and proved to mean what he or she said, we’d be on our way to recovery. Not a moment sooner.
Medicare and Social Security are at the heart of America’s fiscal problem. They’re also at the heart of America’s moral, social and psychological problems. It’s unthinkable heresy to say this, but it’s still true. The reason is that these programs more closely resemble socialism than any other program or policy in the country. (Public education is close behind).
Socialism is rotten to the core. America has declined precisely to the extent it has adopted socialism. Health care, retirement insurance and education are mostly government-run. Those areas of the economy are dysfunctional and beyond repair, as nearly everyone agrees. You don’t hear this about the sectors of the economy that are partly or mostly capitalist. Computers, smart phones, technology, hair care, supermarkets, restaurants, automobiles? While heavily regulated, these commodities are more market-based than not. And most people find what they want or need.
Capitalism (even when partial, or hampered) gets the job done. It relies on profit, self-responsibility and “skin in the game.” Socialist countries rot from within. They promote coercion, they punish success, they foster envy and misery, and they forbid anything outside the dreary economic and emotional impoverishment of conformity. It’s mind-boggling to me that America’s intellectuals and “progressives” are the ones who want socialism (or more government control, regardless of what they call it); nothing fosters more regression and stagnation than socialism.
We have got it all backwards. And it’s slowly killing us.
America is not an all-out socialist country. That’s the only reason we’re still standing. It’s also not a country with a widespread, deeply embedded socialist mentality. We still have more free speech than not, while most consistent socialist countries (Cuba, North Korea come to mind) are totalitarian.
We have no politicians willing to tell the truth. Or if we do, they will not get very far so long as people want contradictory things.
The truth nobody running for office has yet to say: “Americans, you cannot have it both ways. You can’t keep spending and still get the programs you want. It’s one or the other. It’s socialism, or it’s economic freedom. If you really don’t want socialism, then we’ve got to phase out the socialist programs. That means starting, right here and now, with Medicare and Social Security. Education is next.”
That would be a real and meaningful message of change. No, it’s not going to happen in 2016. That’s why I’m worried America is in twilight. It never had to be so. We should never have let it go, but most of us are doing so. Terrorists are like the parasites or cockroaches taking advantage of our nation’s loss of will to live. Terrorists are getting the message, by our lack of an appropriate response to what they do.
I’m all for blasting the politicians, especially the career politicians, out of their seats of power, tomorrow if not sooner. Throw the bums out; but do not replace them with new ones. We have to get real. The voters are just as much to blame as the politicians doing the contradictory, irresponsible things most voters tell them to do. It’s the voters who won’t let good and honest people go into office and do the right things.
Fix yourself first, America. The politics will follow.
You can follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Rehoboth Beach DE). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on Twitter at @MichaelJHurd1