Politics. Stupidity is a cyclical industry. Nowhere is that more obvious than government. Eventually, though, smart gets off the sidelines.
Take the 1936 election. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a rich kid from the Hudson Rover Valley, had proposed and implemented massive government intervention to address a 25% unemployment rate.
The WASPs of Washington and Wall Street wanted none of that and argued strenuously for the economic equivalent of “go suck on a rock.” From that perspective people were unemployed because they weren’t smart or prudent or, if you want to go all Woodrow Wilson, “not elected.”
President Roosevelt was called a “threat to democracy” because he had the temerity to suggest the federal government needed to assume some responsibility for the misery of the American people.
What he was really doing was pushing aside the power structure, ironically given his family history, and offered a smarter alternative for the times. In effect he was pointing a figure at bankers, lawyers, and academics and suggesting they screwed things up so badly, other options must be considered.
In so doing he cleaved the Democratic party in two. The differences between Democrats and Republicans in 1936 had become nearly indistinguishable. From 1936 forward, Democrats became the party of “big government” and separated itself permanently from the anti-populism that had defined both parties since the late 19th century.
Policy. Stupid is eventually found out as President Roosevelt surmised upon reviewing the ledger of populists, many of them unemployed, versus anti-populist, all with cushy sinecures.
Until that point, however, stupid does its best to sound smart. When it cannot, it resorts to bullying and violence.
Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Murthy v. Missouri. This case revolves around the question of whether the federal government’s influence over social media content moderation policies amounts to violations of free speech.
The government contends that it must have the latitude to correct for mis/dis/bad information. Specific to this case, various agencies of the U.S. government, including Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration, pressured social medical companies, including Facebook and what was then Twitter to deplatform, demote and de-amplify accounts of those who dissented from published government policy on all things COVID.
For our purposes, the government’s actions created the impression, particularly among the general public that certain policies like COVID vaccine mandates, school closures and masks were widely accepted public health policies. We now know that many of these policies were neither protective nor therapeutic and often harmful. A lot of people were frustrated in their attempts to make those arguments.
If the court comes down on the side of the plaintiffs, which includes the states of Missouri and Louisiana as well individuals like Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University, the government will have to retreat to making its case via press release, speeches and webcasts.
Those formats almost necessarily require more substantive policymaking, something smart people like to do.
Power. As House Speaker Mike Johnson awakes to a two-vote majority after the resignation of Rep. Ken Buck late last week, his struggle to manage the realignment of his party is real.
He has his work cut out for him.
While the “gamification” of national politics means President Donald Trump gets the credit for taking his party through the egg separator, the change runs much deeper than one personality.
The parties’ shared proclivity for printing money has delivered the predictable – unless you are an MMT acolyte in which case your problems run deeper – inflation. It amounts to the fiat currency era’s version of “go suck on a rock.” To drive home the point they have coupled their lack of self awareness with a nonpartisan contempt for those that do not agree. As in 1936, today's macro problems can be placed firmly at the feet of federal policies and it does not take much effort to see policymakers have screwed up very badly.
Political leaders can only be that stupid for so long because people are smarter than you think.
Have a great rest of your weekend.
Emily Evans
Managing Director – Health Policy
X
(Politics, Policy & Power is published in the quiet of Sunday afternoon or holiday Monday and attempts to weave together the disparate forces shaping health care. It makes no attempt to defend or prosecute the views of any established political party or cause. Any conclusions to the contrary rest with the reader alone.)