Thursday, July 15, 2004
DAILY EXPRESS
Normal Distribution
by Lawrence F. Kaplan
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 07.15.04
John Edwards has a point: There really are two Americas. One is at war. One is not. As for which America Edwards and John Kerry intend to mine for votes, the answer may be gleaned from, among other places, their campaign mantra, "Let America be America Again." Neatly summarizing the point Kerry and Edwards mean to convey, Slate's Mickey Kaus writes that the "message is that America wants a respite from all the headstrong history-making of the past four years." The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan makes a similar argument. Concerned about President Bush's election prospects, she writes:
History has been too dramatic the past 3 1/2 years. It has been too exciting. Economic recession, 9/11, war, Afghanistan, Iraq, fighting with Europe, fighting with the U.N., boys going off to fight, Pat Tillman, beheadings. It has been so exciting. And my general sense of Americans is that we like things to be boring.
Now, exciting might not be the perfect adjective here--horrifying seems closer to the truth--but Noonan is on to something. After eight years of micro-initiatives, school uniforms, soccer moms, and books about the end of history and the obsolescence of war, Americans have been drowning in history since September 11. Unpleasant as all this may be, it also points to a rather glaring defect in the argument for a return to normalcy: No matter how much we might wish to take a holiday from history, history probably has other plans.
None of this, however, seems to have made the slightest impression on politicians who speak as though it's still September 10. As Kerry put it in a recent appearance on Larry King, "What American would not trade the economy we had in the 1990s, the fact that we were not at war and young American soldiers were not deployed?"--the clear implication being that, if we concentrate hard enough, the world around us will disappear. Hence, when asked during the primaries about the threat of terrorism, Kerry responded, "I think there has been an exaggeration." (It was left to his future running mate to point out, "It's just hard for me to see how you can say there's an exaggeration when thousands of people lost their lives on September 11.") Still, when Kerry makes the fight for America's nurses a centerpiece of his campaign--and when Edwards goes an entire primary season with barely a mention of events beyond our shores--they're hardly spinning political strategy out of whole cloth. When it comes to civic habits and public policy priorities, after all, most of us have picked up exactly where we left off three years ago.
On this count, there's enough blame to go around. It was none other than President Bush who exhorted us in the days after 9/11 to "get down to Disney World in Florida" and to "enjoy life." Which is exactly what most of us--the notable exception being members of the armed forces and their families--proceeded to do. Long gone are surveys from 2001 in which majorities cite terrorism as the key issue of the day. A Pew poll last month found that both Republicans and Democrats rate the economy as the most important issue and that, among Democrats, terrorism ranks somewhere behind health care and education. A series of Gallup polls last year showed that, as 9/11 faded into memory, so too did people's inclination even to display an American flag. True, the same polls show that some groups still attach primary importance to the war on terror: residents of rural areas, evangelical Christians, southerners. But, for most Americans, what homeland security czar Tom Ridge refers to as "the new normalcy" feels nothing so much like the old normalcy.
As to where all this leads, we would do well to cast a glance backward, for this is hardly the first time Americans have yearned for a return to normalcy--even when circumstances do not justify such a return. The phrase comes from Warren Harding, and it became a mantra of the post-World War I era and a rallying cry for isolationists of the period. But normalcy turned out to be in the eye of the beholder, and the Japanese put its interwar version to rest on December 7, 1941. The motto enjoyed a brief vogue after World War II, but soon enough Soviet expansionism put it to rest once more. After Vietnam, it returned yet again. President Carter congratulated America for having overcome its "inordinate fear of communism" as well as the "belief that Soviet expansion was almost inevitable and that it must be contained." Alas, while Carter was burbling about academic fads like the North-South divide between rich and poor, America's foe was busy invading Afghanistan and fomenting revolution in Latin America.
The final return to normalcy came during the 1990s, when President Clinton entered office pledging to "focus like a laser" on the economy. This had a direct bearing on foreign policy, for as Undersecretary of State Peter Tarnoff explained, "We simply don't have the leverage, we don't have the influence, we don't have the inclination to use military forces, we certainly don't have the money" to settle global crises. Or, as the President explained, "We've simply got to focus on rebuilding America." As for the international scene, Clinton reduced it to a simple narrative of material progress and moral improvement, the benefits of which would be glimpsed in a New Middle East, an African Renaissance, and a strategic partnership with China. This interregnum, too, came to a close on September 11.
So here we are again, as if nothing has been remembered and nothing learned. Or maybe not. With an eye to the presidential election--and a Kerry victory--a debate has emerged among Washington foreign policy types. On one side, The Weekly Standard's Robert Kagan and a number of Kerry aides insist that, regardless of who wins the election, continuity will be the order of the day. In this telling, for all his complaints about the Bush team's "arrogant" response to the war on terror and America's bind in Iraq, Kerry won't have much room to maneuver when it comes to these and other issues. Bush, after all, entered office pledging a "humble" foreign policy but quickly discovered that humility doesn't provide an adequate response to the challenges that America faces abroad. On the other side, the Bush team and Kerry himself predict a fundamental break--an impression that Kerry's well-chronicled distaste for democracy promotion and his flat out declaration this week that "I am against the war" in Iraq has only encouraged. Which camp is right? To paraphrase a memorable Trotsky quotation, Americans may not be interested in the dialectic, but the dialectic is definitely interested in them. As much as we might wish for a return to normalcy, the other side gets the final say.
Lawrence F. Kaplan is a senior editor at TNR.
Normal Distribution
by Lawrence F. Kaplan
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 07.15.04
John Edwards has a point: There really are two Americas. One is at war. One is not. As for which America Edwards and John Kerry intend to mine for votes, the answer may be gleaned from, among other places, their campaign mantra, "Let America be America Again." Neatly summarizing the point Kerry and Edwards mean to convey, Slate's Mickey Kaus writes that the "message is that America wants a respite from all the headstrong history-making of the past four years." The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan makes a similar argument. Concerned about President Bush's election prospects, she writes:
History has been too dramatic the past 3 1/2 years. It has been too exciting. Economic recession, 9/11, war, Afghanistan, Iraq, fighting with Europe, fighting with the U.N., boys going off to fight, Pat Tillman, beheadings. It has been so exciting. And my general sense of Americans is that we like things to be boring.
Now, exciting might not be the perfect adjective here--horrifying seems closer to the truth--but Noonan is on to something. After eight years of micro-initiatives, school uniforms, soccer moms, and books about the end of history and the obsolescence of war, Americans have been drowning in history since September 11. Unpleasant as all this may be, it also points to a rather glaring defect in the argument for a return to normalcy: No matter how much we might wish to take a holiday from history, history probably has other plans.
None of this, however, seems to have made the slightest impression on politicians who speak as though it's still September 10. As Kerry put it in a recent appearance on Larry King, "What American would not trade the economy we had in the 1990s, the fact that we were not at war and young American soldiers were not deployed?"--the clear implication being that, if we concentrate hard enough, the world around us will disappear. Hence, when asked during the primaries about the threat of terrorism, Kerry responded, "I think there has been an exaggeration." (It was left to his future running mate to point out, "It's just hard for me to see how you can say there's an exaggeration when thousands of people lost their lives on September 11.") Still, when Kerry makes the fight for America's nurses a centerpiece of his campaign--and when Edwards goes an entire primary season with barely a mention of events beyond our shores--they're hardly spinning political strategy out of whole cloth. When it comes to civic habits and public policy priorities, after all, most of us have picked up exactly where we left off three years ago.
On this count, there's enough blame to go around. It was none other than President Bush who exhorted us in the days after 9/11 to "get down to Disney World in Florida" and to "enjoy life." Which is exactly what most of us--the notable exception being members of the armed forces and their families--proceeded to do. Long gone are surveys from 2001 in which majorities cite terrorism as the key issue of the day. A Pew poll last month found that both Republicans and Democrats rate the economy as the most important issue and that, among Democrats, terrorism ranks somewhere behind health care and education. A series of Gallup polls last year showed that, as 9/11 faded into memory, so too did people's inclination even to display an American flag. True, the same polls show that some groups still attach primary importance to the war on terror: residents of rural areas, evangelical Christians, southerners. But, for most Americans, what homeland security czar Tom Ridge refers to as "the new normalcy" feels nothing so much like the old normalcy.
As to where all this leads, we would do well to cast a glance backward, for this is hardly the first time Americans have yearned for a return to normalcy--even when circumstances do not justify such a return. The phrase comes from Warren Harding, and it became a mantra of the post-World War I era and a rallying cry for isolationists of the period. But normalcy turned out to be in the eye of the beholder, and the Japanese put its interwar version to rest on December 7, 1941. The motto enjoyed a brief vogue after World War II, but soon enough Soviet expansionism put it to rest once more. After Vietnam, it returned yet again. President Carter congratulated America for having overcome its "inordinate fear of communism" as well as the "belief that Soviet expansion was almost inevitable and that it must be contained." Alas, while Carter was burbling about academic fads like the North-South divide between rich and poor, America's foe was busy invading Afghanistan and fomenting revolution in Latin America.
The final return to normalcy came during the 1990s, when President Clinton entered office pledging to "focus like a laser" on the economy. This had a direct bearing on foreign policy, for as Undersecretary of State Peter Tarnoff explained, "We simply don't have the leverage, we don't have the influence, we don't have the inclination to use military forces, we certainly don't have the money" to settle global crises. Or, as the President explained, "We've simply got to focus on rebuilding America." As for the international scene, Clinton reduced it to a simple narrative of material progress and moral improvement, the benefits of which would be glimpsed in a New Middle East, an African Renaissance, and a strategic partnership with China. This interregnum, too, came to a close on September 11.
So here we are again, as if nothing has been remembered and nothing learned. Or maybe not. With an eye to the presidential election--and a Kerry victory--a debate has emerged among Washington foreign policy types. On one side, The Weekly Standard's Robert Kagan and a number of Kerry aides insist that, regardless of who wins the election, continuity will be the order of the day. In this telling, for all his complaints about the Bush team's "arrogant" response to the war on terror and America's bind in Iraq, Kerry won't have much room to maneuver when it comes to these and other issues. Bush, after all, entered office pledging a "humble" foreign policy but quickly discovered that humility doesn't provide an adequate response to the challenges that America faces abroad. On the other side, the Bush team and Kerry himself predict a fundamental break--an impression that Kerry's well-chronicled distaste for democracy promotion and his flat out declaration this week that "I am against the war" in Iraq has only encouraged. Which camp is right? To paraphrase a memorable Trotsky quotation, Americans may not be interested in the dialectic, but the dialectic is definitely interested in them. As much as we might wish for a return to normalcy, the other side gets the final say.
Lawrence F. Kaplan is a senior editor at TNR.
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