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"To summarize the thesis: ordinary people hate partisanship, and elites hate ideology. Hence the elite is constantly attempting to misrepresent the latter as the former. And the masses sometimes respond by repudiating ideology when they mean to reject partisanship. "

politics politicians partisanship ideology elites class

"President Obama has been especially disinclined to enter the darkened theater, play actor-in-chief, and replace policy with national therapy. One suspects that he thinks it is demeaning and demagogic -- beneath him and the office. The presidency should be substantive. It should be about serious stuff. It should tackle problems, not pretend that they don't exist or that they will disappear if we just put ourselves in the proper frame of mind. All of which places him at a tremendous disadvantage in the contemporary politics of theatricality. One reason for Reagan's success as a communicator is that he actually believed in his own cheery message. He truly believed the cliches, the simplifications, the optimism. For Obama, as for many liberals, it is all hooey.

And that reluctance to embrace the presidency as a feel-good movie-dream may be the real answer to why the candidate who entered the nation's emotional life became a president who retreated from it."

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In perfect harmony, God and American democracy call us to continue a long and difficult tradition imagined as a journey “up the path” of progress.

This song is old. But is it true?

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Megaprojects and Risk provides the first detailed examination of the phenomenon of megaprojects. It is a fascinating account of how the promoters of multi-billion dollar megaprojects systematically and self-servingly misinform parliaments, the public and the media in order to get projects approved and built. It shows, in unusual depth, how the formula for approval is an unhealthy cocktail of underestimated costs, overestimated revenues, undervalued environmental impacts and overvalued economic development effects. This results in projects that are extremely risky, but where the risk is concealed from MPs, taxpayers and investors.

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The attacks are themselves part of a broader tradition in American politics that is not itself partisan: The mockery of specific scientific appropriations, which are made to look silly even though, in most cases, it’s actually serious research geared toward a public purpose. Call it the “sex lives of marmots” line of argument, as a Washington science policy hand once memorably put it to me.

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"My job is to help the country take the long view — to make sure that not only are we getting out of this immediate fix, but we’re not repeating the same cycle of bubble and bust over and over again.." quoting Obama.

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