So far, Republicans are telling a better story in 2012
I am, by trade, a story teller. Unlike some yarn spinners, it’s my job to tell tales that are as true and accurate as I can make them, and to make sure that the people in the story — not my own imagination — shape the narrative.
All of which means that I spend a lot of time and energy thinking about the stories we tell each other, and ourselves, about the world.
In a very real way, that’s what a big presidential campaign is, a yarn-fest. It’s a group of people sitting around a fire, listening as different people who would like to lead our tribe tell us a story about our future.
Now politicians generally have an even more difficult relationship with the truth than journalists do. To make their stories vivid and believable and enticing, they bend the facts, spruce up the details, and gloss over the ugly bits.
Most days, it’s my job as a reporter to poke at the gaps and the downright deceptions in the tales they tell. But today I want to think out loud a bit about the stories themselves.
First, let’s take President Barack Obama. His tale goes something like this.
Once upon a time, there was a group of careless, roughneck yahoos who ran the United States so poorly that they drove our country straight into a ditch. The villains of this story — the Republican Party — didn’t pay close enough attention to the details, and so they got us tangled up in costly and unnecessary wars. Their crummy policies also allowed the economy to run off the rails. According to his story, Barack Obama is the sheriff who cleaned things up again. He ran the roughnecks out of town, put some common sense rules back in place, and put America back on a path toward something like a sustainable recovery. The happy ending of this story is a country where a reasonably powerful Federal government continues to serve as a moderating force, helping people in true need, and preventing lawlessness, whether it be by out-of-control banks or evil terrorists.
All in all, it’s not a bad story. It’s a fairly moderate sort of tale. So far, about 47% of Americans seem to like it enough to vote Mr. Obama a second term.
Now let’s look at Mitt Romney’s story:
Once upon a time, there was a group of noble American workers, small businessmen, entrepreneurs and job creators, who built the world’s mightiest, most creative economy. But those hard-working souls ran smack against a cabal of unions, environmentalists, public sector employees, meddling politicians and government regulators, who threw up bureaucratic obstacles and raised taxes until the great American engine faltered. The villains of this story — the Democrats — embraced the notion of a “dependency” society. By cutting taxes, by helping to make the rich even richer, and by reducing the power of government significantly, the true strength of our capitalist society will re-emerge The happy ending of this story is a country where cutting programs and services doesn’t produce more poverty or despair, but instead inspires people to get out and do for themselves.
This, too, is a compelling story, and so far about 46% of Americans seem to like it well enough that they’d like to see Mitt Romney in the White House.
As a story-teller myself, I’m going to venture an argument that in the long run, Mr. Romney’s tale has more oomph and more power.
Why? Because it’s aspirational. It is, in a big corporation sort of way, idealistic. It envisions a future where Americans will be liberated to create and produce and compete, and it suggests that all our failures have been caused by black hats in Washington.
Mr. Obama’s story is more technocratic. It paints a picture of an America where the party’s over, there’s a big mess, and now it’s time to clean it up — one dreary chore, one complicated reform, at a time.
Again, I’m not weighing in here on whose story is “right” or more “true.” But I do think that unless Mr. Obama can find a more compelling vision, a more enticing tale to tell, he faces a long, painful slog to November.
Tags: analysis, election12, politics
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Romney’s story does have an Ain Rand sort of ring to it. Of course we should remember that Ms. Rand wrote fiction.
I’ve heard it described as a “canopy” economy that our economy has become.
The people at the top get most of the sunshine.
In the 1930’s the government had to fix a broken economy with the New Deal. (Against Republican objections.) Now the same should happen again.
More than yarns the two stories are flat out fairy tales. Obama’s weak stimulus has given us only a tepid economic recovery. And his reliance on banking industry cronies and failure to pursue criminal prosecutions or tough regulations on Wall Street has hardly put fear into the financial industry to clean up their act.
The Romney yarn is a fairy tale totally detached from any basis of reality. The Republican ideology of cutting taxes and deregulation has been in effect since Reagan. Tax cuts did not provide any significant increase in economic growth it simply distributed a greater portion of the country’s productivity to the already wealthy. And deregulation of banking and Wall Street gave us the financial crisis that we still haven’t come close to recovering from.
Obama missed a historic opportunity to reign in the power and influence of big corporations that corrupt our politicians who in turn provide government funded welfare to their corporate clients. With Romney the total corporate take-over of America will just happen quicker as he applies his vulture capital approach where the outcome rewards a few wealthy insiders and leaves the rest of us poorer.
Obama is stuck with a bad economy. He is stuck trying to argue that it would be worse with the Republicans. Its a tough sell (but true). Going negative is his only real option.
Mitt Romney can simply make stuff up.
People respond positively to positive stories. Personally I became a republican because they always struck me as the more optimistic party. That has changed lately. Many democrats are also very optimistic types (the president seemed that way when he was running last time) but some others are down right depressing (some republicans also). Life is too short.
“by helping to make the rich even richer”
I think this is not accurate. If you look at what Romney has said and what he proposes, he does not plan any tax cuts on wealthy Americans. But in fact some of the exemptions he wants to eliminate would not be targeted at the middle class in an effort to keep their taxes lower. Instead the elimination of some tax exemption would be targeted at higher income individuals basically raising taxes on the wealthy without calling it a tax hike.
He has a better chance at doing this with this approach than what the president is proposing which we already know will not fly with Congress.
I think there have been some studies that show people tend to fall into a couple of groups. One group likes very clear cut stories with heros and villains and another group is more comfortable with stories in which things are much more complicated and the motives aren’t always so clear cut.
One side likes happy endings for the sake of happy endings and the other side likes endings that reflect reality and are more ambiguous.
I’m not impressed with either story. There is a total refusal by all politicians and would be politicians to explain what is happening on the “job front.”
I’ve said this before but I will say it again. With never ending advances in automation and computerization there is a decline in the number of workers needed to provide a product or service. As long as this trend continues and the human population continues to grow, nothing resembling full employment with ever again be seen.
Here’s my version of the story.
Obama is elected and wakes up to find he is living inside the Matrix. He and a few stalwart comrades must battle within the Matrix to free the general population that is living in a dream world which uses their very life force to control them and everything else. Mitt Romney is in this world as an agent to stop Obama from waking the general populace from its stupor. Obama represents freedom and a complex reality; Romney represents the oppression of the machine.
You would think that the prospect of a rerun of Bushencomics/ Mission Accomplished, a story with a very unhappy ending that hasn’t yet ended, would be enough to scare voters even toward Obama’s demonstrated if safe, mediocrity. But that doggone aspirational character trait is supporting a smiling, sunny, simpleton. Or, more likely, someone good at playing one on TV.
If I was Romney I would focus on what was promised, what was expected of this president and compare that to what we have. I think that is a good Republican story to tell.
If I was Obama I would simply say, you guys really want to re-invade Iraq, because that is what this guy wants to do.
Here’s my version of the story
Obama is really the Sith Lord acting as Chancellor Palpatine and has managed to dupe the entire nation into thinking everything is doom and gloom.
My take on this story is that Pete Kline is closer to my “truth”. To my way of thinking the innate drive to procreate has driven homo sapiens, wise/knowing man, into a positive feedback driven exponential over population situation. This untenable situation was aided and abetted by the pack/tribal leaders (presidents, chancellors, kings/queens….) and their most valued of henchmen the religious leaders. The avarice with which humans consume the Earth’s fauna, flora and mineral resources has us racing toward a predictable economic collapse which humans are wont to deny.
Chief among the myriad of efforts contributing to our likely demise is an arrogant insistence that economic growth, urged on by exponential population growth, is the tidal panacea that floats all monetary boats. Americans stridently defend their “right” to consume at least 25% of the Earth’s resources whilst comprising less than 5% of the Earth’s human population and curiously believe that if we can only bring everyone else on Earth up to our rates of consumption that economic nirvana for the current crop of humans plus untold billions of additions to the fold!
Agree that POTUS Obama paints a slightly less optimistic/rosy picture of America’s “rightful” economic future than POTUS wannabe Romney does; however, no politicians have the intestinal fortitude to step up to the plate and tell the unvarnished truth that a real storm is a brewing.
For all of the armchair and degree holding economists I point you, again, toward a Utube speech by a 12 year old Canadian young lady who succinctly describes one of the least understood and expounded upon, mechanisms by which the 1% fill their pockets by emptying those of the 99% and a simple yet astoundingly effective method to reverse it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx5Sc3vWefE&feature=youtu.be
Here’s Bill Clinton’s version of the Obama story.
“You have six months to fix the country”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5UBMg5mn4I
I like it wakeup! What if he’s a split personality like the guy from Fight Club? Part Neo part Palpatine? Which personality wins?
On the other hand perhaps it is Romney who is posing as the Sith Lord but in reality is secretly working with the Jedi in their quest to provide a system of universal health care throughout … well, the Universe.
Intercepts of subspace communications may indicate that it is really Obama who is doing Romney’s bidding in pushing the individual mandate.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303640104577436300587354714.html
Pete Klein:
There is a problem with believing that unemployment will always exist at a substantial and growing rate due to automation. It denies the existence of human ingenuity and its unending drive for innovation.
If one assumes no new products are developed, services are required, and discoveries are made, then it is probably accurate to say that unemployment has no where to go but up with the rise of automation.
However, the factory worker who has his job replaced by a robot is now “freed” up to apply his thoughts, skills and creativity to other ventures. For the 55 year old line worker, this is an unfortunate deal…he had retirement on his mind and now his job is gone with little hope of returning…but the 20 year old line worker has his entire “productive” life ahead of him.
With new discoveries, services, and products, there is an ever increasing demand for labor. It simply conflicts with all of human history to state otherwise.
Ken Hall:
Great video. The girl nails it.
Our downfall began on December 23, 1913, when Congress created the Federal Reserve and abdicated their Constitutionally mandated power and responsibility.
As soon as the management of our nation’s currency was handed over to private group to manipulate, we entered the Super Highway to our Inevitable Collapse.
Ken Hall:
That being said, I think we should point out we are headed to economic collapse because of a currency sum total problem, not a resource sum total problem.
I think that to suggest that our leaders should focus on avoiding economic collapse on the basis that is is due to human, and particularly American consumption, of natural resources is misguided. It starts with a “closed system” view on resources and technologies.
By that I mean that we cannot tie ultimate collapse to exhaustion of all natural resources on the planet because this is based on the notion that we have identified all possible resources on the planet (not to mention, limits us to this planet).
Will there be an end to the natural resources required for our current means of powering items, homes, and vehicles? Certainly. That is simple math (not to mention scary, exponential math when you outline the consumption rates that you have).
However, why would we expect that humanity has topped out in sources of energy? Renewable energy sources are certainly laughable in comparison to fossil fuel technologies when it comes to efficiency, practicality, and cost….but that is when we think within the framework of what we know today.
The bigger problem is that we simply are taking on too much debt and funding too many mandatory spending “entitlements” for us to fund. Eventually, we run out of the precious resource for those things, and that is actual, hard capital.
The Fed prints money endlessly to support unending, out of control spending, and we borrow it from foreign nations to additionally supplement. Eventually, there is too much money supply and very little demand (because our debtors find that their interest held on our debts pays little to nothing) and the whole thing crashes.
It’s ugly. It’s coming. And that is the hard medicine that we need our leaders to stand up and prevent. And neither Obama nor Romney will even consider this.