Last week I wrote about the American election and I looked at the different ways that the campaigns were being framed by the two main political parties. The Republicans, I argued, have also got two "outsiders" in the mix: Donald Trump and Ben Carson.
These two outsiders have made it their goal to simplify the role of the state in complex issues. I said last week that there is some excellent analysis about how American politics has shifted away from deep and engaging conversations about civic life towards a discourse of simplicity.
The debate among the "outsiders" has been framed around a series of short sound bites that makes it seem as though governing is easy and that decisions about domestic and foreign policy can be made with a simple statement of intention. Apparently a chat with Vladimir Putin will change the whole foreign policy stance of the Russian state.
I was thinking more about this type of simplistic national dialogue this week as I listened to the discussions about the refugee crisis in both Canada and the United States.
I couldn't help thinking of an episode of West Wing entitled Game On that features a debate between the president and his opponent, Governor Ritchie of Florida. Over the episode the president has been in debate camp working with his staff to craft the answers to each question. The staff is intent on finding a 10-word answer for each question: one, simple, 10 word statement to respond to a complex question.
But Jed Bartlet is smart - really smart - and he is not inclined to 10-word statements, or to 10-word thinking.
In the final critical moments of the debate he sees that his opponent has been practicing the same 10-word responses and President Bartlet stops the show by reminding the American people that the 10-word answer is not enough for a statesperson.
This is how the exchange unfolds:
Moderator: "Governor Ritchie, many economists have stated that the tax cut, which is the centrepiece of your economic agenda, could actually harm the economy. Is now really the time to cut taxes?"
Governor Robert Ritchie: "You bet it is. We need to cut taxes for one reason - the American people know how to spend their money better than the federal government does."
Moderator: "Mr. President, your rebuttal."
President Josiah Bartlet: "There it is. That's the 10-word answer my staff's been looking for two weeks. There it is. Ten-word answers can kill you in political campaigns. They're the tip of the sword.
"Here's my question: What are the next 10 words of your answer? Your taxes are too high? So are mine. Give me the next 10 words. How are we going to do it? Give me 10 after that, I'll drop out of the race right now. Every once in a while... every once in a while, there's a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts. Other than that, there aren't very many unnuanced moments in leading a country that's way too big for 10 words...."
The 10-word responses can seem comforting and I've heard a lot of those statements this week in regard to refugee resettlement.
On Thursday night, Rex Murphy found the perfect nine-word answer: "We can and should unite caution with our compassion."
Like Brad Wall, premier of Saskatchewan, Rex Murphy has argued that we should slow the process for accepting refugees in light of the Paris attacks.
But this response is no different than the response of the pre-election government. The Globe and Mail recently reported that "the Conservative government began opening spaces for Syrian refugees in 2013, with the goal of taking in 11,300 refugees by the end of 2018. Of those, only about 2,500 had arrived by early September (2015)."
For any statesperson who wants to delay again the refugee claimants, I would ask, what are the next 10 words? How long does it take for a refugee to get here now? What do you mean by delay? Don't we have CSIS and the RCMP and the UN as overseers? Explain to me the next 10 words because this is not a time for a simple 10-word statement; this is a time for statesmanship.
