I would like to suggest that our national problems have a strong message about the failures of American education. President Obama’s policies, given the challenges we face, have been outstanding, but his ability to teach Americans why these things need to be done has been abysmal.
I say “teach” rather than “convince” because the opposition has literally taught the public that a bizarre alternative universe is reality. There is a miasma that rivals the historic failures of Lysenko’s farming, Mao’s cultural revolution, The Lakota’s ghost shirts, or Hitler’s faith in the Aryan race.
Obama, a highly educated man with a great cabinet seems unable or unwilling to stand up to Glen Beck’s University, an institution all too easily dismissed by a professorate all too self satisfied by living in our own alternative reality.
President Obama’s problems are failures of political policy. He failed to take over the Dem Party. Replacing the energy of Dean with the rationality of Kane was a good example. Allowing Pelosi and Reid to posture as independent actors was a failure of Obama’s political leadership. The failure to build a local political structure that could move forward was the biggest failure of all.
His biggest problem, however, is a failure he shares with us .. the faculty of America’s universities and colleges. We have not found the antidote for Herr Hoch Professor Beck. The weird realities of Beck and the TPers have established flat earthism as the truth for a huge swathe of the polity. The extremists among them believe that Obama is a Muslim Socialist bent on overthrow of the God given government of the USA. The numbers of these extremists are frighteningly large, perhaps 10-20% nationally but much higher regionally.
Even more frightening, however, is the number of people who adhere to a set of beliefs that are considered more moderate … creationism, Islam is evil, the founding fathers were Billy Graham Christians, the zygote is a homunculus, tax cuts lower deficits, AIDS is a divine judgment, the supply of gold and oil is endless, ….. These views either in whole or part may be firmly held by 40% of Americans and only a tiny remnant, if that, of Republican politicians have the “Profiles in Courage” needed to prevent these lunatics from dominating their party.
The question I have is who speaks for reality in the US? That ought to be President Obama but if we do not “teach” our students reality this calm and wise man will fail.