(Community Matters) This sounds like insightful perspective on the electorate
Some economists say the government should be spending more now to stimulate a recovery. Thirty-eight percent of Americans seem to agree with that. But 56 percent have said “government spending when the government is already running a deficit is the wrong approach during an economic downturn because it is only a temporary solution that increases long-term debt.”
These majorities are focused on the fundamentals. They say that repairing the economic moral fabric is the essential national task right now. They are suspicious of government action in general, saying that government often undermines this fabric. But they support specific federal policies that nurture industriousness, responsibility and delayed gratification, like spending on infrastructure, education and research. They distinguish between the deserving and undeserving rich*.
America went through a similar values restoration in the 1820s. Then, too, people sensed that the country had grown soft and decadent. Then, too, Americans rebalanced. They did it quietly and in private.
After listening to family and other moderates over the last week, I’m even more daunted by the task ahead.
* I’d like to know more about this “concept” of deserving and undeserving rich
Community Matters 
Dude,
You’re better than this. Brooks may be the supplier in chief of kindler, gentler, more reasonable-sounding rationales for screwing over the poor, but he’s nothing more than that. And in this installment of his ongoing series on Applebee’s economics, he claims with a straight face that we should follow a fiscal policy because 56 percent of Americans believe it. The same Americans, presumably, whose test scores in math were among the lowest in the industrialized world when they were in school. Who probably got through college, if they went, without taking an economics course. But whose dictates we’re supposed to follow because of some “wisdom of crowds” nonsense. Brooks is generally the poorest excuse for what passes for a “public intellectual” these days, but this is stupid even for him.
And harking back to the 1820s? Love it! Why stop there? Why not the 1720s or the 1620s? One of the main “values restorations” going on in American society in the 1820s was the concerted effort on the part of southerners to double down on the slavery question, since expansion to the west became a priority after the War of 1812, and they knew that slavery had to expand to survive. They didn’t do it quietly or in private; the public record on this is robust and voluminous. But for Brooks to know this, he had have to pull his head out of his a$$ and pick up a book.
I get the need for comforting sociological analysis when times are scary. People want to be shown a light, however faint, on the horizon. But Brooks?! We’re all better than that.
Kip
Oh, gosh, I guess I’m not better than this. I usually appreciate what Brooks has to say, even though I don’t often agree fully, since I find him to be more balanced and moderate than most pundits. Having said that, I was going to respond to say that I also thought this was interesting, although I didn’t read it as the promotion of a fiscal policy. I interpret it only as a commentary on the mass American public sentiment and some interesting observations about the sum of several recent polls and public activities. It also seems appropriate to me to look back to some previous era without referencing every social issue of the time. I can certainly understand the argument against this, given the way our social issues are often inextricably intertwined, but I found the reference interesting, nonetheless. Oh well, maybe I should be better than finding something of interest in the piece, but I guess it’s just not to be today. Thank you for posting, Eugene.
Stephen, we can disagree about Brooks in general–I would never describe him as “balanced” or “moderate,” more like “mealy-mouthed” and “fatuous”–but I really don’t see anything interesting in this piece, other than the New York Times having overpaid for it and used it to fill up valuable real estate on its Op-Ed page. I do think he’s promoting a fiscal policy: the economists he alludes to certainly are, and the poll results he summarizes are presented to counter the economists. And you’re correct that there’s nothing wrong with looking to a previous era for guidance or support, but look closely at what he says. Supposedly, Americans in the 1820s underwent some sort of values restoration because they sensed that “the country had grown soft and decadent.” And what caused them to feel that way? He doesn’t say. And how does he know they felt that way? He doesn’t say. He does say that Americans “rebalanced.” But what does that even mean? And then the kicker: “they did it quietly and in private.” If it occurred privately, quietly, how the @#$% does he know about it? Has he conducted some exhaustive search of letters and diaries of the period? Or read the works of historians who have done that sort of heavy lifting? We’ll never know because HE’S NOT SAYING ANYTHING MEANINGFUL. It’s just blather–vaguely reassuring guff that he pulled out of the air and spread across the page, hoping folks would swallow it without too much chewing or thinking.
I stand by my initial point: we can do better than this. Lord knows we deserve better.
Hi Kip – You obviously feel really strongly about it, so it’s definitely interesting to hear your perspective on it. And I definitely hear you on the point of being unable and/or unwilling to back up some of his assertions, especially about the 1820s. It’s all interesting to me to consider and debate the American psyche at this point and at other points in history, so this discussion too is instructive.