Two years ago, hard on the heels of his election, Gov. Deval Patrick launched a preemptive strike on people like me.
I should have seen it coming; he'd used the same tactic in his campaign. To bolster his hopeful "Together-We-Can" message, he created a straw man: the nay-sayer. Cynicism, he told the Boston Globe in June of 2006, is "an opiate" like heroin: "Some in politics and some of the media, frankly, are dealers, peddling cynicism by tearing down anything positive and hopeful."
In the context of the campaign, it was easy enough to excuse Patrick's crude syllogism. Since his was a sincerely hopeful, achievable vision, his flimsy logic went, anyone who didn't agree with him was an emotional and intellectual cripple, one disposed, to quote the Oxford English Dictionary, "to disbelieve in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions."
After his sizeable victory, however, Patrick continued to label any criticism of his initiatives as cynical and wrongheaded. In the ensuing weeks, he set up cynicism as the single greatest obstacle to his hopeful agenda. In the 22 months since, Patrick has continued to trot out his favorite straw man every time he runs into people who disagree with him, most notably those who objected to his so-called pro-business agenda, including his failed plans to legalize casino gambling and his successful move to deregulate the auto insurance industry.
Patrick, of course, isn't the first nor the only politician who disparages critics ad hominem. Quite the contrary: Patrick's tactics are so common that his use of them exposes the lie upon which his victory was based. He isn't the reformer he professed to be. And he's not much of a progressive. He is a Clinton Democrat, which is to say a Republican Lite. He does not challenge the status quo but rather accepts and perpetuates a free market philosophy that views regulation as a hindrance. He is part of a majority within the Democratic Party that has been too timid and too compromised by the campaign cash it rakes in to stand up to big business.
Today's looming economic crisis is an opportunity. The collapse of some of the nation's biggest financial institutions may be a big enough warning to compel Congress to finally reject the anti-regulatory ethos that has held sway since the era of Ronald Reagan. The compound impact of a massive credit crisis, skyrocketing energy prices, the ruination of the U.S. manufacturing base, the exporting of jobs overseas, the decline of our middle class and, trumping all else, the degradation of our planet may finally shake Americans from their blind faith in the idea that what is good for Wall Street is good for Main Street.
But with regard to our elected class, from Deval Patrick down to the lowliest municipal officials and up to whoever sits in the White House, I remain deeply cynical. In the face of overwhelming historical evidence, I can't make myself believe in "the sincerity and goodness of human motives and actions," at least among most politicians.
It was only 20 years ago that taxpayers were forced to bail out the Savings and Loan industry to the tune of $160 billion. Here in the Valley, the collapse of Heritage Bank—a failure based on reckless real estate speculation promoted by corrupt bank officials—set in motion a chain reaction that wiped out local businesses and devastated families. At the time, few politicians openly criticized the people who had brought down the bank. Those who did were marginalized and labeled cynics. With an expensive taxpayer-funded bandaid on the S&Ls, the case for tighter regulation was quickly forgotten.
Today, as ostensibly progressive politicians like Deval Patrick in ostensibly progressive states like Massachusetts continue to put the interests of casino operators, insurance companies, defense contractors and heath care companies above the interest of mere citizens, there isn't much to be hopeful about. If that makes me the cynic, so be it."
