Pushing the Envelope
The other day, Kevin Drum made the following observation:
What all these events have in common is that they evidence a complete disregard for established norms of conduct. This willingness to push the envelope, to depart from all previously accepted standards of fair play and good governance in the quest for partisan advantage, has been the defining feature of the Republican Party over the last twenty to thirty years. And it has slowly infected nearly every aspect of modern politics, including, most perniciously, the standards governing political debate itself.
It's long been understood that politics involves spin, that politicians and their surrogates can and will put the best spin possible on the facts in order to sell themselves and their policies (and to criticize their opponents and their policies). But there's a difference between spinning and lying, and there's traditionally been a line that, whether due to respect for the bounds of civilized debate or fear of suffering political repercussions, politicians generally did not cross--at least with respect to facts that are easily verifiable.
But as I've noted before, we've witnessed a real erosion of accepted standards of political discourse over the last decade and a half, a period that has roughly coincided with the rise of the conservative media (talk radio, Fox News, the Drudge Report, etc.). Throughout this period, the GOP has continually pushed the envelope, making ever more frequent forays across the line of 'mere spin' and into the realm of demonstrable falsehood. These increasingly bold assaults on reason have been made possible, in large part, by the rise of these partisan media outlets, which have allowed the GOP to bypass the old gatekeepers in the mainstream media and directly inject falsehoods into the public domain. Faced with this steady onslaught of deception, mainstream journalists have become increasingly passive and jaded, content to chalk up just about anything to 'politics as usual' and rarely, if ever, motivated to point out when a politician is lying.
Of all the traditions and norms of conduct the GOP has chosen to disregard, this one is by far the most pernicious and the most difficult to undo. We've reached a point where most journalists view outright lying, particularly in the context of policy debates, as a legitimate political tactic. The GOP has, in a very real sense, normalized deception. That's why Republicans can get away with saying things like "Social Security is on the verge of going bankrupt" or "tax cuts result in increased revenue" or "the Democrats think that if Al Qaeda calls, we should hang up." It doesn't matter that such claims are demonstrably untrue.
The result is a constant political asymmetry, a two party system in which the two parties play by very different rules.
One of the great discoveries of the Republican Party over the past decade or two is that an awful lot of the rules we take for granted are, in reality, just traditions. Like redistricting only once a decade, for example, or keeping House votes open for 15 minutes. And what Republicans have found out is that if you have the balls to do it, you can just ignore tradition and no one can stop you.This simple observation has enormous explanatory power. Though Kevin provides a few examples of this phenomenon, there are countless others: the push to do away with the filibuster, the K Street project, Bill Frist's threat to restructure the Senate Intelligence Committee if it decided to investigate the NSA wiretapping program, the President's unprecedented decision to deny security clearance to OPR attorneys seeking to investigate the DOJ's role in approving the NSA program. And just recently we witnessed the unprecedented mass firing of "disloyal" U.S. Attorneys and learned of the Attorney General's decision to revoke the hiring and firing authority traditionally held by career law enforcement types at the DOJ and re-delegate that authority--via secret order--to a couple of partisan hacks with no law enforcement experience. I could go on and on.
What all these events have in common is that they evidence a complete disregard for established norms of conduct. This willingness to push the envelope, to depart from all previously accepted standards of fair play and good governance in the quest for partisan advantage, has been the defining feature of the Republican Party over the last twenty to thirty years. And it has slowly infected nearly every aspect of modern politics, including, most perniciously, the standards governing political debate itself.
It's long been understood that politics involves spin, that politicians and their surrogates can and will put the best spin possible on the facts in order to sell themselves and their policies (and to criticize their opponents and their policies). But there's a difference between spinning and lying, and there's traditionally been a line that, whether due to respect for the bounds of civilized debate or fear of suffering political repercussions, politicians generally did not cross--at least with respect to facts that are easily verifiable.
But as I've noted before, we've witnessed a real erosion of accepted standards of political discourse over the last decade and a half, a period that has roughly coincided with the rise of the conservative media (talk radio, Fox News, the Drudge Report, etc.). Throughout this period, the GOP has continually pushed the envelope, making ever more frequent forays across the line of 'mere spin' and into the realm of demonstrable falsehood. These increasingly bold assaults on reason have been made possible, in large part, by the rise of these partisan media outlets, which have allowed the GOP to bypass the old gatekeepers in the mainstream media and directly inject falsehoods into the public domain. Faced with this steady onslaught of deception, mainstream journalists have become increasingly passive and jaded, content to chalk up just about anything to 'politics as usual' and rarely, if ever, motivated to point out when a politician is lying.
Of all the traditions and norms of conduct the GOP has chosen to disregard, this one is by far the most pernicious and the most difficult to undo. We've reached a point where most journalists view outright lying, particularly in the context of policy debates, as a legitimate political tactic. The GOP has, in a very real sense, normalized deception. That's why Republicans can get away with saying things like "Social Security is on the verge of going bankrupt" or "tax cuts result in increased revenue" or "the Democrats think that if Al Qaeda calls, we should hang up." It doesn't matter that such claims are demonstrably untrue.
The result is a constant political asymmetry, a two party system in which the two parties play by very different rules.
4 Comments:
The MSM is now owned by a small group that sees these assets better utilized as vehicles to "catapult the propaganda" than to actually inform the public about anything.
Just look at the way viewership is down in TV and radio markets and the newspaper industry has been losing readers for years - yet the media does not really care.
The entire repug culture of corruption is made possible by the lying liars in the MSM and the lie of "objective journalism" - that somehow, it is OK to present blatant lies that will not stand up to scrutiny under the guise of "balance."
Look at how the chimp, and AWOL and abusive alcoholic & cocaine addict was hoisted on the public as sober, spiritual man that would bring dignity to the white house and unity to the nation as a "compassionate conservative."
Even then, it took 2 stolen elections to get this gang of criminals in office - all made possible by the MSM.
These same lying liars made him a "war pResident"
LOL
This picture shows who this man really is:
http://thumbsnap.com/v/AfChntqf.jpg
While you have good points - you totally skirt the issues of media ownership and the interests that actually are the source of the chimp's policies and criminalities.
Is it really the republican party that has "normalized deception" or should we really be talking about the structure of journalism and the fact that it no longer represents the typical American's interest.
Is this really because of the republican party or because of the economic interests that hide behind that party?
Well said. I too was struck by that post by Kevin Drum.
One irony in all this is that valuing the wisdom implicit in tradition is, well, traditionally a conservative priority. But the opposite is now the case for what passes as "conservatism" in contemporary American debate.
I consider myself to have an amalgam of conservative and liberal beliefs in terms of the true/historical meaning of those terms even though in contemporary terms I am clearly a liberal. What is attractive to me in what I take to be the true conservative position is the general attitude of humility, a respect for hidden or implicit wisdom (e.g. in tradition or in markets) that serves as prudential resistance to change without overriding cause. But that is a distinctly liberal position in contemporary parlance.
Thanks for another brilliant post
I'd say that there's one more aspect to consider. I'd bet that, thirty years ago, unless a person had at least been indicted for a crime, there'd be a sense of "we're all on the same team, we're all fighting for the good of America."
People wouldn't say "today we have Muslim terrorists who want to destroy America, and liberals falling all over themselves to defend them" (as I saw a person recently say). It just *wouldn't be done*.
Sure, there was rough and tumble politics, there was nasty spin, but there were lines you just didn't cross.
And the "wonderful" thing about it is, if one side crosses those lines, it has an advantage... and the other side mustn't cross the line in retaliation, because then you have all-out warfare. If both sides are accusing the other of America-hatred and lying like all get out, then the truth is that much more hidden, and the country is in that much worse a shape.
The only way to end the battle is to show off how hateful it is, but it's hard to make hatred like this visible.
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