Ms. Sondra Myers:
The Role of the University in Civil Discourse
We’ll begin with Mr. Shribman. In recent times, our politics has been deluged with examples of the blame game, which could be regarded as not only uncivil, but unproductive. Presumably democracy, no matter how contentious a system it is, is meant to come up with decisions that benefit the people. In your view, do we need to rescue our politics from its uncivil descent into the blame game? Is it possible, and is it even desirable?
Mr. David Shribman:
I’m not sure that the blame game was invented in our time. In my time covering Congress and the White House in Washington, there was plenty of blame given, and in truth plenty of blame deserved. But I was thinking just this week when we’re talking about Social Security about the difference in Washington and the difference in the debate even when compared with two very contentious times, 1935, which was the middle of the New Deal period and still the back end of the depression, and 1965, which was the backwash from the Kennedy administration, Kennedy assassination and the beginning of the Great Society.
In 1935, the President proposed and Congress passed the Social Security Act, which had bipartisan support. I believe two dozen or more Republicans voted for the Social Security Act. The very Social Security that Governor Rick Perry of Texas spoke about recently as being a Ponzi scheme. In 1965, there was robust bipartisan support for Medicare, which was the most dramatic extension of government into the lives of people in our time. When we look at the Obama Health Plan—which is said to be the third step in that progression, Social Security, Medicare, Obama Care—not one Republican in either the House or the Senate voted for that bill. Now, I’m not chastising Republicans or celebrating Democrats. I’m a member of neither party. But I do think that is a signal change. But as we look at that change, let’s remember one other thing which I think is at the heart of our civility crisis now. In the ’30s and in the ’60s, and up until the ’80s, we did not have what political scientists for several generations in this country have dearly wanted us to have. And that was parties of ideological purity. And people sat in the academy and elsewhere and said, oh, the thing that’s wrong with American democracy is that our parties aren’t pure. We have liberal Democrats and conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans and conservative Republicans.
7