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Daniel and David Bell

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from: David Bell

The Crash of 2002? What Would George W. Do?

Posted Tuesday, Dec. 14, 1999, at 4:53 PM ET

Dear Dad,

Many thanks for the thoughts on technological change. As for identities, I suppose I could continue on the subject with a lengthy disquisition on the construction of national identities in early modern Europe, drawn from my new book. But somehow, I think this would be getting a little too specialized for the Breakfast Table. So I hope you don't mind if I change the subject and pontificate a little about the presidential campaign. Living in Washington, it's hard to resist the temptation.

I must say, though, that since I spend much of my time immersed in the 18th century, the crazily ritualistic aspects of the campaign strike me very forcefully. The weirdest thing, to my mind, is the way the candidates and the media all seem to pretend that we are electing a benevolent dictator who, once elected, will snap his fingers, and the thousands of pages of position papers drawn up by his campaign staff will automatically become the law of the land. Elect Gary Bauer and abortion will be abolished. Elect George W. and we will get a tax cut. Elect Al Gore and gays will be welcomed into the military. Elect Alan Keyes and everyone will be required to wear underwear on the outside (to continue my homage to Woody Allen's Bananas).

At the very least, it seems to me that reporters could make more of a distinction between three very different types of campaign promises: those it would take a constitutional amendment to fulfill (e.g. abortion, maybe campaign finance reform, because of first amendment concerns); those that would require congressional action (health care, tax cuts, etc.); and those that could be done with a presidential order. Why even waste much time on the first category? Let's pretend, as a thought experiment, that a conspiracy of vintners contaminates the champagne supply with powerful psychedelic mushrooms just before Jan. 1, and that as a result, the entire country goes on a year-long hallucinatory head trip and elects Gary Bauer president, only sobering up after his inauguration. Will abortion still be legal in 2005? Of course it will. Ronald Reagan was strongly against abortion, too. We can be pretty cautious about the second category as well, especially when it comes to the details of health-care plans that will be rewritten and amended time and again before (possible) passage. In fact, one of the few big issues where the candidates' specific promises really matter is gays in the military, since that can be done by executive order. That's why Gore's promise to end Clinton's policy and let the gays in is probably the most important campaign news today.

This general problem is why I get steamed when pundits moan about how candidates are ignoring "the issues." Get real. What matters is not the candidate's position papers, but their basic principles, the three or four things they care most about; their experience; their advisors; their political savvy (as our shared favorite spy novelist, Charles McCarry, emphasized in the Times yesterday), and yes, their character. And this is all the more the case during a time when there are no big national disasters to be faced, at least not the sort that require urgent responses. If peace and prosperity continue, and there are no major wars, pretty much any of the serious candidates now running could probably muddle through all right (not counting Steve Forbes as serious, that is). But what about the stock-market collapse of 2002? The Russian invasion of Estonia? The terrorist bombing of Las Vegas? All those things that the candidates don't have position papers on? What really matters is to choose a president who can deal best with a real crisis, rather than worry about what's going to happen to ethanol subsidies (anyone care to bet the subsidies will be gone in 2004, even if John McCain is elected?--of course, as Jacob Weisberg remarks in "Ballot Box," the issue itself is still a good test of character). Thinking in these terms, do we really want to elect George W?

Love,
David

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516
from: David Bell

The Crash of 2002? What Would George W. Do?

Posted Tuesday, Dec. 14, 1999, at 4:53 PM ET
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Daniel Bell is professor emeritus of sociology at Harvard and the author of The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, which was recently re-issued (click hereto buy it). David Bell, Daniel's son, teaches history at Johns Hopkins University, and is the author of the forthcoming The National and the Sacred: Religion and the Origins of Nationalism in France.
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