"It's incredible"

Sandy Levinson

I'm not referring to the idiocy that has taken over our national political system. That is all too credible, given both the contemporary zeitgeist, our defective Constitution, and the consequences of systematic congressional-district gerrymandering that has turned the Republican Party over to Tea Party lunatics.

Rather, I think it worthy of not that almost no one belives the United States Government these days. That, I take it, is the meaning of the soporific market reaction. Sophisticates, rightly or wrongly (I think wrongly) believe that because default would be lunatic, catastrophic, cataclysmic, etc., then it won't happen. (I invite you to reread by posting from last week reminiscing about the Cuban Missile Crisis.) So it really doesn't matter what Obama, Boehner, or any other public official says. The view is that they're all posturing, playing, a la the Weimar parliament, to their bases, but that, at the end of the day--or 11th hour--rationality will take over, and the chumps will be those who took the threat of default seriously. (I wonder how many of you would be willing to pay me, say, $40, for my 100-1 wager (where I win $100 if we default).)

But, of course, it's not simply the shouting about default, or, for that matter its consequences, since part of the Tea Party lunacy, led by the egregious Michelle Bachman, is that default really won't matter (rather than generate one of the largest tax increases in our history, known as rising interest rates on any future debt by any and all levels of government, for starters). Rather, the right wing has now made a fetish of rejecting anything the government might say about global warming. Many on the left, like myself, see no reason to believe much that the government says about foreign or military policy these days.

A few of us are old enough to remember the birth of the "credibility gap" during the Johnson Administration. It's alive, well, and pervasive. Is it of "constitutional import"? Well, how can a government govern if no one really trusts even leaders one voted for, let alone the opposition? I don't think the Constitution is to blame for that, incidentally. One has to look elsewhere. James Stewart has a new book out (which I've not read) that argues that our culture is one where we simply don't expect people to be truthful anymore. (That's the brilliance of Stephen Colbert and "truthiness." John Kyl lies through his teeth about Planned Parenthood. Just accept it. Every now and then lightning strikes a liar--Martha Stewart, (maybe) Roger Clemons--but no serious person could believe that they are more than a sideshow to the basic problem. Jimmy Carter said he'd never lie to us, and I'm not sure that he violated that pledge. But even at the time that was regarded as the height of naivete, because of course we expect our presidents to lie whenever it's convenient to achieve their agenda.
Posted 2:27 PM by Sandy Levinson [link]