I wish I would have caught Evan Thomas’s post for Newsweek back in April, but I’m glad I saw it today:
“There was a time when candidates dared to ask for sacrifice on the campaign trail. Before the 1968 Indiana primary, Robert F. Kennedy advocated expanding health care to the poor. He was asked by a University of Indiana medical student, “Who will pay for it?” Kennedy answered, “You will.” The crowd gasped, then applauded. But that was a long time ago.”
Read the full post here:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/32821
I wish that Thomas–or someone equally capable–would expand upon this theme. I took a small crack at it in February, in a speech to the Austin Anti Defamation League about the congruence of the notion empathy and the mission of the ADL:
……..”I think empathy really matters to Americans. Sometimes, though, it seems that the overdevelopment of some of our other muscles gets in the way of its practice.
When our celebrated talent for entrepreneurship and economic competition comes unhinged, and billionaires and the indigent uninsured seem to be in a contest to see who can grow more quickly.
When our long-standing sense of community mutates into a hyper suspicion of outsiders. And sure, we can be excused our economic and national security anxieties—god knows– we’ve earned them. But lately it feels like we’re in danger of forgetting what Reagan intended: the glow from our shining city was to be a beacon. Not a search light.
When our abiding optimism compromises our most important empathic relationship: the one we maintain with future generations of Americans. From Day One of the Republic, our ancestors sacrificed some measure of gratification to assure the well being of their progeny. Also known as—the people in this room.
How strange, then, that no real discussion of shared sacrifice has entered our politics for a generation. This, even though sacrifice seems a logical point of departure for almost any serious discussion of policy: fiscal, environmental, education, energy, health care…you name it.
Somewhere along the way, two big, important ideas: “sacrifice” on the one hand and “optimism” on the other–became mutually exclusive. No big surprise which idea always wins, as an almost obnoxious “optimism” has become table stakes for *any* serious candidate running for *any* office. You might say that in a referendum against optimism, sacrifice is assured burial in a landslide.
We often hear about “third rail” issues in American politics—issues so powerfully charged that they electrocute any leader who comes near them. You know the litany: social security, Medicare, drug legalization, conscription; the list doesn’t need any additions.
But I’ll propose one, anyway: It seems to me that *sacrifice* has become the *ultimate* third rail in American politics. We fry our leaders when they touch it, and so they don’t.
The choice between “optimism” and “sacrifice” is false, it is juvenile, and it does our nation great harm. But the temptation for our leaders to make that choice—false, juvenile, and harmful as it–proves simply irresistible. Why? Because we—the electorate—reward the false choice time after time. And so shared sacrifice is almost never on the table.
Hasn’t the time come to throw the switch on this third rail—to shut off the political deadliness of the notion of shared sacrifice? To have an adult conversation about the fact that tax cuts, wars, universal health care, investment in energy independence, $150 billion in short term stimulus to avoid recession: they simply can’t co-exist without borrowing from our progeny. Until we as a nation face the prospect of shared sacrifice, the biggest gift we will give our children is righteousness to match their indignation. Because without shared sacrifice, we just can’t show them the empathy our ancestors showed to us.
