Readers of this column over the past several months probably noticed that I try to balance columns that warn of dangers to our country with others that suggest reasons to be hopeful, especially if we can manage to work together at problem-solving.
I also have several email elves that send me articles to read; a search of my in-box turned up several of these from early January that are hopeful, and I want to share.
The January 1, 2022 L.A. Times op-ed by Virginia Hefferman, a Wired magazine columnist was the most optimistic, befitting New Year’s Day.
Ms. Hefferman first referred to the “January 6 Was Practice” Atlantic article by Bart Gellman that appeared in December.
Gellman saw “a clear and present danger that American democracy will not withstand the destructive forces now converging upon it” because we have “only one party left that is willing to lose an election.”
While admitting that destructive forces such as “danger, death, destruction, and, of course, disease” keep her up at night too, Hefferman also found “true signs of light in the gloom.”
She noted that unemployment is down and wages are high, the stock market is doing well, and “retail sales rose 8.5% year-over-year between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24, according to Mastercard.”
Then she added that Trump’s candidates in Republican primary races were not doing so well and even Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin, the GOP winner in Virginia, won by “distancing himself from the Marquis of MAGA.” Hefferman also saw hope in the fact that nine of the “Big Lie” lawyers were sanctioned by a federal judge in Michigan and over 700 participants and Steve Bannon have been charged with crimes committed on or about January 6, 2021.
Beyond that, despite the “ain’t it awful” daily news reports about COVID (my words, not hers), we do have a clear decline in deaths due to COVID, we have home-schooled our kids, learned how to quarantine, cared for family and friends, and even voted in very large numbers “in the fairest election in American history.” And through the “dawns early light,” we can see that “the flag is still there,” as our national anthem proclaims.
None of these facts erase the considerable suffering of the past two years nor do they deny the real dangers described in the Gellman article. However, they can help us balance the constant stream of lies and incomplete information in the media and social media reports we encounter daily.
Another interesting piece was another Atlantic article (1-2-22) in which by Glenn Hubbard, Columbia University Economics professor, promoted his new book The Wall and the Bridge—Fear and Opportunity in Disruption’s Wake. The title of his article, “Even My Business-School Students Have Doubts About Capitalism,” caught my attention.
Hardly a “leftist” radical, Professor Hubbard chaired the Council of Economic Advisors early in the George W. Bush administration. He was surprised to discover that his M.B.A students at Columbia this past fall were “harboring doubts about the free market.”
These students were shaped, Hubbard noted, by 9/11, the global financial crisis, Great Recession of 2008-2009, and the current debate about “the unevenness of capitalism’s benefits across individuals,” a polite way of describing the great income disparity in “the land of plenty.”
Hubbard’s student have seen a pandemic create “mass unemployment and a breakdown in global supply chains.” These disruptions have led to “disaffection, populism, and calls to protect individuals and industries from change.” Hubbard is glad now that President Bush did not take his advice to protect open markets and instead put a tariff on steel early in his administration.
Even Adam Smith, father of free enterprise, wrote a book entitled A Theory of Moral Sentiments in which he called for “mutual sympathy—what we would today call empathy.” Hubbard’s students think that government should do more to help all Americans survive economically by investing in people, “expanding earned income tax credits, providing grants to community colleges and creating reemployment accounts to support reentry into work.”
He agrees with them and thinks we should “embrace a much bolder agenda that maximizes opportunities for everyone in the economy.”
I wonder if he has talked to Joe Manchin about this.