"It is a hypothesis that the sun will rise tomorrow: and this means that we do not know whether it will rise."
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1921
I've never been in the prediction business.
Some people--like Skip Bayless and Alex Jones--make a lot of predictions, presumably on the grifters' theory that we'll credit the infrequent hits more than the countless misses. I'd rather not be in their company. I prefer Wittgenstein, who understood that we only think we know what we think we know. If 2016 taught us anything it is that there are no sure things.
I don't know what's going to happen and don't pretend to; the world is a wonderfully complex and mysterious place and there's more going on than is dreamed of in our hot-take philosophy. I don't know who's going to win the Super Bowl, what movie's going to win Best Picture, or what sort of self-aggrandizing mischief the legislators at the other end of Capitol Avenue are going to whip up to try to get their names in the newspaper.
I imagine they've been emboldened by the current upside-downness of our world, that they'll spend a lot of time talking about bathrooms and how guns need to be free and how you have to be cruel to be kind to poor folks. In our brave new paradigm it's become fashionable to strip away everything fuzzy and human to consider only the stark dollars at stake. Some people think that's a grown-up way to approach things, that government should be run like a business and damn the collateral damage the weakest and most vulnerable suffer. They don't call it thinning the herd because that's impolitic when your job is to curry the favor of the herd, and they don't call it economic Darwinism because they don't like the association with evolutionary theory. But that's what the national Republican agenda is, and I expect it to trickle down to the attention-hungry aspirants at the state Capitol.
But maybe some of them might feel a little embarrassed at how trashy and internecine our politics has become. Some of them might recognize that the cynical position, while generally a winner in short-term political contests, isn't always the healthiest option. My inclination is to accept that most people mean to do the right thing most of the time, it's just that it's very easy to decide that what benefits us immediately is genuinely the right thing to do in the moment. It's entirely possible for people of good faith to disagree about the implications of a set of facts.
What's worrisome is that facts seem to be fluid things these days--maybe you can blame the academic left for that if you want to dig up Michel Foucault and Isaiah Berlin--and there are lots of factories that have sprung up to manufacture them. You can subscribe to what services your prejudice and dismiss the rest as fake news. If Wikileaks or Putin give you comfort, you can embrace them now.
On the other hand, I think people--even those inclined to run for public office--are capable of making thoughtful and generous decisions that run counter to their immediate self-interest. So maybe some of our legislators are ready to do the right thing, even if it means costing them the petty grandeur of their elected positions. Maybe some of them can feel a little guilty about whatever small part they've played in making the world a little nastier and harder.
People can surprise you; that's one of the reasons that no prediction feels safe anymore. Just when you think you've got someone pegged, they'll turn around and do something noble. Consciences sometimes squawk at inconvenient times; maybe there comes a point when you realize that it's more important to take care of the people who voted for you than to exploit their prejudices and fears.
Maybe one day you look around and realize that it's about more than the free drinks and the deference you're shown by the people who know who you are, that you're actually supposed to lead your folks--most of whom are too busy trying to earn a living and prepare a home for their families to dig much deeper than the TV news or the talking points produced and distributed by cynical people trying to scare them into voting against their self-interests.
Not everyone is a profit-taker. Not everyone does it for the silly local glamour that accrues to the office. I imagine that most of us, regardless of how we take our politics, regret the normalization of trashiness that has occurred in this country over the past couple of decades. We can't be proud of this reality-show culture, this reflexive demonization of those we see as our political opponents. Trolls and bullies are never happy with themselves. Reasonableness is not a sign of weakness.
This legislative session could surprise us. So could this president.
I wouldn't bet on it, though.
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Editorial on 01/22/2017