Wasn’t it refreshing to hear a politician advocate for the progressive philosophy in an assertive and unapologetic fashion? The Democrats have been in a defensive crouch for 29 years, and have essentially ceded the terms of the national debate to the right. For a time there it became terribly un-hip to advocate for a governmental role in anything. Obama has changed all that, with help from an economic crisis that has focused a lot of minds on what’s important. Social issue distractions don’t work so well when everyone is worried about their jobs.
I only regret that I opted not to watch Jindal. I’ll have to settle for the anticipated roast on Countdown. It’s a bit hard to believe that the Republicans believe they can get public support by telling a panicked public that there’s nothing to worry about, and in any event there’s nothing that can be done.
Speaking of Jindal, Krugman makes the point that his speech was emblematic of the party of one idea-that government has no role, even in those areas where only government can be effective:
But both sides, I thought, agreed that the government should provide public goods — goods that are nonrival (they benefit everyone) and nonexcludable (there’s no way to restrict the benefits to people who pay.) The classic examples are things like lighthouses and national defense, but there are many others. For example, knowing when a volcano is likely to erupt can save many lives; but there’s no private incentive to spend money on monitoring, since even people who didn’t contribute to maintaining the monitoring system can still benefit from the warning. So that’s the sort of activity that should be undertaken by government.
So what did Bobby Jindal choose to ridicule in this response to Obama last night? Volcano monitoring, of course.
And leaving aside the chutzpah of casting the failure of his own party’s governance as proof that government can’t work, does he really think that the response to natural disasters like Katrina is best undertaken by uncoordinated private action? Hey, why bother having an army? Let’s just rely on self-defense by armed citizens.
The intellectual incoherence is stunning. Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butthead.
It would be refreshing to see one of our TV journalists ask a guy like Jindal whether he has actually taken the time to find out anything about the programs he chooses to heap scorn upon.
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