Capturing the mood in America

Peggy Noonan is one of the best writers in America about regular America. She rarely gets caught up in deep policy wonk stuff, not because she doesn't understand it but she knows that outside of D.C. and New York, nobody cares. When she isn't fawning over "John Paul the Great", her writings are some of the best in political discourse. Her latest captures the mood in America right now better than perhaps any I have read. The title is Rectitude Chic and here are a few snippets...

"People talk of the incoming administration's announced plans for infrastructure spending that will "save or create" 2.5 million jobs. Everything old is new again. I suspect public support for WPA-like endeavors will be high, and not only because of the promise of job creation. Not even only because people want something new, a sense of vigor and focus—a sense that there's a plan—from the federal government. There's also, I think, a sense that it would be good to do something as a nation, together, something like the old Mercury and Apollo space programs, something that draws people together. Something that is both literally and metaphorically concrete.

For a generation we've been tapping on plastic keyboards, entering data into databases, inventing financial instruments that are abstract, complex and unconnected to any see-able reality. Fortunes were made in the ether, almost no one knows how; there's a sense that this was perhaps part of the problem. Workers tapped on keyboards and produced work they cannot see, touch or necessarily admire. They'd like to make their country better, and stronger, in a way they can see."

"Some of the infrastructure ideas put forward are obvious and fine: rebuild roads and bridges. One is unexpected and smart: strengthen the electrical grid. One is so lame as to seem a non sequitur: make sure every classroom has the Internet. In America, you don't have to worry that kids won't go online, you have to worry the minute they do. The Internet is not a gifted teacher, but only another limited resource. There is no sign, none, that the Internet has made our nation more literate, or deep, and many signs it has made us less so, u no?"

Great stuff, makes a great read. Grab a cup of coffee and give it a read. We live in weird times in America, there is a sense of resignation about the state of America and about out future. I don't recall the malaise of the Carter years very vividly, I was young and to be honest my dad is a doctor so the economic problems didn't really hit me. But I suspect that the mood now is similar. The bright side is that the malaise of the Carter years led to the rise of Ronald Reagan. We can only hope a similar leader is out there, because it is painfully obvious that Barack Obama ain't it.