Pacific Views

Krugman's Review of Suskind and Phillips

Atrios refers us to Krugman's review of both Ron Suskind's and Kevin Phillip's newest books. And as usual, Krugman's ability to distill the essential points from a complex story is evident. Here is his comment about the generations of Bushs and their ability to garner support and coalesce power:

For four generations the Bush family has thrived by exploiting its political connections, especially in the secret world of intelligence, to get ahead in business, as well as exploiting its business connections, especially in finance and oil, to get ahead in politics.

Yup, using politics to drive business and using business to drive the politics. And to think that in other days, this type of incestuous relationship would have been considered corrupt. Not anymore.

And then as Krugman says, there is this:

As someone once pointed out, it's a lot easier to document links between the bin Laden family and the Bushes than it is to document links between the bin Ladens and Saddam Hussein.

Indeed.

Krugman found Phillips' discussion of how Bush has co-opted the Religious Right fascinating, yet didn't think it answered why so many evangelists would vote with the Bush crony capitalists.

What Phillips doesn't explain, or at least not to my satisfaction, is why crony capitalists have been able to make an effective alliance with the religious right, while other groups—say, Democrats tied to the labor movement —have not. After all, fundamentalists in America are, on average, relatively poor, and tend to be hurt by right-wing economic policies. It's true that, as Phillips points out, modern fundamentalist doctrine encourages a belief in self-reliance, with a corresponding benign attitude toward wealth and hostility to policies that redistribute income. But the Bush family does not, to say the least, consist of self-made men, and its policies actually do involve redistribution—from the have-nots to the haves. What makes religious leaders see an elite dynasty as their friend?

Phillips stresses the personal side— George W. Bush's ability to convince many on the religious right that in spite of his silver-spoon background he really is one of them, for example in his born-again belief in the "power of prayer." I suspect there must be more to it than that. Phillips also writes, "Could 75 to 80 percent of the believers in Armageddon have voted for Bush? So it appeared." But in any case, for now the fact of the alliance with the religious right is, as Phillips says, a crucial part of the political story.

Personally, I think this is where George Lakoff's insight into the way metaphors and language are used to shape the possible moral positions is important. The right wing has been working for more than 40 years to frame issues so that the "red-meat" is more important than any other question or issue. And for the conservative Christian, unaccustomed to critical thinking, searching for a stable and predictable world, the strict hierarchy of the conservatives shapes and redirects their energies and passions from economic issues to the "moral" issues that are used so well in creating a them against us atmosphere.

Demagogues are very effective at finding tools to divide people in order to gain power and the right wing has been more than effective at demagoguery. It is important to recognize that part of Bush's attraction is the fact that he is a bully and perceived as an everyman (the c class student) -- especially for the poorer white male who has been accustomed to believe that it is the others - women, blacks, foreigners, etc - that are stealing his rightful place. (Nevermind that Bush is the ultimate of the elite - completely and totally entitled to his position of power and good fortune simply by his fortunate birth.) The right wing has done a very good job of making liberals the enemy, and as such, people to ridicule and despise. Stoking hatred and bigotry is much easier to do than to create a common-cause alliance and yet much more dangerous. Bush is the beneficiary of this campaign to promote hatred and fear of the other and he is more than willing to exploit it for all he can.