The Public's Changing Opinion on 'Change'

How much stock ought we to put in the grand campaign slogans concocted by the Obama Administration? Certainly, during the campaign words such as 'Change' or 'Audacity' were golden when it came to projecting a favorable image to the electorate. But can these slogans sustain Pres. Obama's popularity through the rough-and-tumble of his Presidency? Will slogans like, "Yes, We Can" maintain their credence in the face of a $787 billion stimulus package or a $2.5 trillion health care bill? 

The 2008 election seemed the indicate that the historically center-right American public had become more receptive to an expanding government bureaucracy. Had the housing bubble and the ensuing financial crisis pushed the American electorate to embrace big government?

While I don't usually read TIME Magazine (they have no credibility in my mind), Nina Easton published an article in the magazine which is well worth reading. In the article, she compellingly argues that the electorate, despite the election of Pres. Obama, is still opposed to big government.

When Obama took office, conventional wisdom held that the American people, jarred by a financial crisis they were routinely told was "the worst since the Great Depression," would race into the protective arms of Washington. After all, the Federal Government had given us the New Deal in the worst of times and a patchwork of economic safety nets since. The idea is that we instinctively turn to its beneficent hand to ease the pain of hurricanes, floods, tornadoes--and recessions.

Yet in today's hard economic times, something startling began showing up in public-opinion polls: fewer people than in the past wanted Washington to step in. In the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, only 23% of respondents said they trust the government "always or most of the time"--the smallest proportion in 12 years. The percentage of voters who think government should "do more to solve problems and meet the needs of people" has dropped 5 points since Obama's first weeks in office, while that of those who think government should leave more things "to businesses" rose 8 points. The shift is especially noticeable among independent voters, a small plurality of whom wanted government to "do more" after Obama took office; now--by a margin of 17--they think government does "too much."

The American public has been considered by most political observers to be a center-right crowd. Generally, they like a small government to stay out of the free market. Even the New Deal, which certainly endorsed a bigger government, was to the right of the quasi-socialist systems set up in Western Europe following WWII. While there are a number of explanatory reasons for this phenomenon (foremost was the Cold War), American's have never been captivated by the socialist/big government agenda. Even the more liberal Presidents, such as Johnson and Carter, would be considered moderates in European politics.

With the economic crisis, fear and anxiety about the future of the U.S. economic future pervaded the Presidential elections of 2008. It would be irrational to separate Obama's victory from the sense of economic doom. The voters dissatisfied and fearing the worst, abandoned their decades-long preference for small government and voted for 'change' -- and big government.

The electorate, however, has realized what 'change' is. The 'change' that Obama offered is not a new strategy, it is not a ground-breaking new approach to problems. Obama's change has been around since the post-WWII rise of socialized democracies in Europe. 'Change' was the decades-old strategy: replace market economics with government bureaucracy.

It is clear now that the voters have changed their minds about 'change.' The initial popularity of big-government is over; the honeymoon with bureaucracy has ended. In November 2008, the people might have voted for big government, but in November of 2009, they realized that the 'change' was really more of the same.

It's not hard to find a national consensus that government should lead on matters like national defense, natural disasters, food safety and support for the elderly and poor. But any bold reach beyond the basics becomes problematic when swing voters start to confront costly realities and the soaring sweep of campaign promises gets lost in programmatic details. Since last spring, there has been a sizable drop in the portion of voters who think Washington should guarantee health insurance, with Gallup now recording--for the first time since it began asking the question--more people saying it is not the government's responsibility (50%) than saying it is (47%).

This is the reason for the dramatic change in opinion on Obama's policies. During the first year of the Obama Administration, the electorate realized the actual costs of his bureaucratic policies. During the campaign, it was easy to hide the realities of what expanding Federal power meant: more costs, less efficiency, more taxes. But now, when those policies are put to the test in the arena of national politics, the costly reality of big-government has been exposed. And unlike their European counterparts, the American electorate cannot stomach this reality.

What I am suggesting is that the voters did not know what they were voting for. Most voters did not have the time to understand what 'change' was; they knew it was different and that was good enough for their vote. When 'change' manifested itself as big-government, they realized what 'change' was and they rejected it. 

'Change' is a great campaign slogan -- especially when the country is in the midst of crises in both the domestic and international arenas. 'Change' is generic, positive, optimistic. It epitomizes the Obama campaign.

However, big-government is not a generic policy. It is costly, inefficient, and unappetizing to the American public. 

It was when 'change' turned from generic to specific that the electorate changed its opinion on change.

Why is Science Committing Suicide?

Under the auspices of Climategate, we are seeing the reputation of hard science implode. The people can no longer trust the "experts" that give us the stats on scientific problems, because Climategate has shown us that these "experts" are willing to manipulate the data to support their bias.

What does it mean when you have a formerly credentialed "expert" stepping down amid investigations that he "cooked the books?" What does it mean when you have multiple investigations  concerning allegations of lying and deception? For goodness sake, even Jon Stewart is commenting on the irony of the moment.

Will all this blow over? Will the public forget this and continue to believe that facts that are scientifically-proven? Perhaps. However, despite my lack of a crystal ball, I can positively predict that conservative commentators will never let this one go. Climategate will be staple fodder for talk radio for a long time.

Let us look an article published in the Wall Street Journal that looks at the long term effects of this scandal.

Global warming enlisted the collective reputation of science. Because "science" said so, all the world was about to undertake a vast reordering of human behavior at almost unimaginable financial cost. Not every day does the work of scientists lead to galactic events simply called Kyoto or Copenhagen. At least not since the Manhattan Project.

In other words, science chose to stake its reputation on the issue of global warming. This was not a externally-imposed phenomenon; rather, science chose to lend their collective reputation to the theory of global warming.

The choice to link your scientific reputation to a such a shaky theory seems counter-intuitive. To any person who honestly looks at the issue, it is relatively easy to expose serious flaws in the theory of global warming. I can't imagine that any educated scientist (who does their homework) would chose to stake their entire academic reputation on such a flimsy theory. Why would they make this choice?

I can identify two plausible reasons for why they would take such a risk:
1) They did not do their homework. This is the optimist in me, hoping that these scientists really are misinformed. They could have been deceived by other scientists whose reputations were so impeccable that they did not consider questioning their findings. However, there were thousands of other scientists who declared that global warming was a hoax, so it seems ridiculous to assume that they could have been in the dark.
2) They followed the money. Whether we will admit it or not science is now a big business. There are millions of dollars in grants thrown around the academic world, and the people who are funding these grants have strong political preferences. It is certainly plausible to argue that scientists, in an attempt to garner more grants and funding, would manipulate the data to satisfy a certain type of political preference.  In other words, become a proponent of global warming (even if you must lie to do so) and you will garner the donations of pro-global warming institutions.

As I hint at in my analysis, I clearly believe that second reason is far more plausible. Science is now big money, and money corrupts.

Hard science, alongside medicine, was one of the few things left accorded automatic stature and respect by most untrained lay persons. But the average person reading accounts of the East Anglia emails will conclude that hard science has become just another faction, as politicized and "messy" as, say, gender studies.

Beneath this dispute is a relatively new, very postmodern environmental idea known as "the precautionary principle." As defined by one official version: "When an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically."

If the new ethos is that "close-enough" science is now sufficient to achieve political goals, serious scientists should be under no illusion that politicians will press-gang them into service for future agendas. Everyone working in science, no matter their politics, has an stake in cleaning up the mess revealed by the East Anglia emails. Science is on the credibility bubble. If it pops, centuries of what we understand to be the role of science go with it. 

As Climategate continues to unfold, it is interesting to observe what will be the long-term effects. Don't just ask how Climategate will impact the cause of global warming. Ask yourself: will science ever be able to recover? Can the public ever trust the "experts" who are giving them "the facts" again?

What I find most intriguing about all the fall of scientific credibility is that this harm is self-inflicted. It is not like some dissenter (dare I say, heretic) attacked falsely lied about global warming in order to damage the reputations of many scientists. No, scientists chose to gamble their reputations on the theory of global warming, and they got burned.

Metaphorically, science is committing suicide.

Where the Rubber hits the Sand

So far in his first term, President Obama has focused on domestic policy and been a little light on the international. This certainly was a major critique of Pres. Obama when he entered office. It seems that his trip through Europe mid-campaign hasn't made him the foreign policy enthusiast that the Office of President requires.

Certainly, the War in Afghanistan is one of the foremost issues in American foreign policy. Over the past year, the American public has been told time-after-time about how the Afghanistan War is getting out of hand, with ominous allusions to the 04-06 Iraqi quagmire. While Iraq has become a more stable country in the months following the ingenious General Petraeus and "The Surge", it seems that Afghanistan has gone the opposite direction -- more casualties and less stability.

In the recent weeks, the Obama Administration has been forced to focus on defining it's policy on the War in Afghanistan. Here is the article I will examine, from Nov. 17 ,which outlines the goals of the Administration. For information on the speech the President will give tomorrow night, check out this article from earlier today.

Top Obama administration officials took pains to lower the bar for success in Afghanistan Sunday, stressing that the administration is seeking an exit strategy and holds "no illusions" that it will transform the country into a functional modern democracy. 

Lowering the bars for success, I would suggest, is a horrible strategy. This idea that you cannot establish a "functional" democracy in Afghanistan is ludicrous. In the Middle East, we have already established a functioning democracy in Iraq, which not only holds regular elections, but also has seen civilian deaths fall to record lows this month. For goodness sake, the Iraqi government has its own YouTube channel to promote its propaganda.  Why is Afghanistan so much different? Perhaps, I would argue, the problem is not that this region is inherently unable to have functioning democracies, but that our strategy is flawed. Just as experts who said democracy was "unattainable" in Iraq were wrong, I would contend a similar statement about Afghanistan will be proven wrong. President Obama, don't change the end goal, change the strategy.

"We have been there for eight years. It is a long, long time. And we have to keep focused on what our purpose was in the first place. Our purpose was to disrupt and dismantle and destroy Al Qaeda," he told CNN's "State of the Union." But obviously we cannot make an open-ended commitment. And we want to do this in a way that maximizes our efforts against Al Qaeda, but within the framework of bringing our troops home at some point. ... There has to be a framework to this decision." 

Defining the "end strategy" is exactly what we need to avoid. An end strategy gives no benefits whatsoever. An end strategy has no purpose aside from being a ceremonial "shame on you" to the Afghani government. All it does is point out how frustrated we are with the progress in the country, and show our impatience to the entire world. When we rebuilt Japan after WWII, we did not constantly whine and complain about the lack of progress. We did not constantly remind the people and government of Japan that we were dissatisfied with their efforts and wanted to wash our hands of the operation as soon a possible. An exit strategy goes against the image that we need to project to the people of these new democracies -- that we are confident in democracy and want to establish long-term alliances with the new countries. 

Clinton would not comment directly on concerns expressed by the U.S. ambassador to the country, Karl Eikenberry, who relayed to the White House his reservations about whether problems with the Afghan government could undermine the effectiveness of any troop increase. 

This is what President Obama needs to address in his speech tomorrow. The Afghani government was given the golden opportunity after the post-9/11 toppling of the Taliban to establish a democracy. Is corruption the reason why they failed? What measures will he recommend be taken to root out corruption in the government? We need the President to take the initiative, take leadership, and come up with a strategy to confront corruption in the Afghani state. I don't want to hear, "I will recommend the Afghani leaders address this problem", or "the government in Afghanistan needs to address this dire situation"; no, I want President Obama, or his foreign policy experts, to design a actual policy to solve this problem. That is what leaders do: find problems, find solutions.

President Obama, Afghanistan can be made into a stable democratic ally. Drop the rhetoric about how democracy is impossible in Afghanistan, or about the need for an exit strategy. Then, spend time actually solving the huge problems facing the Afghani government. 

It is time for the rubber to hit the sand.

A New Start

Hello everyone.

I do realize that I have not updated my blog in over two years. While I could muster a plethora of excuses to defend my seemingly inability to faithfully blog, I will simply plead guilty to the crime of laziness and procrastination.

Regardless, I am taking a new lease on life (or blogging) and have resolved to furnish "Compassionate Capitalist" with an intelligent, thought-provoking commentary on the news of the day.

I cannot promise that this process will be smooth, or easy for that matter. But like Sec. Timothy Geithner on tax day, I am resolved to make a new start and be more accountable to the public. (Let's hope Tim and I don't end up in the same boat)

-Anthony