I couldn't believe how many connections there were to our class in Jon Meacham's latest article in Newsweek. He basically argues that America is generally conservative (right of center, to be precise), and that even if the Democrats win BIG, Obama will more effective if he is pragmatic and recognizes that Americans are basically more conservative than liberal. This is especially ironic to me given that Obama has cast himself as the candidate of hope and idealism. But perhaps that's how our political system has been set up from the Revolutionary era... we want to bring someone into power who inspires us and casts a grandiose vision (Declaration of Independence), but then we want a government that can actually get some things done without going too far and taking us out of our comfort zones (Constitution).
The other interesting thing was his agreement with my own observations in class the other day, namely that Americans have this weird love-hate relationship with government and taxes. Perhaps because our Revolution was so steeped in taxation issues, we say "taxes" as if we're referring to STDs. Yet we expect the state to fulfill certain obligations, like war, education, disaster relief, rescuing investment banks... depending on your personal views of what's important. I love Meacham's characterization: "The American relationship with government is so fraught with hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance that it is difficult to discuss with any degree of rationality." Just wait til we get to the Constitution...
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I won't pursue the obvious STD analogy ("I feel like I have a tax on my...").
It seems to me that the key difference between people on the political spectrum is not so much whether or not they agree or disagree with the idea of taxes (there are some exceptions, obviously), but on the idea of what we should spend tax money on. In a sense, aren't we like a family bickering over what the family budget should look like?
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