The U.S. Can't Survive With a Stubbornly Low Level of Intelligence Animating the Political Process

One of the most daunting tasks this country faces isn't the deficit or tax policy or how big the government is. Rather it is convincing ourselves and the world that we are a serious people. Nothing about the current political scene suggests that we have begun to mount the kind of critical thinking needed to address our most pressing issues. Instead we are swept up in an often ugly expression of ideological preference and a decision-making procedure that occurs outside any logical, problem-solving matrix.

So much time is spent discussing the definitions of conservative and liberal that any coherent thought process is obscured by a mindless adherence to political labels used for the sake of convenience - - substitutes for real thought. Having decided for the most part that profound thinking is just too ponderous supporters turn instead to so-called "idea" men like Newt Gingrich whose ideas are often a throwback to century's-old concepts of how society should be structured. We haven't heard recently his suggestion that we should establish a system of orphanages but are informed that the poor have no decent role models, need to bathe and find jobs and that he, all evidence to the contrary, has not been and is not now a lobbyist but has earned millions of dollars for the 'historical perspective' he is able to convey to audiences and contributors.

Apparently when one's biography becomes overly complicated voters are asked to throw out conflicting details and embrace those things that enable them to get behind a leader no matter how flawed. Sometimes all it takes is empty obeisance to such things as the defense of marriage, the right to choose or one's sexual preference, all matters that have no bearing on issues that vex the world but require actual know-how and the wisdom to redress crisis-level world problems. When a caller to c-span's Washington Journal opines that any one of the current crop of Republican presidential wannabes would be an improvement over President Obama it is obvious how badly we have stumbled in assessing the acceptability quotient of perspective leaders.

For many the answer is whoever wins the fast-talking prize or attacks in the meanest terms anyone who disagrees with them. For others religion takes the place of problem-solving in a 'this-world' context. Lately there has been a flurry of what I would call the Stepford-Christian approach. There are probably many other examples but three come to mind, troubling in their hollow repetitious cadence. A golf pro after winning an important tournament thanks "his lord and savior Jesus Christ," a quarterback uses the same exact words after a victorious performance. And, in the course of condemning the president for omitting any mention of God in his Thanksgiving address a critic was asked how he would have spoken and uses the same precise lord-and-savior message too. It's as if a little recording plays endlessly in these people's heads. Who, after all speaks in such an almost gleeful manner not only in professing a particular religious observance but in the exclusionary nature of it?

It's as if we live in an environment of anomalies where things don't really have to make sense, they just have to express a certain point of view no matter how irrelevant or partisan. And we are presented with candidates and ideas that defy intelligent or profound sensibilities. Nine, nine, nine or the idea that Medicare could become a voucher system grab headlines but never find a solid baseline of understanding among the electorate. In time they almost become non-entities in political debate because they are so arcane or so out of mainstream thinking they confound productive examination. Can we possibly imagine that the weak, mean-spirited dialogue in which we are currently engaged is the best we have to offer - - a national mindset that says look here, we are a serious, well-intentioned people who deserve to be world leaders?

In the current cacophony of failed talking points we seek comfort in short-term thinking that defies resolution of long-term intransigent problems. We have yet to convince friend and foe alike that we are serious about our situation and our place in the world. Whatever faults reside with Obama the quality of his naysayers is an indictment of a process that allows a stubbornly low level of intelligence to animate the political process.