It’s been a while since I’ve been on the political soapbox, but I found that Paul Krugman’s recent editorial put its finger on something I’ve been thinking, but haven’t quite been able to put into words. I’ve spoken often on this blog about the dumbing down of America, but somewhere along the way the Republicans institutionalized this trend and capitalized on it. Key quote:

“…know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

Most of our current problems: the housing bubble, our deteriorating infrastructure, our dependence on foreign oil, the war in Iraq, the looming Social Security and Medicare crises, the debt position of most familes, and other issues are all borne of the inability to think long term through complex interwoven issues. My parents’ generation was steeped in the ideology that sacrifice now for greater good later was the key to a good life. Most religious ideology has similar roots (although you usually have to die for your reward to come), but the idea of sowing now to reap later is core to most faiths. Are we so self-absorbed as a generation that we can’t see the implications of our short-term pay-me-now philosophy on our children and grandchildren?

If something looks to good to be true, it probably is. That’s why Lipozene won’t make you thin, why playing Lotto doesn’t count as a retirment strategy, why drilling for more oil off the coast doesn’t solve our energy issues, and why kicking Saddam’s butt doesn’t make the Mid-East more stable.

I don’t think for a minute that Obama has all the answers, but I’m encouraged that he seems to believe that progress is incremental and sometimes painful. I also worry that a likely bi-cameral majority of Democrats with a Democratic White House will yield a different but equally destructive unchecked reign of government. But at this point the Republicans are acting like children and haven’t shown the maturity of judgement required to lead. I miss the pre-Reagan G.O.P., the one that was truly fiscally conservative, the one that was interested in nation-building in our own country. It balanced the Democrats’ socialism and provided true choice. But not anymore.

I’d like to blame the Republicans for the slide into the “Me Generation” abyss, but I can’t. They are victims of their own success. As a nation, we buy Lipozene and Lotto tickets, and we elect politicians who sell the idea that each of us can be better than average. We respond to the sound bite. We don’t think things through. There was a time when politicians appealed to the best of. Asking us to ask what we can do for our country. Inspiring us to be better as a group than maybe we thought we were individually. But now they appeal to our baser instincts. They divide and conquor. They ask us to be better to ourselves than to the nation as a whole. And unfortunately they succeed with that strategy.

How does this change? Only when we change. If we buy it, they will sell it, not the other way around. Think things through, or at least follow those who you believe do. Don’t fall for what makes you feel good. Don’t take the easy way out. Recognize that progress is hard work and requires sacrifice. Accept that half of us will always be below average. Inspire. Aspire. Perspire.