PicoBlog

Is America "broken", or have those in charge mismanaged the country's affairs? In other words, are those things that are causing pain for voters intrinsic to the American system and therefore nearly impossible to change, or are they transient symptoms of a curable disease based on political choices?

It's an important question, because before we can "fix" anything or take responsibility for it, we need to be clear about what we're talking about, we need to identify the causes of any "breakage," and we need to be careful about what we're accepting responsibility for if we want to be the one to bring about improvement. Simply prostrating oneself before an angry, irrational crowd and saying "sorry, I'll do better" isn't going to work; they'll trample you or string you up.

I don't think America's broken (by the way, I'm a Scottish immigrant to Canada); I think it's been mismanaged, and the mismanagement has had serious long-term, cumulative consequences for how Americans feel about themselves and their country.

The GW Bush administration's disastrous knee-jerk reaction to 9/11 was the successful outcome of bin Laden's strategy to "break" America. Its even more disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq was a major bonus (to him) and an accelerant of US decline.

The Bush administration allowing banks to lend more than they could cover upset the fine balance between greed and prudent regulation, and precipitated a global financial crisis.

Even earlier, the Reagan administration's economic policies hollowed out US manufacturing and massively boosted the enrichment of owners and investors at the expense of entire swaths of America's industrial heartland.

The Trump administration's massive tax cut for the rich made the gap between the rich and everyone else grotesque where before it was merely ugly. Trump breaking a solemn nuclear treaty with Iran and rendering the Palestinian cause finally hopeless fatally destabilized the Middle East. And he launched economic warfare against China out of sheer ignorance, trashing a delicate diplomatic balance that had kept critical channels open and largely moderated China's extremes.

These were all Republican managers, and they imposed Republican policies that were uniformly characterized by a total disregard for the needs and happiness of the ordinary working voter. Since so few of the latter see enough of the big picture to realize who has been causing these successive waves of demoralizing and impoverishing malaise, I think it would be a mistake for Joe Biden to bow his head and take responsibility for it; it would be much better if he just keeps making progress in the good, and let the bad fade like the unpleasant dream it always was.

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