Sunday, August 21, 2011
The 1970s in reverse?
Hub Blog knows that conventional wisdom, at least on the right, says we're reliving the 1970s all over again, i.e. sooner or later President Obama is going to have his killer rabbit moment. I know what they mean. Some of the similarities are eerie, including seemingly intractable economic problems combined with weak presidencies. But watching this Jon Stewart piece, it kind of hit me the opposite might be true, i.e. this might be the conservative movement's 1970s. A kind of reverse 1970s.
I remember the '70s as a time when liberalism hung too firmly to its dogmas, refusing to take pragmatic steps to solve problems and deviate from old Keynesian theories. Economically, they refused, until the last moment, to take on the '70s inflation dragon, saying it would worsen unemployment do so. OK, now replace 'liberalism' above with 'conservativism,' 'Keynesian' with 'Supply Side' and 'inflation dragon' with 'unemployment dragon,' etc. Of course, also change the decade references. But still ... All right, the theory needs work. A lot of work. Obama playing the role of Carter is simply too obvious to ignore. But I can't get the other parallels out of my mind.
Hub Blog knows that conventional wisdom, at least on the right, says we're reliving the 1970s all over again, i.e. sooner or later President Obama is going to have his killer rabbit moment. I know what they mean. Some of the similarities are eerie, including seemingly intractable economic problems combined with weak presidencies. But watching this Jon Stewart piece, it kind of hit me the opposite might be true, i.e. this might be the conservative movement's 1970s. A kind of reverse 1970s.
I remember the '70s as a time when liberalism hung too firmly to its dogmas, refusing to take pragmatic steps to solve problems and deviate from old Keynesian theories. Economically, they refused, until the last moment, to take on the '70s inflation dragon, saying it would worsen unemployment do so. OK, now replace 'liberalism' above with 'conservativism,' 'Keynesian' with 'Supply Side' and 'inflation dragon' with 'unemployment dragon,' etc. Of course, also change the decade references. But still ... All right, the theory needs work. A lot of work. Obama playing the role of Carter is simply too obvious to ignore. But I can't get the other parallels out of my mind.
