Paul Krugman's moment of truthiness

I suffered cognitive dissonance this morning when I read this from Krugman:

We also all know that the reality [of how democracy in America functions] falls far short of the ideal. Voters are often misinformed, and politicians aren’t reliably truthful. Still, we like to imagine that voters generally get it right in the end, and that politicians are eventually held accountable for what they do. 

But is even this modified, more realistic vision of democracy in action still relevant? Or has our political system been so degraded by misinformation and disinformation that it can no longer function? 

He goes on to fulminate about Exhibit A: Americans do not know that the deficit has been dropping throughout the Obama years, as they did not know that the deficit was falling through Clinton's first term.

Why am I disconcerted by Krugman's consternation? Of course I share his frustration at the "outright falsehoods" that Republican leaders routinely mouth about the deficit. I agree, as he laments in this column, that our political discourse is shot through with truthiness.

But unlike Krugman (apparently), I recall what Krugman wrote..yesterday. Reacting to a recent morsel of egregious economic misinformation in a Robert Samuelson column, he opined:

Thomas Friedman at his Thomas Friedmanest*

Confirmation bias, thy name is Thomas Friedman.

Leave it to Friedman to decide, as the U.S. struggles out of the steepest recession in 70 years, that our troubles are due to the moral failings of baby boomers, set off by a cartoonish Goofus/Gallant contrast with the Greatest Generation.  His column putting this moralizing mush across is so jaw-droppingly sloppy that it seems self indulgent to try to debunk it.

First, Friedman uncritically retails Robert Samuelson's recent claim that poor U.S. student performance can be ascribed to poor student motivation --and conveniently ignores Samuelson's main explanation:

The larger cause of failure is almost unmentionable: shrunken student motivation,” wrote Samuelson. “Students, after all, have to do the work. If they aren’t motivated, even capable teachers may fail. Motivation comes from many sources: curiosity and ambition; parental expectations; the desire to get into a ‘good’ college; inspiring or intimidating teachers; peer pressure. The unstated assumption of much school ‘reform’ is that if students aren’t motivated, it’s mainly the fault of schools and teachers.” Wrong, he said. “Motivation is weak because more students (of all races and economic classes, let it be added) don’t like school, don’t work hard and don’t do well. In a 2008 survey of public high school teachers, 21 percent judged student absenteeism a serious problem; 29 percent cited ‘student apathy.’ ”

Never mind that the percentages cited do not exactly suggest absenteeism and apathy to be epidemic: Samuelson acknowledges (while underplaying) that the chief cause of stagnant test scores is a wider pool of graduates:

The reality is that, as high schools have become more inclusive (in 1950, 40 percent of 17-year-olds had dropped out compared with about 25 percent today) and adolescent culture has strengthened, the authority of teachers and schools has eroded.

Samuelson's stats don't fully capture the extent to which full access to a high school education was broadened in the postwar era.  According to Stephen J. Rose's Rebound, in 1960 (the baseline for Samuelson's snapshot of U.S. high school students' educational achievement over time), only half of workers had a high school diploma, almost 30% had some college, and 10% had a college degree. Today, Rose writes, "these numbers are completely reversed": only 10% lack a high school diploma, 60%  have some postsecondary education, and 30% have at least a 4-year college degree.

"The Obama Delusion" Delusion

On Feb. 20, Robert Samuelson launched an assault on The Obama Delusion, claiming not that Obama's campaign is light on policy but that his policy agenda is "completely ordinary, highly partisan, not candid and mostly unresponsive to many pressing national problems." There is, Samuelson says, a "hugh and deceptive gap between his captivating oratory and his actual views."

This attack misapprehends the relationship between Obama's politics -- his policy prescriptions -- and his metapolitics -- his bid to change the political process. Samuelson complains that what Obama freely admits is mainly a consensus Democratic agenda is nothing but a tired "goody bag." Obama, however, is not claiming unique originality in crafting the Democratic agenda -- but rather, the political skills to get that agenda passed and to change the political process so that the agenda is not destroyed in the passing.

Samuelson may think it would be old, tired, partisan politics to pass universal healthcare, but most Americans would regard doing so as an epochal, game-changing accomplishment. Hence a key tenet of Obama's appeal -- that this is a moment in which the right Democrat can seize on a leftward swing in the electorate and build a working majority to achieve core Democratic goals: universal healthcare coverage; reversing the 30-year tide of rising income inequality; a set of income supports and tax incentives for the working poor and middle class; and public investment in infrastructure and alternative energy.

For Samuelson, this agenda is a pander package. In fact, Obama's economic plan coherently reflects his core priorities -- to restore "balance" and "fairness" to the U.S. economy by redistributing income toward the working poor, redistributing risk that has been shifted onto individuals back toward the collective, and investing in the public good through infrastructure and energy projects. The money would come from troop withdrawal in Iraq, and by rolling back Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy.

Because he does not respect this policy agenda, Samuelson misrepresents Obama's metapolitics -- his argument that we need to fix the policymaking process before we can craft effective policy. As Obama put it on Feb. 19 in Houston, "the problem that we face in America today is not the lack of good ideas. It's that Washington has become a place where good ideas go to die." He has said repeatedly that his policy prescriptions are broadly similar to Hillary's. But he has argued repeatedly and in depth that he is better equipped than Hillary to build a mandate to get the essentials passed -- and to transform the policymaking process as he goes.

According to Samuelson, this appeal is based too much on a kind of myth of personality:

The subtext of Obama's campaign is that his own life narrative -- to become the first African American president, a huge milestone in the nation's journey from slavery -- can serve as a metaphor for other political stalemates. Great impasses can be broken with sufficient goodwill, intelligence and energy.

True enough so far. The intoxicating prospect of electing a black president is an important 'subtext' of an apparently broad and deep wish in the electorate to 'change our politics.' It's also true that to a large degree Obama is his argument. His refusal to accept lobbying money, his pledge to remain truthful, his rhetorical success in touching chords throughout the electorate (see foxnews.com reaction to his speech), his electoral success to date, his record of moving bipartisan legislation -- all are deployed to demonstrate the possibility of transcending paralyzing partisanship without mincing on a progressive agenda.

Obama's apparent ability to win broad support while being completely explicit about a policy agenda that Samuelson regards as tired-left lends credibility to his pitch that he can change our politics by building a "working majority." The originality lies not in the individual policy prescriptions, but in the attempt to recast that package as the center in American politics. In that way, Obama is indeed bidding to be the left's Reagan -- "transformative" in taking the electorate where he wants to go.

Related posts:
Obama gets down to tax brass
Obama brings it back to earth in Virginia
Feb. 5: Hillary's Speech was Better than Obama's
Obama's Metapolitics
Obama: Man, those Klinton Kids are Something
Obama Praises Clinton, and Buries Him