Why Can’t Politicians be Honest about the real State of the USA?
Posted: October 21, 2012 Filed under: 2012 elections, 2012 presidential campaign | Tags: exceptionalism, falling behind 14 Comments
IMAGINE a presidential candidate who spoke with blunt honesty about American problems, dwelling on measures by which the United States lags its economic peers.What might this mythical candidate talk about on the stump? He might vow to turn around the dismal statistics on child poverty, declaring it an outrage that of the 35 most economically advanced countries, the United States ranks 34th, edging out only Romania. He might take on educational achievement, noting that this country comes in only 28th in the percentage of 4-year-olds enrolled in preschool, and at the other end of the scale, 14th in the percentage of 25-to-34-year-olds with a higher education. He might hammer on infant mortality, where the United States ranks worse than 48 other countries and territories, or point out that, contrary to fervent popular belief, the United States trails most of Europe, Australia and Canada in social mobility.
The candidate might try to stir up his audience by flipping a familiar campaign trope: America is indeed No. 1, he might declare — in locking its citizens up, with an incarceration rate far higher than that of the likes of Russia, Cuba, Iran or China; in obesity, easily outweighing second-place Mexico and with nearly 10 times the rate of Japan; in energy use per person, with double the consumption of prosperous Germany.
How far would this truth-telling candidate get?
We’ve been enriching the wealthy and draining the rest of the nation since the 1980s and it’s really beginning to show.
Indeed, in the current fiscal environment, promising an ambitious effort to reduce poverty or counter global warming might imply big new spending, which is practically and politically anathema. And given the increasing professionalization of politics, any candidate troubled by how the United States lags its peers in health or education has plenty of advisers and consultants to warn him never to mention it on the stump.
“Nobody wants to be the one who proposed taking the position that got the candidate in trouble,” says Martha Joynt Kumar, a political scientist at Towson University who studies presidential communications.
Of course, the reason talking directly about serious American problems is risky is that most voters don’t like it. Mark Rice, who teaches American studies at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, N.Y., said students often arrived at his classes steeped in the notion that the United States excelled at everything. He started a blog, Ranking America, to challenge their assumptions with a wild assortment of country comparisons, some sober (the United States is No. 1 in small arms ownership) and others less so (the United States is tied for 24th with Nigeria in frequency of sex).
“Sure, we’re No. 1 in gross domestic product and military expenditures,” Mr. Rice says. “But on a lot of measures of quality of life, the U.S. ranking is far lower. I try to be as accurate as I can and I avoid editorializing. I try to complicate their thinking.”
Why can’t we get our priorities straight?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
America is exceptional……….at screwing working people in oh so many ways, in screwing children, in screwing the average senior citizen, in screwing the mentally ill – actually screwing every one but the uber-rich.
George McGovern told the truth, WAPO was running the Watergate story & Nixon still won the election in a landslide. Any candidate that speaks truth to power & the people would be committing political suicide. So, those of us who know the truth vote for the candidate who we feel at least knows the truth and might do something about it, not the candidate we know doesn’t give a shit about the truth. Hence most of us here are voting for Obama.
We are not a serious people. I don’t know the cause though I suspect mass media, with the corporate owners, is as much to blame as anything else.
I’d also add that we are an anti-intellectual, arrogant, delusional people with a good portion of power-mongerers, wealth worshipers, and religious nuts. At 19, I spent a summer in Germany on an exchange program and thereafter began many return trips to Europe of different varieties, but, in particular, a 10-week, 10-country visit (via Eurail pass) when I was 26. Along the way, I’ve discovered from reading or observation that we are impatient travelers, loud and boisterous, and fretful when our comfort zones are breached, especially in the line of different foods, sleeping quarters (hostels,anyone?), and prices. I had no shame when I attempted to order and ask for directions in Dutch, Spanish, or even French. It was shocking that unaided I could accurately pay in their ever-changing currencies (before the euro). My point is that many Americans in groups show a side of themselves that we don’t always see as well at home and, along with laziness in adapting to and disrepecting other cultures, there’s a tendency to condescend as well.
Voila! Romney on his summer trip to London!
(This comment adds to my longer comment below.)
My conclusions are: we are not an exceptional people and we can’t handle the truth.
We are exceptional in one regard.
We are exceptionally ethnocentric.
That’s absolutely true. Otherwise Bernie Sanders could be president.
That Ranking America site is terrific. We’re consistently good at food production.
Glad we’re really good at something 🙂
Sorry kat, I didn’t see this before I posted…
no problem at all
Al Franken stumping for Elizabeth Warren on Friday night.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OY6By68s_XI#!
Great message 🙂
I for one would love to hear a candidate tell the truth about the USA. The few who come close never seem to get elected or even nominated if they are in the legacy parties. The third-party candidates don’t get far, yet, and are shut out of the national debates (thanks to the legacy parties).
I like plain speech. Unfortunately that often is called having a “negative attitude”. Never mind positive or negative; let’s have reality-based attitude.
Unfortunately our nation – and the world – are overrun with Conservatives who prefer to lie & to believe lies. For them facts are simply something to dispute, not to believe. They prefer to manufacture problems (irresponsible people living off the gov’t dole, voter fraud, Obama is a “gay married”, Kenyan born socialist who wants to institute Sharia law) instead of addressing the real problems our nation faces. I think it’s only liberals who want the truth.