When reason no longer makes sense

I think I can remember a basketball season in which Hillsboro High had the talent to go all the way to State. In the subs, I think it was Hesston that came into the Tabor gym and played ‘stall ball.’ Going to the basket was not part of their game. I still have this image of Paul Schultz trying to bring the ball up from backcourt, the realization on his face that time had run out.

Politics has become something like that.

Reasonable people are realizing to varying degrees that the political game as it is being played is no longer about demonstrable facts and reasonable arguments leading to compromises in which everyone gets something. But reasonable people are reluctant to give up trying to making good arguments, because that has generally been the best way to maximize outcomes for the most people.

Coming up with a clear and elegant way to explain, for example, how Social Security works and can be viable indefinitely without being an essential part of our nation’s debt problem has theoretical merit, and it might even have a practical impact in restoring confidence and understanding in the system – but, and this is my argument – but not in the current political environment. Reason has lost its traction.

Now there is nothing wrong with these academic exercises, but until our political system gets a rule change similar to a shot clock in basketball, it’s going to be maximum stall ball.

In my opinion, two key things must change before anything else (i.e. rational discourse) will matter much. The rules themselves have sidelined rational politics. Gerrymandering, especially, which leads to more and more extremist politicians, wiping out the moderates, and various procedural rules such as the filibuster which allow an extreme minority, even one senator, to block any legislative efforts, are key problems. Somehow, the basic rules of the game must be changed.

Second, the media is locked into an ‘objective’ mindset, in which they refuse to report clearly when one side is essentially manufacturing the facts or is distorting reality. They fear that they, the media, will be labeled ‘partisan.' Of course, columnists, and their direct opinions, are already in a sense dismissed by the other side because they are easily labeled ‘partisan.’ Catch-22. How could the media gain a sense that truth and reality are not evenly distributed among the teams and the players and that they should call them as they see them? But if they do, and it’s routinely the same team getting whistled, what then? Half the paying crowd cheers for one side or the other.

In the case of Social Security and basic debt questions, I believe that many politicians and journalists already understand what they find themselves helpless to speak and act clearly about. The ones that don’t, aren’t interested in reason, they are only interested in reducing the cost of Social Security to their side.

What can break this kind of logjam? I don’t know. Maybe a clear and elegant explanation about how and why politics barely works at all now. But I doubt it.

Italy actually teeters on the edge of bankruptcy, and they aren’t fixing their political system.

Near scientific unanimity that carbon emissions will tilt the climate is still not enough consensus to get any movement toward changing actual behavior in the U.S.

Our highly concentrated financial system remains largely unaffected by the recent collapse.

I suppose you could argue that if only people would listen to reason … except I see little evidence that enough of them do that often enough.

Just speaking of Kansas, I think the first step would be for most Democrats and moderate Republicans to formally declare the formation of a Moderate Republican party to try and change the balance of power. The likelihood of being able to explain to most Kansas Republican voters that voting Republican means voting against their own interests appears unlikely to me as a strategy.

What could change the game? At some point reasoned thinking should matter, but I don’t see how at this point. And I don’t really know what else would actually work.

Expect more stall ball.