Friedersdorf on Happy Meal-Conservative Talk Radio
Posted on June 17th, 2009
by Nathan P. Origer |
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MINT-AND-CORN COUNTRY, INDIANA — At the risk of perturbing the John Jameses of the world, I direct you to Conor’s lengthy, well written, and incredibly cogent Atlantic Ideas Special Report piece, “When Talk Radio Rants Go Wrong”, inspired by a heated interlocution amongst Conor, Mark Levin, and numerous commenters, with special guest David Frum.
A snippet:
As it happens, I am a fiscal conservative. I criticized President Bush for reckless spending, opposed the Obama Administration’s auto-bailout actions, and regard President Obama’s decision to plan long term spending that drastically increases our debt and deficits as deeply irresponsible. This opposition doesn’t require me to question President Obama’s motives. His critics on this matter need merely to argue that he is wrong on the merits.
Instead Mr. Levin tells his audience, against all logic and evidence, that our current course is owed to a President who wants the economy to fail. Never mind that lots of Democratic lawmakers, economists, and pundits share President Obama’s policy prescriptions, that his response to the fiscal crisis garnered some support from Republicans, or that even unimpeachable fiscal conservatives like Megan McArdle and Jim Manzi reluctantly went along with major portions of his economic policy (precisely because they thought that inaction risked provoking a global economic meltdown). Do all these folks also desire economic meltdown?
The best — or, at least, most imperative — line of the whole piece appears quite early; my praise for this is uncharacteristic, as I tend to eschew concision for prolixity, but it is bang on: “The quality of our political ideas are [sic] at stake.”
Easily drawn into intemperate debates on the nature(s) and definition(s) of conservatism that extract the very best (or worst, depending on your perspective) of pretentiousness from within me, I am all too familiar with the sort of deranged discourse wherein Conor and Levin initially engaged — in terms of substance, if not of infamy of the participants, anyhow. That said, I find wholly baffling the offense taken by mainstream talking-head-thugs, who deride those of us in the cruncy/localist/paleo/alternative camps as being “liberals”, when we question the accuracy of their own adoption of the moniker “conservative”. More important, I find wholly incomprehensible that these self-important jockstraps profess to love America so dearly, so much more than terrorist-loving Democrats do, but continue to envenom the minds of so many “intelligent, devoted citizens with kindly dispositions, [who are] a far cry from the negative stereotypes that prevail in some quarters” with their disingenuous, ill-mannered, reckless verbal defecations. That such obvious contributors, at least metaphysically speaking, to global warming so vehemently and unthinkingly deny the possibility that man’s actions have contributed to climatic change is, I suppose, worth a sardonic chuckle.
N.B.: Happy Meal conservatism.
Filed under: ideas, politics, pop culture
[...] recent work at Post Right Posted on 18 June 2009 by Nathan P. Origer “Friedersdorf on Happy Meal-Conservative Talk Radio”: Conor ably calls out Mark Levin, et [...]
“That such obvious contributors, at least metaphysically speaking, to global warming so vehemently and unthinkingly deny the possibility that man’s actions have contributed to climatic change is, I suppose, worth a sardonic chuckle.”
Unthinkingly? You might consider reading Levin’s chapter on Eco-Statism in his popular Liberty and Tyranny. You may still disagree - that’s your prerogative - but to characterize argument as unthinking would require some audacity.
Furthermore, how is Mark Levin endangering the quality of our political ideas? His scholarly erudition with respect to history, economics, the American judiciary, and political philosophy are broadcast three hours every night. Every minute of his show might not feature ten dollar words such as “prolixity,” but one gets the impression that it could. Instead, I would assume this stylistic decision is for the dual reasons of capturing an audience and communicating ideas in the language of the average voter.
I believe most people prefer ordinary language when engaged in political activism and discourse because, well, they’re not all professional pundits. Trying to communicate abstract political and economic theory is futile in an age where most voters get their news in short cycles (whether it was effective, ever, is indeed doubtable). And, incidentally, Levin does build “the scholarly case” quite regularly. This says much about his audience that certain nagging bloggers choose to ignore. Besides, ordinary language is far more powerful for political movements than ornate effluence from the pen of pretentious or smart-aleck journalist. See the Gettysburg Address.
The bloggers who attack talk radio as somehow unsophisticated are ironically unsophisticated themselves. How one looks at political history and conceives that elections will be won through reasoned discourse and scholarly debate rather than political street-fighting says more about the naiveté of the bloggers than the sometimes effrontery words of Levin et al.
Political movements that ossify into esoteric grumblings from a self-appointed elite, i.e., the tiny “moderate conservative” blogging community, who don’t engage with everyday people, and who, despite characteristic condescension, are both theoretically and historically wrong on politics, will never win elections. What they will do, sooner rather than later I’m happy to say, is fade away into their own oblivion.
As for Conor, here’s a reply:
I have no reason to personally dislike Conor. But writers for influential political journals should certainly not be so ignorant. The essence of his post is irresistibly easy to refute.
Anyone would agree that history is filled with extreme events; reality, as they say, is stranger than fiction. An example of one of the more “extremish” events that occurs repeatedly in history is the collapse of currencies. Currencies collapse when they are judged to be worthless for exchange purposes and citizens are left having to substitute another money, or resorting to barter.
As Conor must know, currency crises beget chaos and hence have serious political consequences. Although it is unfathomable that our government would precipitate such a crisis, intelligent economists, and the Red Chinese for that matter, are worried about our dollar. Conor, this is what Levin means by knowing history and understanding economics. Insurmountable debt - debt that is so immense that no tax increase can meet its obligations - will cause a currency collapse, and Obama has in fact already created that reality with his out of control spending.
We should not be so naïve to think that some of the same advisors that served as Clinton’s economic advisors do not understand federal budgeting. Levin understands this topic, presumably, because he served in the Reagan administration. Something is fishy when an administration creates national insolvency: either they do not understand monetary and fiscal policy and their implications (clearly not the case by virtue of the fact that many are ex-Clintonites), or they are looking to prolong an already severe crisis for alternate ends. Can I hazard a further guess? Currency destruction is in every intelligence services’ handbook for ruining a country. If I recall correctly, Che Guevara instituted dangerous monetary policy to finally sink capitalist Cuba and consolidate power.
Still, a valueless dollar is not required for un-American economic policy. FDR imitated the policies of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany as the population grew ever more discontented with the spent-to-doom economy inherited from Hoover. Why is Obama doing this? Hmm, maybe it’s the mentors? Saul Alinsky, Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, and Frank Davis were/are all hardcore leftists. How about those “Marxist professors” Obama himself admits to hanging around? Have you ever read any Marx, Conor?
Maybe Levin is completely wrong. Maybe the administration is incompetent – this is bad enough. But anyone who isn’t totally ignorant of the laws of economics and the history of political revolution is concerned, and rightly so.