By David Brooks and Gail Collins
Jason DeCrow/The Associated Press Do Kanye West’s rude remarks to Taylor Swift as she accepted her MTV award on Sunday reflect the fall of American society?
David Brooks: Gail, many years ago, I was a sophisticated person. I used to listen to classical music: Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Herbie Hancock and Weather Report, along with the ubiquitous Bruce. But as I age, my musical tastes more and more resemble that of a tween.
There is broad consensus on what the U.S. needs to do to solve many of its problems, but no political way to get there.
If pressed to list the top pop songs of the past few years, I’d have to include “Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia, “Complicated” by Avril Lavigne and two by Taylor Swift, “Tim McGraw” and “Love Story.” Thus I am heavily invested in Ms. Swift’s welfare and was grievously afflicted when Kanye West ruined her big moment the other night. My fear is this trauma will send Ms. Swift into the slough of despond and her next album will make Alanis Morissette seem like a trip to Disney World.
My secondary fear is that this moment will mark a turning point in World History, like the battle of Gettysburg, the defeat of the Spanish Armada or when Hot Lips became sympathetic on “M*A*S*H.” I’ve really begun to get quite glum about the future of the republic.
In addition to the swiftboating of Swift, there is this fact: there is a broad consensus on what we need to do to solve many of our major problems, but no political way to get there. Most experts of left and right believe we need a gas tax in order to address our energy problems. No political way to get there. Most believe that we need a flatter, fairer tax code, probably based on a consumption tax. No political way to get there. Most agree that the fee-for-service system drives up health care costs and the employer based insurance system is unsustainable. There is apparently no political way to change these things. Most experts agree that teacher quality is crucial to the schools and that bad teachers need to be fired. Again, no political way to do this.
I could go on. It all reminds me of a thesis that Mancur Olson came up with many years ago, which was nicely explained in Jonathan Rauch’s book, “Demosclerosis.” The thesis was that as nations age they develop entrenched relationships that close off certain avenues of change. This leads to the decline of nations. Germany and Japan, on the other hand, were able to grow so quickly after World War II because those entrenched arrangements had been swept away amid the national cataclysms.
Normally I reject declinism. But seeing Ms. Swift up on stage at the MTV awards, speechless and shocked, has quite obviously shaken me to my core.
Gail Collins: David, since I have already confessed that I once spent several days camped out at the fabled Woodstock Festival without ever actually hearing any music, I don’t think I’m the best person to criticize your taste in singers.
Countries go through stages; but tough reform does happen if there’s enough sense of public alarm pushing it.
As a member of the sentient world, I am obviously aware that Kanye West dissed Taylor Swift while she was trying to accept her MTV award. This was extremely impolite. Maybe not as impolite as calling the president a liar during a Congressional address, but still. It reflects badly on the manners of rappers everywhere.
Although the last time I looked, nobody was marching around Washington waving signs commending Kanye for telling it like it is.
Now, about your second non-musical point. I absolutely agree that there’s a broad consensus about what we need to do to solve many of our major problems. However, I’ve noticed that my list of obvious answers is entirely different from yours. So maybe the agreement isn’t quite as broad as we think.
Pretend it is, though. The reason we can’t get there politically is pretty simple. I don’t think it’s all Glenn Beck’s fault although if you really want to blame him, it’s O.K. by me.
Countries go through stages. If they’re lucky they start out poor and raw, and then they grow. The political challenge is to give the people government services that make their lives better without strangling economic development.
That’s hard, but it’s not nearly as hard as the next stage, which is reforming the programs we’ve already got to make them more efficient. Everybody is in awe to this day that Lyndon Johnson got Medicare through Congress. But that was an addition — a snap compared to what we’re trying to do now, which inevitably involves taking stuff away, whether it’s unnecessary medical tests or income via higher taxes.
I know it drives you nuts that so many Democratic committee chairs just want to add on more health insurance coverage without cutting costs on the other side. They’re just following the impulse that’s been driving their political forefathers since the federal government broke ground for the Cumberland Road in 1811.
(Just wanted to throw in a little obscure historical trivia to see if you’re paying attention.)
But tough reform does happen if there’s enough sense of public alarm pushing it. Back in the Reagan administration, Congress did come up with a plan to fix Social Security. And thanks to Ross Perot’s screeching during the campaign of 1992, Bill Clinton was able to get Congress to raise taxes and deal with the deficit.
Then we got George W. Bush and the theory that the best way to deal with a terrorist attack and impending war was to cut taxes and tell people to go shopping. Gonna take a while for us to recover from that one.
Way longer than it will take Taylor Swift.
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