National Review is a conservative publication that has, no doubt, been a miserable institution ever since the GOP primaries started. They backed Cruz, a highly questionable candidate for a truly conservative publication, and then he went and lost. They loathe Trump, the selection of the “conservative” party members, to the point where they’ve published an article by David French entitled, “If only by comparison to Clinton and Trump, Obama looks better in American voters’ eyes.”
The first time I read it (only part way), it irked me.
The second time, my engineer mind came out and I wanted to solve it. The article was obviously wrong. But it was time for bed.
Now, hours later, I just feel sad for David. Whether or not French is writing with his convictions or just for the bucks, it’s clear that he knows how to put words together, but not how to write from the heart. What do I mean?
There are two ways to evaluate something. You can evaluate something with a pre-determined conclusion in mind, or you can let the facts lead you to the logical conclusion. It’s not so surprising that a writer for an ideological publication might walk down the former path, but I think it holds dangers far greater than most people acknowledge. Briefly, to begin with, it leads to false conclusions based on false or incomplete reasoning.
AND THEN those false conclusions and bad reasoning are incorporated into the next discussion, where more are generated on top of the first, and soon the ship of argument needs to be brought into drydock to have the stubborn barnacles removed. If it makes it. More likely, they’re left on the hull where they’ll befoul all the reasoning that follows them. It’s slack thinking that may please the editor or publisher, but does nothing for the reader.
So David indulges in easy writing that is certain not to challenge those who most want to believe the worst of Obama. From the cited article:
But what about Obama? Economic growth in the last eight years lags behind post-war averages. So does GDP growth. So does job growth. Debt has grown more as a percentage of GDP, and for most of Obama’s two terms, median income has actually fallen. His signature domestic achievement — Obamacare — is unraveling before our eyes. His domestic record is far from the worst. But it’s not close to the best, either.
His foreign policy, meanwhile, has been nothing short of a disaster. Every American enemy is stronger than when he took office. Jihadists hold more territory now than they did before, and they strike allied cities across the world. Russia invaded the Ukraine and continues to advance its interests at the West’s expense. China is growing increasingly aggressive. The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize has put American troops back in harm’s way in Iraq and has engaged American forces in combat in more countries than that nasty neocon warmonger George W. Bush ever did.
On the surface, this may seem shipshape – but it’s actually just fluff to reassure the choir faithful (my Arts Editor reminds me that choirs are only sometimes faith-filled). On the domestic front, to take just one point, comparing economic growth to post-war averages is a futile exercise. As anyone with two sticks to rub together knows, there’s more to starting a fire than rubbing those sticks – there’s tinder, moisture, and, to be abstract, that entire concept called context. For the question of evaluating the economic recovery, context includes a myriad of variables that have changed since those averages began, such as the cost of transport (key to the movement of manufacturing jobs overseas), taxes, infrastructure, overseas competition, even the weather. From where did Obama start? Was Congress cooperative or antagonistic? Governance is a team game, after all, and, as those who’ve been paying attention for the last few years, a large part of the team refuses to acknowledge the leadership of the team captain.
In short, the comparison is utterly meaningless. His other points on the domestic front are equally questionable, suffering from lack of real analysis to simple hyperbole. The ACA is not unraveling, it’s simply suffering teething problems.
In foreign affairs, again, it’s necessary to penetrate more than a millimeter. First, we must recall that we, at least on the surface, have no desire to be a colonial power, and that means that sometimes powers arise in foreign lands that we cannot initially influence. Just as I would not blame the Bush/Cheney Administration for “permitting” the attack on the Twin Towers, I also am not willing to give any sympathy to an attempt to tar Obama with the responsibility for the rise of ISIL. Indeed, seeing that it arose from the smoking remains of the War on Iraq, a neocon-instigated war, there are more legitimate directions to point fingers. All that said, the territory held by jihadists is daily shrinking, and while they no doubt may still reach out and cause death and misery, as in France earlier this year, they have discovered the West is resolute, not dissolute, as their ideology dictated, and the American military continues to strike fear into their hearts. The real question isn’t why Obama permitted the rise of ISIL, but what are the behaviors of the local leaders that cause such dissatisfaction? Or is it in the hearts of all men to seek power?
Because we’re talking about the responsibilities of writing, then let me ask, not in an ideological or combative manner, but in an inquisitive rhetorical manner, Why did French not mention al-Quaeda as part of foreign affairs? Its iconic leader was killed by Obama’s order after a concentrated effort to find him. Or what of Libya? Colonel Gaddafi, long time Libyan strongman, and the man held responsible for the bombing and crash of Pan Am Flight 103, was executed by Libyan rebels with the key support of the American military, under Obama’s direction. Are either of these developments negatives? And yet they are not acknowledged. “… nothing short of a disaster.” These are not fluff questions, but substantive issues that he, as a writer, should confront.
But why?
He’s a writer working for an ideological publication, writing for an audience with certain expectations.
That’s the counter-argument, isn’t it? Do your job, French, and don’t rile the audience.
Here’s the problem: the front and center requirement, as alluded to in the counter-argument, is this: cosset the audience. Make them happy, send them to bed with smiles on their faces, or, if it suits the publisher, anger in their hearts. Lead them around the way they want to be lead around.
And that leads to the central question: Where’s the truth? Not what I would call the prescriptive truth, that truth designated by National Review as the goal of every article, the foundation of the two paragraphs I quoted above. This is also known as the ideological truth, the same as that aforementioned ideological truth of ISIL, which is leading to its downfall.
But the truth that every writer, fiction or not, should hold dear to their heart – the belief that writing should honestly lead readers to truth. Put it in bold and think about it! Yes, inform the reader – not off the cuff, but to the best of your ability – or, better yet, experts at that analysis. Put those facts together. And then what’s the logical conclusion? In the end, the reader should be inspired, should have their world view widened, should think about the subject a little differently.
And if they’re shocked by your truth, yet find your logic and reasoning irrefutable, then maybe – MAYBE – you’ve done your job.
And, because you pursued the truth, rather than the ideology, then the ideology might become better. Ideology does not define truth; truth leads to ideology. When that flows in the wrong direction, then the ideology simply becomes a machine to relay and amplify mankind’s desires. And, as there is little regulation once reality is discarded, soon those desires become base.
(Given the dysfunctionalism of today’s GOP, I might say that David is a microcosm of the larger problems of conservatism, a political movement that has explicitly discarded reality in that reality collides with the precepts of its ideology. This has not served it well.)
SO, AS A writer, how does one deal with these hard subjects if cheap comparisons are out? In this particular case, I think you have to look at the options available to the President, and then evaluate those roads not taken. Would they have led to a better future? Hard stuff to do, sure. But better than what David wrote. David is supposed to be the expert, but even I, barely an enthusiastic amateur, found it trivial to rip those two paragraphs apart.
David, your writing was awful; you did a disservice to your devoted readers. And neither they nor you probably even realized it. Sure, you got the words in the right order, you’re easy on the eyes, and you don’t sound like Trump, but the analysis was, at best, lazy. And, yes, you’re right – the cliche involving the word dishonest crossed my mind, and it’s not unworthy.
And, David, as you are a writer, I must, with reluctance, serve up the worst insult of all. I did not finish reading your article. Because if the bungled analysis I encountered immediately was that bad, then the rest of the article was not worth my time. And – it’s not worthy of the ideology.
Do better, David.
