I am no stranger to the disappointments we all have in the New York Times. I could go on and on about that and 2016, but not what I want to talk about here, except to note that many conflate the NYT’s news page w/their opinion page. This endorsement is a product of their opinion editors, and as such I think it makes a very important point, and one I don’t hear around here or really anywhere, often enough.
That salient and not often enough spoken of point is that Americans may have too much faith in their institutions. We all certainly heard a lot about how our institutions will save us, even up against a mad man like Trump, and his deplorables. And yes, I think Hillary got that right.
It certainly will not be the first time in history that a culture’s deplorables got the better of them. Of course Hitler’s Nazi Germany is the most quoted example, but history is rich and way back with examples. This country fought a civil war over the deplorable idea that “if we can’t keep our slaves, we’re taking our ball and going home...or in that case, to war.
Now, again, many of us see that our institutions are no guarantee as one of our largest institutions, the senate, prepares for a sham trial, the verdict decided long ago. And YES, it is set to be a total sham. I think many of us have so set our disappointment meter to this reality that we don’t realize what a HUGE FAILURE of one of our largest institutions this is.
And yet, there are still many in our party, as well as the independents that always make the final difference , who don’t see it that way. They still cling to a belief in our institutions even though they abhor Trump. And there lies the danger. There ARE TOO MANY who don’t understand that disaster can come fast and hard, and many a culture who thought they were protected by their institutions, were not.
I think the NYT’s attempted to speak to both those sides of America with their duo endorsement. To say, yes WHEN our institutions are strong they work reasonably well, but also to say, we ARE in a virtual civil war of sorts right now, and it’s not just between the Democratic and Republican Party, and our institutions aren’t saving us from that.
You can see it right here on this Democratic/progressive blog. We all hate the “Democrats in disarray” media themes, and I hate it because I don’t think “disarray” is the right word. I think we are plenty “arrayed” but not necessarily in agreement about the degree of our division in this country, and where the choice to believe in our current institutions intersects with that.
The NYT’s duo endorsement called this out loudly by pretty much saying for those who retain their belief in our institutions, that a less dramatic but sure change may work better. Klobuchar. (And BTW, I think it’s kind of amazing that the NYT’s endorsed two women, and one of them who has not been a front runner.) But for those who don’t have that belief, a bigger, deeper change is needed. Warren.
No, this is not an endorsement that provides easy solutions and seems to promote ambivalence. Many here were not happy with it and I get that. It is not a comfortable, yay look who’s on our side endorsement. But it is in my opinion a fair description of the divide in American, which has been plenty discussed in some ways, but no, I don’t think the issue of American’s faith in their institutions has been addressed as aggressively as this by any other large platform that I can think of, and with this timing.
I think the NYT endorsed the idea that we look at and understand this major quake in our decision making process. Which entails what is the nature of the power of the podium and leadership over our institutions? What makes us special enough to avoid what other countries and cultures have been destroyed by, in seconds really, if you look at time relatively? When our institutions are shaking on their foundations is it the time for moderation---just to assure we can at least get out of the very deep weeds--- or is it the time for large change?
We ARE capable of making large changes relatively fast. A simple study of Hoover vs. FDR shows that, and yes it took a major catastrophe, the Great Depression, to make it happen.
So, I think the NYT asked probably the most important question we have to answer right now, even if they didn’t answer it.