Michele Bachmann: A Female Obama?

It is probably the worst insult that one Republican can hurl at another. To accuse a rival of being a clone of our current president is tantamount to asserting that he or she is anti-American. It implies that he or she will implement policies as destructive as those championed by Barack Obama. This is, in short, a low blow.

Nevertheless, at the risk of being unfair, I wish to indulge in exactly this charge. While I do not believe that Romney, or Perry, or even Pawlenty fits this bill, I am convinced that Michelle Bachmann does. There are too many parallels between who she is and how our president operates.

As others have commented, both Barack and Bachmann are impressive on the stump. Each can give a stem-winder of a speech that throws raw meat to the faithful. People cheer themselves hoarse in response to simplified exaggerations of the party line. Without stopping to consider the implications of what they are told, they catch a contagious emotion and run with it.

As has also been observed, Obama rode to the presidency on his ability to speak. However, as even Hillary Clinton pointed out, a speech is not a qualification for high office. Saying what people want to hear doesn’t demonstrate an aptitude for governing. Clearly for Barack, it was not.

Bachmann also touts her competence as a fighter. She claims to have a titanium spine so tough that she will never back down. Here she can be taken at her word. She has established her ability to stand up for principles despite heavy-duty criticism. But then so has Obama. He too is a fighter who has been able to survive adversity.

These things are good, but they are not what matter when selecting a president. For one thing, there is the small matter of honesty. As Barack has repeatedly confirmed, he is willing to say whatever he believes will garner votes. Truth value is of no concern to him. He will even contradict himself in mid-sentence.

But Bachmann has a similar penchant. She has been criticized for being too quick on the draw and therefore for saying things that are dead wrong. But the situation is much worse than this. Many of her misstatements are not merely accidents; they are calculated efforts to deceive.

One of the worst of these occurred in the Republican debate in Iowa. When pressed about her lack of administrative or legislative accomplishments, she turned on Pawlenty to eviscerate him. According to her, he had implemented “cap and trade” policies in Minnesota. In fact, he had only considered them—which is quite a difference.

Closely related to this is Bachmann’s fondness for bragging about imaginary achievements. Just like Obama, she takes credit for what others have done. Granted, this is a common political failing, but she is too quick in jumping to the head of the parade. Thus, to hear her tell it, she was not just the organizer of the tea party caucus in Congress, she invented the tea party itself.

One of the worst examples of this predilection, again during the Iowa debate, was insisting that her vote against raising the debt ceiling was vindicated by the facts. Anyone with any sense knows that it is far too early to evaluate the effects of the recent budgetary legislation, much less what would have happened had it not passed. Yet she is certain where certainty is impossible.

Lastly, one of my rules of thumb in evaluating politicians is whether they answer direct questions. When a query is capable of a straightforward response, but elicits a canned platitude, I grow skeptical. It leads me to the conclusion that the person has something to hide; that he or she knows a truthful answer would not be appreciated.

Obama evades direct questions all the time. So unfortunately does Bachmann. She knew that Pawlenty’s doubts about her achievements were justified. She therefore deflected his barb by going on the offense. This was understandable. The trouble was she did something similar when reporters asked about this later on.

What Bachmann did was to enumerate the many times she defended tea party positions. This confirmed her skills as a fighter, but it did nothing to validate her credentials as a potential chief executive. –So let’s be careful

Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

What Were They Thinking?

Standard and Poor’s was not the first to warn of the coming financial debacle. Nevertheless, they certainly got the nation’s attention in downgrading the government’s credit rating. The question is now whether the politicians will get the message. Will the Democrats, in particular, realize that there is a looming budgetary disaster just around the bend?

This puts me in mind of a course I once took while living in Rochester New York. Then employed as a psychological counselor, I hoped that obtaining a master’s in social work might improve my skills. What I had not expected was the extent of the naiveté of my fellow students.

This was revealed during a discussion of Kodak’s policies in dealing with disabled employees. These were acknowledged to be generous, but several students argued that they ought to be expanded to cover all of the worker’s expenses. Although this would increase the company’s costs several times over, it should still be done.

In response, another student observed that the proposed benefits were so generous that they would destroy Kodak’s profitability. To this the first student replied that this did not matter. All that counted was that the company should do the right thing. Its employees deserved no less.

At this, the skeptical student commented that if Kodak did not earn a profit, it would eventually go out of business. And if it did, there would be no money to pay disabled employees anything. What then would happen to these workers?

One might have though this would have ended the conversation, but it did not. The first student was not through. She still insisted that this didn’t matter. Profitability could not be the criteria for deciding company policy. All that counted was what was moral. People had to do the right thing, whatever the consequences.

Today we hear similar contentions with regard to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. People in need are said to “deserve” these programs whatever the implications of their cost. Policy makers are, therefore, castigated for donning green eyeshades to calculate the costs. They should instead be concentrating on taking care of those who require assistance.

Many of you have probably seen it, but there is a television ad that insists government subsidies to hospitals must not be cut. Three elderly people face the camera to ask legislators, “What were you thinking?” Limiting the health care of older Americans is such a bad idea, that they should immediately reverse course.

Every time I see this performance I am tempted to reply in kind. “What were we thinking?” We were thinking that the nation had to be preserved from bankruptcy. We were thinking that it is essential to leave our children and grandchildren with a nation that is solvent enough to meet their needs.

Then I am inclined to ask the TV spokespersons (and those who wrote their script), what were you thinking? Was your sole concern your own selfish needs? Did what might happen to future generations ever cross your minds?

There are times I am amazed by the lack of foresight some people exercise. Those social work students back in Rochester left me flabbergasted by their inability to anticipate the effects of their recommendation. I was even more offended when they declared that they didn’t care what happened.

Today I look around and see politicians expressing similar attitudes because they believe that if they make promises they know cannot keep, they may be elected one more time. I also see the recipients of their largesse piously intoning pleas that they deserve what they have always received—no matter what.

Then I look at polls that indicate Republicans are receiving more blame than Democrats for the current budgetary impasse and wonder if I have not inadvertently crossed into Alice’s Wonderland. Can adult human beings be so oblivious to facts and logic that they are prepared to march headlong to their own destruction?

As a former clinician, I know the power of denial. It just terrifies me that we as a nation may be repressing facts essential to protecting our shared interests.

Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

What Should Johnny (and Mary) be Learning?

It is that time of the year. School is about to begin for one more season. Soon the younger children will be taking the busses to their classrooms. And soon afterwards millions of young adults will troop onto our college campuses, there to prepare for the challenges looming upon graduation.

But what will they be learning? What is the point of spending so many years absorbing materials that may never be applied in the real world? This is a more significant problem than many people realize. Indeed, these questions are currently roiling the waters in higher education.

For many years, members of the professorate have claimed that they specialize in teaching “critical thinking.” This, they say, is why college graduates are liable to be hired for more responsible and better-remunerated jobs than mere high school graduates.

It is certainly true that, over the long haul, the recipients of a college degree are better off financially. But it does not seem to be the case that improvements in critical thinking are the cause. Indeed, a recent book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, presents compelling evidence this is a myth. Research is beginning to demonstrate that few experience such a benefit.

I am reminded of the situation on the nation’s colleges during the nineteenth century. At the time, most students were required to study Greek and Latin. This had been so since the Middle Ages when a majority belonged to the clergy and hence needed to read the Bible in the languages in which it was written.

One might have supposed that in a more secular world, this prerequisite would have been suspended. It was not, mostly due to long tradition. Nevertheless, its continuation was justified on the grounds that training in these languages improved a student’s ability to think logically.

It took studies by the embryonic discipline of psychology to demonstrate that this was fiction. There was no such effect. As a consequence, college requirements were gradually altered to better reflect the needs of the marketplace.

We are today faced with a similar situation. Until now the putative value of critical thinking has gone unchallenged. As a time-honored rationale, it was simply taken for granted. Even though there were no specific courses in such thinking, and despite the fact that there were no explicit techniques for imparting it, it was assumed that most college courses conferred it as a side effect of teaching their subject matter.

In fact, if college professors, especially in the humanities and social sciences, are critical of anything, it is capitalism and imperialism. The market system is widely condemned as sponsoring exploitation at home and abroad, and therefore as worthy of being relegated to the ash heap of history.

If, however, this turns out to be a comforting fairy tale intended to justify efforts at indoctrinating students in a teacher’s ideological preferences, what might replace it? May I suggest that a credible candidate is “self-direction.” This goal is more in tune with the needs of the work place and is thus more likely to promote individual success.

In our more professionalized society, those who climb to positions of leadership need to be capable of making good decisions, even in an environment of uncertainty. They must therefore become self-motivated experts who know what they are doing and have the confidence to do it—and do it well.

Instead of stressing enervating assignments that reward the conformity of bogus group projects or demanding answers consistent with conventional liberalism, students must be encouraged to think for themselves. This does not mean being “critical” in the sense of criticizing entrepreneurship or economic success. It does, however, imply a need to reintroduce the “marketplace of ideas” currently being honored by lip service.

Students who are truly self-directed need to be provided with the intellectual and emotional resources to stand up against criticism when they attempt to be innovative. They must also learn to take risks and to learn from their mistakes.

These are tall orders, but it is time that our colleges and universities started to address them. If they do not, then many of their graduates will be launched into the world with a piece of paper—and little else.

Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

The Mask of Affability Begins to Slip

Do you remember “the speech”? You know, the one Barack Obama gave before the Democratic convention that nominated John Kerry for president. The one that brought him to national attention and first implanted the idea that he would make a good chief executive.

That was the speech where he told the nation it was time for racial reconciliation. It was where he echoed Rodney King’s plea that “we all just get along,”—only more eloquently. Here was an intelligent African-American. Here was someone we could trust.

This compared favorably with the impressions left by other prominent blacks. Political figures such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton might aspire to the presidency, but few whites considered them for this honor. They were simply too angry. As such, they reminded them of street thugs.

But Barack was different. He was not angry. Far from it, he was affable. With a smile on his face, and a lilt to his voice, he was someone who could be believed. Obviously part of the American family, he brought intelligence and perceptiveness to the national scene.

But now the mask has begun to slip. The anger underneath his façade of cordiality has started to show. As the pressures on him have grown, it has been more difficult to keep his true feelings under wraps. The budget crisis has put him on the spot and prompted him to lash out—irrespective of his personal or political interests.

One of the more revealing instances of this was his televised declaration that he was “summoning” the congressional leaders to the White House. Many commentators were surprised by the naked arrogance of this demand. It was too reminiscent of the imperiousness of an absolute monarch.

Many of these same observers were also offended by Barack’s stipulation that these leaders bring a viable solution to the debt predicament with them. This too struck them as excessively authoritarian for the president of a democracy. After all, members of congress belonged to a co-equal branch of the government.

What few onlookers seemed to realize (at least consciously) was how angry these pronouncements were. They might have noted the hard stare in Barack’s eyes, and the edge in his voice, but his reputation for geniality made it difficult to conceive of him as incensed. The man was simply too nice.

Nevertheless, when understood in context, his partially shrouded fury makes perfect sense. We must remember that Barack was abandoned by his birth father, semi-abandoned by his mother, raised by contentious grandparents, exposed to virulent Indonesian racism before the age of ten, and then subjected to the ignominy of being racially marginalized in Hawaii.

How could anyone escape being irate at such an upbringing? Rage would be the normal human reaction to this sort of abuse, and, whatever else he is, Obama is a normal human being. Thus, he had to be livid at the treatment he endured. Nonetheless, he was a child who must have feared retaliation—and further abandonment—if he allowed he actual feelings to show.

And so he covered them up. He assumed the pose of affability that has become his trademark. Rather than fight back openly, he smiled and allowed the insults to roll off his back. On the surface, he was too gracious a person to reciprocate in kind. This response had the effect of disarming his tormentors. How could they continue to persecute him when he was so polite and likeable?

So successful was this strategy, and so effectively was it implemented, that it projected Barack to the apex of the political pyramid. Not just the people immediately around him, but those who knew him only from what they saw on television were convinced he was what he seemed. This was a man who could be a friend. It was a person who meant it when he promised to be everyone’s “keeper.”

Except, that as his policies have revealed, our president is more concerned with his own welfare than anyone else’s. This is not a man who loves others. It is a man who is angry at others, including his nation. As alarmingly, it is a man who acts of these impulses.

The rest of us had, therefore, best beware!

Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

We Need Deeds, Not Words

Most of my students at Kennesaw State University understand it. If nowhere else, they learn it in the process of dating. Almost all discover that what they hear on first dates may not be confirmed later on. Too often what people say about themselves does not match the way they act when they are no longer trying to impress.

I too have seen this simple truth demonstrated when hiring new faculty. Newly minted Ph.D.’s come in bright eyed and bushy tailed prepared to be exactly what our department is looking for. Of course, they can teach the courses we require. Moreover they are hard workers who are respectful colleagues, that is, until they feel comfortable in their jobs.

As even teenagers understand: Words are cheap. Anyone can manipulate almost anybody by telling them what they would like to hear. Consequently, most of us also monitor the actions of others. When important issues are at stake we are more impressed by deeds than self-serving promises.

So why isn’t this true in politics? Why do so many people place their confidence in political speeches clearly intended to influence how they think and vote? Can’t they tell the difference when events do not turn out as expected?

As an illustration I offer the strange case of Coolidge versus Roosevelt. Calvin Coolidge has almost been forgotten. During the nineteen-twenties, he was very popular because his presidency was a time of plenty and unbridled optimism. Nevertheless, Will Rogers famously said of him that he did nothing, but that was what people wanted done.

This, however, is unfair. Coolidge presided over a roaring economy because he did the right things. He lowered taxes and reduced government expenditures; hence the private sector took off. Contemporary liberals ridicule him for saying that the business of America was business, but during his administration business was so robust that the unemployment rate was 1.8 %.

Coolidge’s problem was that he was not very articulate. Universally referred to as Silent Cal, making inspirational speeches was not his forte. This defect was shortly to be rectified by one of his successors, namely Franklin Roosevelt. If nothing else, Roosevelt was known for his eloquent fireside chats. These radio conversations were so well received that people stayed home to hear them.

The payoff was that Roosevelt became a national hero. He was regarded as rescuing the nation from the Great Depression, although he did no such thing. Shortly after he was elected the unemployment rate stood at nearly 25 %, whereas a decade later it stubbornly remained at almost 20 %.

So why did Roosevelt do so well in the public estimation? A major reason had to do with his ability to use words. By comparison, Coolidge’s taciturnity helped sink into near anonymity. With few stem-winding speeches to his credit, people had little left to hang his reputation on. Stirring phases like “we have nothing to fear, but fear itself” were not there in his legacy to ring in the public imagination, as was the case for Roosevelt.

Today we are blessed with another gifted orator for President. Barack Obama too has a way with words he has been able to use to impress the electorate. But where are his deeds? Where is the reduction in the unemployment rate? Obama promised it would never rise above 8 %, yet it has been higher that this for most of his term in office.

Now, given the heated debates over the deficit crisis, we are being treated to a blizzard of compelling rhetoric. We are being told, for instance, that people must all bear the load for fixing the problem. The rich must, therefore, pay “their fair share.” Never mind that they already pay upwards of 80 % of income taxes, while almost half of Americans pay nothing.

So what is a fair share? Don’t count on Obama to verbalize the actual distribution of revenue contributions. This would interfere with his ability to use words to demonize the rich. Nor can we expect him to deliver a concrete budget proposal. This too would hinder his ability to pose as the conciliatory adult who is above the fray.

When, therefore, will some people realize that all he is offering is honeyed words? When will they stop to check into his deeds? If they do not, it is a safe bet he will continue to deliver high unemployment and national bankruptcy.

Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University