Transformers Make Better Toys Than Leaders

Hot Air has a post up con­tend­ing that many of the President’s reli­gious sup­port­ers are dis­ap­pointed by him and offers a snap­shot from a Newsweek arti­cle of one such dis­ap­pointed reli­gious leader.

I reached Jim Wal­lis, the pro­gres­sive evan­gel­i­cal leader whose new book is called Redis­cov­er­ing Val­ues, as he was leav­ing for Davos. Wal­lis has been close to the pres­i­dent, advis­ing him early on about whether to run and exchang­ing e-​​mails with him amid the Jere­miah Wright tur­moil. “We need a leader,” Wal­lis told me, “to call not for incre­men­tal change but trans­for­ma­tional pol­i­tics. The pres­i­dent could do that. I think he still has it in him, but the Amer­i­can peo­ple don’t per­ceive it.”

Davos.  Say, these sky pilots who are con­vinced that Amer­ica is going to Hell (well, come to think of it, that is kind of in their baili­wick) in a hand bas­ket seem to live a pretty up-​​trodden life wor­ry­ing about the down-​​trodden.  The afore­men­tioned Wright retired to a nice pen­sion and a free six-​​million dol­lar mansion.

But I digress.  What struck me about the quote was the not for incre­men­tal change but trans­for­ma­tional pol­i­tics part. When did these guys eschew the Ren­der unto Cae­sar the things that are Caesar’s gig and start schmooz­ing with the Cae­sar crowd in the Con­gress Cen­ter in Switzer­land?  Well, if not Cae­sar, then Melinda French Gates and her hubby, Bill, and Andy Stern who runs the Ser­vice Employ­ees Inter­na­tional Union, which part­ners with ACORN on things like voter reg­is­tra­tion, and Vladimir Putin.  If Putin doesn’t qual­ify as a Cae­sar I’m sure I can’t think of some­one who does.  One won­ders if Wal­lis took the clunky old single-​​engine heli­copter, or the deuce model.

And what’s with this trans­for­ma­tional bit?  Is that just to sound stir­ring, so as to increase the weekly rake off?  Or is the guy seri­ous?  And, if seri­ous, does he under­stand what it is he is whin­ing about?  Oh!  He’s a pro­gres­sive evan­gel­i­cal leader.  That’s right.  I for­got.  Pro­gres­sives don’t like space travel (or air travel for that mat­ter unless it is they who are doing the trav­el­ing) and aren’t too crazy about cars either.  Or man­u­fac­tur­ing.  Or free trade.  Or per­sonal auton­omy. A lit­tle skep­ti­cal about hav­ing fam­i­lies.  That’s why they call them­selves pro­gres­sives.  And since he is a pro­gres­sive he surely hasn’t con­sid­ered the import of his remark.  Because they don’t.  When their schemes cause wide­spread suf­fer­ing they just dust off their hands –wipe wipe– and say, Well, it really wasn’t given a fair shot.  Let’s try that again some­where else.

Because incre­men­tal really is the way to go unless you are start­ing from scratch.  Or are will­ing to.  I used to work on some old man­sions in New Orleans.  Incre­men­tally.  150 year old cypress.  You can’t get any more.  Against the law.  So incre­men­tal is the Way to Go.  The least dis­rup­tive way.  We are talk­ing about a coun­try which already has 300 mil­lion peo­ple in it who already have 300 mil­lion lives they are living.

We could incre­men­tally fix the health care system.

• Elim­i­nate the dis­par­ity between employ­ers buy­ing health insur­ance for their employ­ees and peo­ple buy­ing their own.  That’s more fair.
• Tort reform.  Peo­ple like John Edwards don’t have to make mil­lions a year because they have shiny hair and are good in front of a jury.  If a doc­tor didn’t have to pay $300,000 a year for mal­prac­tice insur­ance he could charge a lit­tle less.
• There is no rea­son it should cost sev­eral bil­lion to bring a drug to market.
• Let peo­ple choose the insur­ance com­pany they want, rather than being stuck with the one or two in their state that the state leg­is­la­ture has loaded up with reg­u­la­tions put there to appease lobbyists.

Small steps.  Big change when added together.

Trans­for­ma­tional, on the other hand, is much more emo­tion­ally sat­is­fy­ing.  Because it sounds so grand.  Like the old Shirley Tem­ple — Mickey Rooney movies:  Let’s Put On a Show!

We’ll make every­body buy insur­ance whether they want to or not.  That way, by hav­ing healthy 20 year olds pay­ing top dol­lar for health insur­ance they don’t need, we can cover other peo­ple with their dis­eases that they had before they bought coverage.

We’ll have the IRS snoop­ing into everybody’s bank account to see if they’re pulling their fair share.

We won’t just have Insur­ance Com­pa­nies.  We’ll have Exchanges!  And they’ll add an entirely new level of pres­i­dents and vice-​​presidents and attor­neys and accoun­tants and PR peo­ple on top of the ones the insur­ance com­pa­nies already have.  And that will make things simpler!

If you don’t buy the insur­ance pol­icy the Exchange says to buy from the com­pany the Exchange  says to buy it from the Exchange will fine you and maybe arrest you.  Unless you can’t afford it.  In which case you will apply to another level of bureau­cracy cre­ated to inter­view you and inves­ti­gate your finances and talk to your neigh­bors and then pro­vide a sup­ple­ment to buy the insur­ance that the Exchange is mak­ing you buy.

These rules will apply to every­body.  Except unions.  And three states.  Transformational.

I have only lived through one trans­for­ma­tional event:  Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina.  What fun!  But I can think of oth­ers.  Pearl Har­bor.  World War I.  That was really trans­for­ma­tional!  Got rid of the rul­ing heads of Europe and put the Bol­she­viks in power.  Or how about the Black Plague?  Trans­for­ma­tional!  1492?  Although that was bad.  Started glob­al­ism.  All pro­gres­sives hate THAT.

Well, I have to be going.  As I’m on the 42^nd floor I think I will use the incre­men­tal stairs rather than the trans­for­ma­tional window.

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Tags: transformational