June 21, 2010
Faustus Makes a Deal
By DAVID BROOKS
It was the winter of 2007. Dr. Faustus, the famous left-wing philologist, was sitting in a coffee shop in despair over the Bush-Cheney regime and the future of his country.
Suddenly, Mephistopheles, who happened to be the provost at his college, appeared, sipping a double mocha frappuccino. He sat down next to Dr. Faustus and casually asked him if he would like to be granted any five wishes in exchange for his immortal soul.
This was Dr. Faustus?s chance to do something grand for his country. He would lose his soul, but if he chose wisely, he could make the United States a bastion of liberalism forevermore.
?I agree, Lord of Darkness, if you grant me the following wishes: First, I would like the nation to be hurled into an economic crisis caused by Wall Street greed and recklessness. This will discredit free-market fundamentalism once and for all.?
?It will be done,? Mephistopheles vowed.
?Then I would like you to find the smartest Democratic politician in the land and make him president.?
?It will be done.?
?Then I would like you to create a political climate so he can immediately enact an $800 billion spending package. This will avert economic collapse and show the American people how effective government can be.?
?It will be done.?
?Then I would like the Democrats to pass a universal health care law. This will show a grateful nation that government can provide basic security.?
?It will be done.?
?If you do all this, America will be transformed. Conservatism will be in retreat and liberalism will reign supreme! Just to be sure, I would like a multinational oil company to cause the biggest environmental disaster in American history. This will completely discredit corporate America and remind people why they need strong regulations and global warming legislation.?
?It will be done.?
And, indeed, everything Dr. Faustus wished for came to pass. Yet he watched events unfold with growing horror. Not in 70 years had there been a sequence of events so perfectly designed to fortify liberalism. Yet the country wasn?t swinging to the left; it was swinging to the right!
Surveys showed public opinion drifting rightward on issue after issue: gun control, abortion, global warming and the role of government. Far from leading Americans, Democrats were repelling them. Between 2008 and 2010 the share of voters who considered the Democrats too liberal surged from 39 percent to 49 percent, according to Gallup surveys.
Prospects for the 2010 election are grim. Election guru Charlie Cook suspects the G.O.P. will retake the House. N.P.R. polled voters in the 60 most competitive House districts currently held by Democrats. Democrats trail Republicans in those districts, on average, by 5 percentage points. Independent voters in the districts favor Republicans by an average of 18 percentage points.
By 57 percent to 37 percent, voters in these districts embrace the proposition that ?President Obama?s economic policies have run up a record federal deficit while failing to end the recession or slow the record pace of job losses.?
Instead of building faith in government, the events of 2009 and 2010 further undermined it. An absurdly low 6 percent of Americans acknowledge that the stimulus package created jobs, according to a New York Times/CBS survey.
Some Kool-Aid sippers on the left say the problem is that Republicans have better messaging (somehow John Boehner became magically charismatic to independents). Others say the shift to the right is a product of bad economic times. But Dr. Faustus saw a deeper truth. Moderate suburban voters do not see the world as liberals do, even in the most propitious circumstances, and never will.
Bitterly and too late, Dr. Faustus saw that liberals can?t have their way and still win elections in places like North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri. Bitterly and too late, Dr. Faustus recognized that economic policies are about values. If your policies undermine personal responsibility by separating the link between effort and reward, voters will punish you for it.
Bitterly and too late, Dr. Faustus acknowledged that after a period of overconsumption, Americans now see debt as the primary threat to their well-being. Dr. Faust and his fellow liberals may see themselves as the champions of the little guy, but in the new age of austerity, many voters see them as protectors of the special interests, as the guardians of the unaffordable promises.
Republicans have their own problems. They?ve begun over-reading their ideological mandate without the usual intervening step of actually winning an election. But the big story is that liberals have failed to create a governing center-left majority. If they can?t do it in circumstances like these, when will they ever?
Dr. Faustus fell back into despair. His soul will spend all eternity trapped in Glenn Beck?s microphone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/opinion/22brooks.html?ref=opinion
