The Road Taken

The big question about this year’s election is whether it’s about smaller government or better government?

Tea party people will tell you emphatically it’s about: (1) smaller government; (2) the Constitution; and (3) and (4) the freedom and will of the people. Those who object to this interpretation will say that the election is about the hardship and fear caused by the economy and the discontent of citizens over how self-serving those in the government sometimes act.

It is easy for Tea Party and conservative types to claim the mantle of broad philosophic revolt against the direction the country is going. Yet, for many Americans, the emotive voicing of revolt is driven by the current yet mostly temporary pain created by the turn of the economy, and the fear instilled in older people by the coming new health care system more than by a broad distaste for government intervention generally.

For me, the Obama administration has us on the right track, but most of the economic changes are concentrated more on improving the long-term prospects of the US to compete and succeed in a global economy than immediately bringing down unemployment in the short-run. People just don’t see the plan, as they are blinded by the temporary fog of their own personal debt and anxiousness over the inescapable truth that we as a people need to change. We need to be more educated and more disciplined in this globalized era wherein each country’s workers are rewarded only according to what they do more efficiently than other workers in the world. That hurts, as discipline and deferred gratification are not consistent with the American’s pleasure principle.

Two years from now, during the next Presidential election cycle, we will see that the road travelled by Obama and the Democrats will, in the words of Robert Frost, “make all the difference.”