The Fantasy Years

FOR EVEN THE IDEA that liberals undermined the fabric of the country was hatched in a think tank somewhere. The pillars of its argument laid out dispassionately in statistics and pointed studies. Its conclusion held up as “proof” by the radio hosts whose outrage and sound bites listeners could understand. And could repeat.
Between the think tanks and AM radio, not only did the tone of political discourse shift rightward in the country but the facts did too.

Taken together, the change was so gradual, so sure, so complete, it went almost unnoticed.

But it didn’t stop there, affecting only current events.

Oh, no. In order for the new view of things in America to make total sense, history had to be brought in line, too. So the events of the past were so arranged in a new kind of order that helped explain everything happening today. And a disbeliever in a dormitory in North Carolina said:

“I can’t believe you people are now trying to paint Nixon as “flawed.” He was criminal.”
“Nixon was a foreign policy genius,” said another voice.
“He was a paranoid freak.”
“He reopened ties with China.”
“He invaded Cambodia.”
“He established détente with the Soviet Union.”
“He invaded Laos.”
“So he was flawed.”
“He kept enemies lists and authorized crimes against them.”
“Everyone has their own opinion of him.”
“This stuff really happened.”
“How do you know?”
“Everyone knows. It’s history.”
“Were you there? Did you see it happen?”
“These things happened. It’s history. How can you—“
“A post-modern history, maybe. Taken from the liberal press.”
“No, really, it’s history.”
“It’s your opinion. And my opinion is that Nixon was a genius.”

Rush bellowed, and his listeners screeched back into their phones. Rush’s imitators hollered and their listeners growled. Because knowing things was fun. Being right was fun. In a truck, cruising the rolling fields and hills of Virginia:

“Why does the liberal press always protect their own?”
“They didn’t seem to be protecting Clinton much these days,” said another voice.
“Oh, they only reveal a tenth of his crimes.”
“Really?”
“The media always goes easy on the Democrats.”
“Like they did on Carter?”
“Carter had it coming.”
“Like they did on LBJ?”
“That was Vietnam. And everyone knows liberals don’t have the stomach for war.”
“That’s why FDR was reelected twice during WWII?”
“He’s not like a liberal today.”
“He created the New Deal.”
“So you say.”
“No, really. Other people say too.”
“Sure, the liberal professors cover for him. All I know is that the liberals had no stomach for Vietnam and that’s why we lost.”

“Do you even know what happened in the Vietnam War?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me—Know-it-all liberals can’t resist showing off—OK. Tell me your version of what happened in Vietnam.”
“It’s not my version. It really happened.”
“As if I’m going to trust a liberal to tell me what happened in Vietnam.”
“But—“
“As if a liberal would have any incentive to tell the truth.”
“—But—“
“—As if that’s even possible. As if someone can speak honestly about something they never supported.”
“—But”
“—As if people even work that way.”

Rush stood up on the turnbuckle. His rhetorical victim writhed slowly on the mat. Then Rush went flying elbow first into the jaw of liberalism! Of Clintonianism! Of feminism! And the crowd roared in ecstatic approval because winning arguments was fun. Winning was a joy.

“I don’t see why blacks vote Democrat. The Democrats keep them down,” protested a voice in Miami.

“The Democrats supported the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s,” said another.
“That’s what people say.”
“No, really. The Democrats pushed the legislation though.”
“Everyone has their own opinion.”
“It’s not an opinion. It’s a fact. LBJ signed the bill.”
“Some kind of PC fact.”
“It’s true—“
“Says the liberal media.”
“—No, really—.”
“—Told to me by a liberal. Well, let me tell you something: you liberals don’t own the media anymore and I have my own sources.”

Al Gore’s inability to be anyone else than himself, particularly someone less annoying, is the former Vice President’s most enduring and nettlesome problem according to one Alan Ehrenhalt, writing a review of Gore’s book ‘The Assault on Reason.’
(sub. req.)

Al Gore possesses a skill that no other American
politician can match – or would want to. He has a
consistent ability to express fundamentally reasonable
sentiments – often important ones – in ways that annoy
the maximum possible number of people.

After lauding Gore for speaking out against the war, his efforts to raise awareness of global climate change and his use of technology to enhance civic participation, Ehrenhalt gives us this:

Even as a citizen activist, however, free from the burdens of office and campaigning, Gore nearly always manages to sound like Gore.

And what does Gore sound like? “Smug and self-centered” and “unable to consider even moderately differing points of view.” So it’s with great irony that a review of Gore’s book, which is by and large about the alarming decline of American political discourse, a decline that gives us caricatures of the personal rather than the substance of the political, concentrates on Al Gore’s presumed personality.

Ehrenhart unwittingly proves Gore’s point. And the man who was dismissed as too “wooden” and “robotic” to ever be president, and characterized as a “serial exaggerator” by his opponent’s spinmeisters, a man whose personality is mischaracterized – like many Democrats of recent years – suffers yet another attack.

Like millions of others , I don’t care about a politician’s personality ticks if they can lead and if they have integrity and if they have vision. If these traits come in “man desperate to display his erudition at every possible moment, appropriate or not,” so be it.

This sneering attack on Gore reminds me of a time in Clinton’s presidency, or on the road to it at least, when his opponents mocked him for having said – or admitted, as the spin goes -to once owning a pickup truck with Astroturf in the bed.

I touch on this in an upcoming chapter of The Fantasy Years since it is such classic Clinton-era negative press because ya know, how could a man who owned a pickup truck with Astroturf in its bed ever be a suitable president? Think about it: how could this ever be?