The Glass is Half-Full, and So Are The Poor

I'm still trying to recover from last week, which felt like this seven-day-long "I Love the 80s" episode (Remember when Hal Sparks and Michael Ian Black gave that eulogy at the state funeral?). But there's one thing that came out of that which I think needs to be addressed.

Almost every retrospective of Ronald Reagan praised him for his "optimism" without going any further into what that meant. Almost immediately, both John Kerry and George Bush re-edited campaign ads, blatantly putting the word "optimist" right up at the front. Kerry looks into the camera and says, "We're a country of optimists. We're the can-do people." Bush similarly directs his gaze at the lens and boasts, "I'm optimistic about America because I believe in the people of America." At yesterday's portrait unveiling for Bill Clinton, Bush's glowing speech included the line "People in Bill Clinton's life have always expected him to succeed... And meeting those expectations... took hard work and drive and determination and optimism. I mean, after all, you've got to be optimistic to give six months of your life running the McGovern campaign in Texas."

It's as if all you have to do now as a President is say "I'm optimistic" and wait for the plaudits to roll in. Is this now all we expect from our leaders? That they're optimistic? It seems to me this sets the bar a bit low.

When Gerald Ford was President, inflation had started to become a major problem (that's right folks, I know it doesn't jibe with your right-wing history lesson, but Carter did not invent inflation). Ford's big idea was called WIN, or Whip Inflation Now. He went out to a press conference with a WIN button, and said, "We're going to Whip Inflation Now!" The reporters asked, "Well, what are your plans to do this?"

"We're going to Whip Inflation Now!"

"Are you suggesting any changes in policy to counteract inflation?"

"We're going to Whip Inflation Now!"

In fact, there was no plan, only a button. Now, that's optimistic; but is it good for the country? Optimism may be a nice way of looking at things, but it's not an automatic bromide for any problem facing the nation. FDR's optimism in our ability to get out of the Great Depression ("The only thing we have to fear is fear itself") was combined with serious policies designed to give poor people jobs, a safety net, and a sense of self-worth. Reagan's optimism was exactly the opposite.

Reagan would say things like, "I believe that the poor can get themselves out of poverty." Well, that's great. You're not going to help them in any way, are you? Optimism as defined by Reagan was an almost pathological need to disassociate himself what was going on in the streets of our cities. Wage stratification skyrocketed, social services programs were slashed, and rewarding the rich (through "trickle-down" economics) was given as the only political solution. I don't call that optimism. I call that ignorance.

We don't need optimists in government. We need action. We need leaders who are realistic enough to recognize fundamental problems in American society, and who want to work to solve them. We don't need people who simply believe that problems can be overcome, that we can "Whip Inflation Now" just because we say so. Predictably, even Bush's new "optmistic about America" commercial cannot resist becoming an attack ad at the end, eventually slamming John Kerry for going around the country and being so "negative" about the economy. The last line of voiceover warns, "We know one thing, pessimism never got anyone a job." Well, neither did optimism. Not by itself.