The Loud Shall Inherit the Earth

Since the financial crisis, collapse has been on everyone’s lips. The players in this general talk of implosion: doomsday preppers, gold bugs, and gun nuts, and people who are fashionably hysterical about doomsday preppers, gold bugs, and gun nuts.

So let’s say society took that silly walk over the precipice: who would rise under such a scenario? My guess is that it would be the great pandering orators; feel good folks like Bill Clinton and Sarah Palin. Substance barely matters here in the pre-apocalypse, but at least it matters somewhat. Right now people do take notice if you're Dr. Prodigy Patel, the world's greatest neurosurgeon. They may not care as much about your frontal lobe tinkering as they do about born again benchwarmer Tim Tebow, but at least neurosurgeons still get some respect.

But if society broke down and existence became more like The Road, substance would not matter at all. No one would follow a mousy brain doctor.

The people who would rise would be the great superficial talkers, the ones who could fill the threatening silence with verbal comfort food. Anyone who spoke with precision or unassuming expertise would get nowhere. The untrained ear (which comprises the vast majority of ears), barely understands subtle oration now, and would make even less of an effort to fathom it while scrounging for another unappetizing post-apocalypse meal.

Ironically, one of the people most heralded by those worried about collapse is a prime example of someone who wouldn’t rise under such circumstances: Ron Paul. Consider just some of his talents: medical training, military experience, and an esteemed track record as a high school athlete. The man has about as much substance as you're likely to find in a person. But despite all these qualities--qualities that are uncommon by themselves, let alone combined in one person--no one would follow him post-apocalypse. Why not? Because Ron Paul isn't a rousing speaker. He would either bore the survivors or go over their heads. They might even trample him in their rush to hear Oprah Winfrey's next speech.

Being a verbose dolt is always a surer path than being a learned square. It is an even surer path these days; just look at the 40 year boom in the self-help racket. Self-help exists because once people leave the nest to become adults, they still look for people to be their parents. In the pre-self-help days, when people didn't get divorced every three years and switch religions each time there was a heat wave, their spouses and clergymen acted as de facto parents. Whether they actually loved their spouses or believed their clergymen was irrelevant. They still had a stabilizing force to pat them on the head and say that everything was going to be okay. As those stabilizing forces shriveled, they turned for direction to sophistry factories likes Dr. Phil.

Post-apocalypse, we would all feel like children again, and the people who would capitalize on this would be the folks best able to recite "reality" back to us in bumper sticker form. Even without electricity the soundbyte would be king (perhaps especially, as there would be no Wikipedia to fact-check people with).

So for those who think a societal breakdown would cause a Great Purging of the Morons, I couldn't agree less. You optimists would probably be horrified by the folks who would rise in the wake of such a collapse. We would probably see a lot of pro-wrestlers become leaders; not because of their biceps, but because of their tongues. It wouldn't be a reflective Buddha-type who would take the reins. It would be Ric Flair.

The less intelligent of two evils

One of the major tactical blunders conservatives have made is focusing on individual politicians rather than on ideas. This seems to have started with Clinton (maybe because by then the Cold War was over and that had defined much of their platform?). When Clinton took office, the primary criticisms we heard from conservatives related to his personal life; his eating habits, his marital pitfalls, etc. Very, very little discussion of his actual policies. The conservatism "opposition" to Clinton was more like a roast than a movement.

That's the problem. When you make the opposition all about individual politicians, what happens when that politician leaves? The foundation of your movement is suddenly gone. It is like the difference between spending and investing. While conservatives have been spending political capital focusing on the short term quirks of individual politicians, Democrats have been investing in the long term by making their opposition mostly about ideas that transcend individual politicians (climate change, "affordable healthcare,").

Yes, when Bush II was in office, there was plenty of focus on his accent, his speech pattern, his wild youth. But there was also constant discussion of his tax policies, social policies, and towards the end, his warmongering. Contrast that with the conservative obsession with Obama's birth certificate and alleged allegiance to Islam. Even the bashing of Obamacare largely came down to the idea-free slogan: "Obama's a socialist!"

The conservative focus on individual politicians isn't isolated to individual Democrats. They make their own campaigns about individual Republicans. Every campaign speech from a conservative mentions "Reagan Republicanism." No discussion of anything Reagan did; just a constant repetition of his name. Again, this is totally ineffective. An 18-year-old potential Republican voter doesn't care about Reagan. He could be made to care about a Reagan-related conservative idea...if one were actually presented to him.

In order to win a War of Ideas, you have to have some actual ideas. The closest thing Republicans have had to an idea is the War on Terror. And as voters have tired of it, all Republicans have done is double down (especially in '08).

Once more: climate change is a spreadable idea. Obsessing about Al Gore's personal carbon footprint isn't.

Airing Our Differences

Starting with the Clinton administration, you began to hear widespread criticism of conservative talk radio. Conservative talk radio was called "inflammatory," "irresponsible," and "conspiratorial." [Although it is labeled "conservative talk radio," let's call it REPUBLICAN TALK RADIO, AS NEARLY ALL OF IT IS ABOUT PARTY, NOT PHILOSOPHY].

Perhaps not coincidentally, this dovetailed with the media's general talking point about the "divisive" and "polarized" tone of the "national political conversation." You may have noticed that this talking point has been around ever since.

The inference is that something has changed to make Republican rhetoric more rabid. Maybe something has changed. Or maybe it is merely that Bill Clinton was the first Democratic President to hold office once Republican radio had become dominant.

Remember, Republicans held office for 12 years before Clinton, during which time Republican radio became a nationwide force. When Democrats had last held the White House (Carter), Republican radio as we know it today did not exist.

If it had, JUST IMAGINE how inflammatory Republican radio would have been under Carter. Just imagine what they would have accused him of during the hostage crisis. Just imagine what they would have said about his views on energy. Try to picture the surgical deconstruction of Carter’s personal habits (he wore sweaters!). I think it is fair to say the tenor would have been as “extreme” as the Republican radio that is broadcast today.

So really, the "national political conversation" may not have changed that much. It may just be that a change in medium has turned up the volume of that conversation.




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