Psychologist to Obama:Independent Voters want moral clarity

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Master_Pedant
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21 Feb 2010, 11:25 pm

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....

What's costing the president and courting danger for Democrats in 2010 isn't a question of left or right, because the president has accomplished the remarkable feat of both demoralizing the base and completely turning off voters in the center. If this were an ideological issue, that would not be the case. He would be holding either the middle or the left, not losing both.

What's costing the president are three things: a laissez faire style of leadership that appears weak and removed to everyday Americans, a failure to articulate and defend any coherent ideological position on virtually anything, and a widespread perception that he cares more about special interests like bank, credit card, oil and coal, and health and pharmaceutical companies than he does about the people they are shafting.

The problem is not that his record is being distorted. It's that all three have more than a grain of truth. And I say this not as one of those pesky "leftists." I say this as someone who has spent much of the last three years studying what moves voters in the middle, the Undecideds who will hear whichever side speaks to them with moral clarity.

....

Like most Americans I talk to, when I see the president on television, I now change the channel the same way I did with Bush. With Bush, I couldn't stand his speeches because I knew he meant what he said. I knew he was going to follow through with one ignorant, dangerous, or misguided policy after another. With Obama, I can't stand them because I realize he doesn't mean what he says -- or if he does, he just doesn't have the fire in his belly to follow through. He can't seem to muster the passion to fight for any of what he believes in, whatever that is. He'd make a great queen -- his ceremonial addresses are magnificent -- but he prefers to fly Air Force One at 60,000 feet and "stay above the fray."

Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010
Drew Westen - Psychologist and Neuroscientist, Emory University Professor



NeantHumain
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21 Feb 2010, 11:42 pm

So by "moral clarity," does he mean the America is awesome, and anyone who doesn't do our bidding is evil? That's not the kind of "moral clarity" I'm looking for from my president.



Master_Pedant
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21 Feb 2010, 11:45 pm

NeantHumain wrote:
So by "moral clarity," does he mean the America is awesome, and anyone who doesn't do our bidding is evil? That's not the kind of "moral clarity" I'm looking for from my president.


I advise you to read the whole article, but this may give you an idea:

Drew Westen wrote:
Immigration? Joe Wilson yells, "You lie." So instead of acting like a man and going after Wilson on the spot (the man just attacked him in front of the entire nation in a joint session of Congress), he accepts his apology the next day, and a day later rewards Wilson for his incivility and bigotry by tightening the rules so that illegal immigrants can't even buy insurance themselves on the health care exchange the Democrats are creating sometime between 2013 and 2025 (depending on how many seats they lose in the meantime, and hence how long, if ever, it takes for the exchange to get set up).

Good policy? No. Not only is it inhumane -- can you imagine being really sick or in terrible pain but being too afraid even to go to a clinic because you might be deported? -- but it's a public health hazard for sick people not to get care and spread their illnesses, a drain on American taxpayers as illegal immigrants who finally have no choice but to find their way, when they're incredibly ill, to emergency rooms or public clinics, and a despicable policy toward their children, many of whom are American citizens, but who in either case shouldn't have to be sick, in pain, and without preventive care as their bodies and minds are developing, no matter where their parents come from.

Is it good politics? No. During the election I tested messages on just this issue, and a strong progressive message beat the most convincing anti-immigrant message we could throw at it by 10 points. Two weeks ago, I tested messages on just this issue as it applied to health care, and that margin had doubled.


Or, for a video example...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1RsR5HmCmE[/youtube]



xenon13
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22 Feb 2010, 12:19 am

On CNN, I saw repeated this nonsensical claim that people, in particular independents, want "bipartisanship". The only kernel of truth there is that they want Congress to work. As things are being blocked this is said to be because of partisanship, but it's certainly not because of Obama's partisanship, because he shows none. Also, what they want is a president who has a clear idea about what to do and to go through with it and defend his positions. He refuses to do this. This issue of moral clarity becomes even clearer during a time of crisis. This is one reason why Bush did well after September 11, because he had this idea about how to do things and was going to do it his way - no matter how misguided it was. Obama wants instead to compromise with people who hate him. If there's a crisis, solutions are not obtained through horse trading, it requires a clear plan. If a patient is dying, you don't negotiate your way to a treatment - you do whatever you can to save the patient.

As I said, it's Rahm Emanuel in particular who was the big giveaway in terms of the kind of administration Obama was to lead. Emanuel thinks his core voters are "ret*ds", thinks that his party doesn't have a base, cares only about big money, coddles the Blue Dogs and Lieberman and slaps down the progressives. He bungled everything else he touched, and yet he somehow has been promoted as a genius. Karl Rove, he isn't.

I can't say I'm surprised. Obama's coming out speech in 2004 portended this kind of thing.



Master_Pedant
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22 Feb 2010, 12:27 am

xenon13 wrote:
On CNN, I saw repeated this nonsensical claim that people, in particular independents, want "bipartisanship". The only kernel of truth there is that they want Congress to work. As things are being blocked this is said to be because of partisanship, but it's certainly not because of Obama's partisanship, because he shows none. Also, what they want is a president who has a clear idea about what to do and to go through with it and defend his positions. He refuses to do this. This issue of moral clarity becomes even clearer during a time of crisis. This is one reason why Bush did well after September 11, because he had this idea about how to do things and was going to do it his way - no matter how misguided it was. Obama wants instead to compromise with people who hate him. If there's a crisis, solutions are not obtained through horse trading, it requires a clear plan. If a patient is dying, you don't negotiate your way to a treatment - you do whatever you can to save the patient.

As I said, it's Rahm Emanuel in particular who was the big giveaway in terms of the kind of administration Obama was to lead. Emanuel thinks his core voters are "ret*ds", thinks that his party doesn't have a base, cares only about big money, coddles the Blue Dogs and Lieberman and slaps down the progressives. He bungled everything else he touched, and yet he somehow has been promoted as a genius. Karl Rove, he isn't.

I can't say I'm surprised. Obama's coming out speech in 2004 portended this kind of thing.


Westen's (who is a left-progressive) main idea is that its not so much how left or right your issues are as much as it is how you frame them!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7aP8ZfHceg&feature=PlayList&p=8FE0F22E409AA75F&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=27[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wl7uPfurP8[/youtube]



xenon13
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22 Feb 2010, 5:02 pm

"Moral clarity" means to say "This is the problem, and this is my approach to solving it, and I believe in my approach, it is right from a moral perspective, from a practical perspective. What I plan is the right thing to do." There's no defensiveness about the approach, or concessions given that it's wrong on some level. There's this playing on the opponent's field often with Democrats. Take Clinton's "The era of Big Government is over". That's conceding that the right wing obsessions are justified and that's an admission of defeat.



waltur
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22 Feb 2010, 5:18 pm

'cause we hate when someone admits that things are sometimes less simple than "if this, then that"...



xenon13
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22 Feb 2010, 6:19 pm

I have a very simple example. Take the issue of the stimulus. Now, most economists would agree that the recession causes an output gap and to prevent further deterioration that gap must be filled. If Obama had the courage of his convictions, he would have said that based on the numbers, the stimulus must be X and no less than X and insisted on it, said that spending money to cover the output gap is essential in this emergency. Instead, he did not vigourously defend it, he seemed spooked by the fact that this seems to contradict the neoliberal consensus that has been forced down our throats for the last couple of decades that appeasing speculators is the way to economic prosperity and those speculators get very angry when governments spend money. He gave space and consideration to troglodytes who think that starving the economy solves recessions, and the bill was watered down, and after it was sufficiently watered down, the Republicans voted all against it! It's like you have to shock someone's heart back to work and someone argues with you that he doesn't believe in it, let's reduce the electricity by half. The patient dies and then he blames the idea of applying electricity. He'd be right about one thing - about who is to blame for the patient's death.

His defensiveness about the correct action to take and the certainty projected by the bloodletting and leeches crowd and by the nothing but tax cuts crowd was such that bystanders would be inclined to conclude that stimulus is wrong and those other things are right.



auntblabby
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24 Feb 2010, 10:25 am

Master_Pedant wrote:
Quote:
With Obama, I can't stand them because I realize he doesn't mean what he says -- or if he does, he just doesn't have the fire in his belly to follow through. He can't seem to muster the passion to fight for any of what he believes in, whatever that is. He'd make a great queen -- his ceremonial addresses are magnificent -- but he prefers to fly Air Force One at 60,000 feet and "stay above the fray."

Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010
Drew Westen - Psychologist and Neuroscientist, Emory University Professor


Bertrand Russell had a few prescient things to say, that apply to our national psyche and politics today-

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. "

"There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action."

"We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice, and another which we practice but seldom preach. "

"A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand. "

"Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise. "

"If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years. "

"It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go. "

"Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim. "

"Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man. "

"The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution. "



ruveyn
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24 Feb 2010, 10:47 am

NeantHumain wrote:
So by "moral clarity," does he mean the America is awesome, and anyone who doesn't do our bidding is evil? That's not the kind of "moral clarity" I'm looking for from my president.


Would you settle for adherence to the Constitution your president swore to uphold?

ruveyn



psychohist
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24 Feb 2010, 2:22 pm

xenon13 wrote:
If Obama had the courage of his convictions, he would have said that based on the numbers, the stimulus must be X and no less than X and insisted on it, said that spending money to cover the output gap is essential in this emergency.


Obama got the $900 Billion of stimulus he asked for in his first month or two. The problem was that instead of using fast acting stimulus like tax rebates, he asked the Democrats in congress to form the amount out of pork barrel projects for their constituencies. That meant the stimulus is being dribbled out over a couple of years, rather than hitting immediately, which of course is prolonging the recession.

I actually agree with the basics of what the article mentions, but it has nothing to do with "moral clarity". It has to do with Obama being clueless about the details of how to make plans actually work properly.

That said, the bulk of the stimulus hits this year before the elections, so prolonging the recession by a year may ultimately help the Democrats this fall.



Master_Pedant
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24 Feb 2010, 2:59 pm

psychohist wrote:
xenon13 wrote:
If Obama had the courage of his convictions, he would have said that based on the numbers, the stimulus must be X and no less than X and insisted on it, said that spending money to cover the output gap is essential in this emergency.


Obama got the $900 Billion of stimulus he asked for in his first month or two. The problem was that instead of using fast acting stimulus like tax rebates, he asked the Democrats in congress to form the amount out of pork barrel projects for their constituencies. That meant the stimulus is being dribbled out over a couple of years, rather than hitting immediately, which of course is prolonging the recession.

I actually agree with the basics of what the article mentions, but it has nothing to do with "moral clarity". It has to do with Obama being clueless about the details of how to make plans actually work properly.

That said, the bulk of the stimulus hits this year before the elections, so prolonging the recession by a year may ultimately help the Democrats this fall.


"Fast acting" tax cuts? He watered down the bill to tax cuts - one of the least least measures imaginable.

Infastructure is already falling apart. A bit of "pork" for projects other than the bridge to an underpopulated town is neccessary.



xenon13
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24 Feb 2010, 6:21 pm

The stimulus was about half or a third of what it should have been, according to economists. Half of it was inefficient tax cuts (inefficient form of stimulus compared with direct spending). Moreover, Obama gave lots of money away to the banks the same week as the stimulus thus promoting confusion about the two. Far more money has been just given away to Goldman Sachs and other banks than was in the stimulus. Chinese economist Henry Liu said that if they'd taken the money for the banks and put it in jobs programmes and a government-directed stimulus that they could be in a position to get rid of most unemployment.

They don't seem to have courage of their convictions, whilst the neoliberals are shamelessly claiming to be right despite the ruins they're leaving behind.

The other day I found out about this dangerous notion called the "crowding out effect". It's the base of the conservative claim that the stimulus is counterproductive. They claim that if the government spends more money, they put up more bonds and this "crowds out" the market for private bonds for private projects. The problem with this claim is that when money is spent, more money is injected into the economy, more money is available for bonds of all kind. If spending is cut, then there's less money for these things. This "crowding out effect" ideology is also manifest in the claim that Obama has made by the way that higher deficits lead to higher interest rates as there's more competition in bond markets due to "crowding out". This also is nonsense. The actual proof shows that more deficit leads to lower interest rates!

I really wish that somehow the neoclassical/neoliberal ideology can be treated the way communism has been treated as "not working"... it seems that no matter how many catastrophes it causes, it won't die. It's a vampire sucking blood.



psychohist
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24 Feb 2010, 7:25 pm

xenon13 wrote:
The stimulus was about half or a third of what it should have been, according to economists.

The $787 Billion that was the total stimulus plan, or the $185 Billion that was actually spent by the end of 2009? (Not including the bailout of GM etc., which was about $30 Billion more.)

About three quarters of the original stimulus plan hasn't even been spent yet. That seems to me to be the main reason why it's not having any effect.



psychohist
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24 Feb 2010, 7:31 pm

Master_Pedant wrote:
"Fast acting" tax cuts?


I'm talking about the Bush tax rebates. I don't actually think they were a good thing - the economy was due for a recession, and bursting the bubble a few years earlier than actually happened would probably have been better - but the one thing that could be said about them is that they hit the economy within weeks after they were passed, rather than years, and they did keep the economy limping along, staving off the recession until the end of his term.

Very little of Obama's original stimulus bill was tax cuts, unless you count giving money to people who aren't paying taxes in the first place as "tax cuts". None of it was the across the board tax cuts and rebates that Bush used.