WORDS.
"...Republicans who believe that their only political task is to reflect — to exactly mirror — public distrust for government have drawn the wrong lesson. Those who ride such purely negative populism to power will merely become newer objects of public disdain. Americans do not want public officials who share their contempt for government; they want public officials who no longer justify it.
The alternative to grandiosity and incompetence is not to do nothing. It is to achieve policy goals in ways that are practical, incremental and effective. Americans have not ceased looking for responses to routine educational failure or persistent economic stagnation — or to the problems of an expensive, inequitable health-care system. These are public challenges, in which government plays an inescapable role. A successful political party will provide a superior conception of that role.
...Most of the energy in the Republican Party today, at least in Washington, is expended on opposition, not on reform. And the travails of Obamacare have only fed that purely negative energy. Yet Republicans require an approach more sophisticated than pointing and laughing. The cultivation of contempt is the calling of the blogger. A public official has other tasks."
THE WASHINGTON POST: GOP: Stop being so negative
SEE ALSO:
THE NEW YORK TIMES: In Search of Republican Grown-Ups
No comments:
Post a Comment