Dec 19, 2008
The Separated Parents Theory of American Politics
Obama’s selection of Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation has whipped up a significant amount of anger on the left. This anger is quite justified. Rick Warren is a man who stands for the opposite of the political inclusiveness that Obama claims to be aiming for. Rick Warren is a man
* who supported Proposition 8 by saying “there are about 2 percent of Americans are homosexual, gay, lesbian people. We should not let 2 percent of the population…change a definition of marriage that has been supported by every single culture and every single religion for 5,000 years.”
* who, on abortion, says: “it is kind of a charade in that people say ‘We believe abortions should be safe and rare,’… Don’t tell me it should be rare. That’s like saying on the Holocaust, ‘Well, maybe we could save 20 percent of the Jewish people in Poland and Germany and get them out and we should be satisfied with that,’… I’m not satisfied with that. I want the Holocaust ended.”
* who is so committed to a culture of life that he believes “God puts government on earth to punish evildoers” and therefore unreservedly agrees with Sean Hannity that we should “take out” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran.
So for Warren, (i) we must all obey the 5000-year-old laws of all the world’s religions (if they all agreed that stoning adulterers is okay, then we ought to do so); (ii) those who are pro-choice are akin to Nazis (doesn’t he know that ancient Greek religion thought it was okay to kill the newly born? Why shouldn’t we obey those 5000 year old laws?); and (iii) our government’s existential purpose is to stop evildoers, so murdering foreign heads of state is okay by life-loving Warren. On the whole, Warren’s view seems to be this: if the world’s religions enjoin X, X must be the law of the land. Except if X is something Warren doesn’t happen to like — say polygamy — then and only then it shouldn’t be the law of the land.
And yet the selection of Warren doesn’t bother me for the same reason as most liberals. It seems to me that this choice is totally in keeping with the theory that has driven Obama’s whole campaign. This theory — let’s call it the Separated Parents Theory of American Politics — states that what was wrong with the last eight years of American politics — and American politics more broadly since 1968 — has been a Vietnam-fueled family squabble among liberals and conservatives.
According to this theory, our most important problem has been bitterness, divisiveness, disrespectful disagreement among members of the American family, a sort of looming divorce between what George Lakoff would describe as “strict fathers” (conservatives) and “nurturing mothers” (liberals). Obama, like Bill Clinton, the product of a broken marriage, seems to hate it when boomer Dad and Mom are fighting. He hopes, through a change of tone, to bring the two warring camps together. If only they could stay in the same room and be civil to each other, maybe we could start getting things done! It is the fantasy of the child heroically helping Mom and Dad reconcile that makes Obama’s campaign so symbolically powerful, especially — I suspect — among younger voters for whom boomer political strife seems almost incomprehensibly bitter. Ergo, “strong-Dad” Warren, who — whatever you think of his politics — is about as mainstream as apple pie among certain communities in this country. Including him is a way of (presumably) forcing “nurturing-mom” LGBT activists to stop “being so shrill,” and learn to have a respectful conversation with those they disagree with.
As you can tell from my account above, my problem with the selection of Warren is not Warren himself — though I strongly disagree with his politics — it’s that this choice reveals yet again how deeply Obama believes in the Separated Parents Theory. And if Obama keeps repeating this theory, using his bully pulpit to give it credibility, others might come to think it’s true. But in my view this whole way of talking about politics is deeply misguided. That is, though grounded by a grain of truth — politics does make us mad — this theory is very misleading.
The problem with the last eight years hasn’t been that Strict Dad (say, George W. Bush) and Nurturing Mom (say, Hillary Clinton) have been at each other’s throats in partisan rancor. No, in fact, there has since 9/11 (and before) been a high level of bipartisan accord on all the most important — and destructive — decisions that have been made. Hillary Clinton and Senate Democrats overwhelmingly voted for the Iraq war. Nancy Pelosi and Congressional Democrats were advised of — and either supported or tolerated — our torture policy. Pretty much everyone eagerly voted for the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001. On gay marriage — the one area where one can plausibly claim a difference of policy preference is leading to disdain and anger — both major presidential candidates agreed completely: Marriage is between a man and a woman, though some civil rights should be extended to homosexual partners.
Given the overwhelming evidence of the last eight years, how can anyone take the Separated Parents Theory seriously?
Against the Separated Parents Theory of American Politics, then, I present: the Bad Policy Theory of American Politics. The problem with Warren is his politics. His delivering the invocation doesn’t matter because he is not being appointed to Obama’s cabinet. His invocation does matter because it suggests that Obama and those who believe in his narrative of family strife overestimate the importance of tone in their critique of the last eight years and underestimate the importance of Democratic complicity in the most horrific policies we have embraced. Indeed, you have to admit, whatever else you think of Warren: he takes a very civil tone as he espouses the most horrible, destructive ideas.