Paul Krugman, the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Economics, penned an article a few months ago: “Know-Nothing Politics“.
the debate on energy policy has helped me find the words for something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Republicans, once hailed as the “party of ideas,” have become the party of stupid.
For Krugman, the Republican embrace and promotion of Drillusion exemplified how “know-nothingism” had become revered within the Republican Party. “The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”” ANd, “In the case of oil, this takes the form of pretending that more drilling would produce fast relief at the gas pump.”
Krugman called the Republican leadership to task for promoting a policy that flew in the face of facts and expert knowledge. His real fear was the power of this “dumb” approach to energy when it came to potentially swaying votes. Looking at this debate and the difference between lying and confusion, Krugman came to this generalized conclusion:
In any case, remember this the next time someone calls for an end to partisanship, for working together to solve the country’s problems. It’s not going to happen — not as long as one of America’s two great parties believes that when it comes to politics, stupidity is the best policy.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Anonymous // Oct 14, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Smart man!
2 jim rumbaugh // Oct 15, 2008 at 12:41 pm
“Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule– and both commonly succeed —–and are right.” H.L Mencken
3 Terry Ahlstedt // Sep 12, 2009 at 10:01 am
Paul Krugman’s economic advice circa summer 2002:
The basic point is that the recession of 2001 wasn’t a typical postwar slump, brought on when an inflation-fighting Fed raises interest rates and easily ended by a snapback in housing and consumer spending when the Fed brings rates back down again. This was a prewar-style recession, a morning after brought on by irrational exuberance. To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.
Sadly enough, that’s pretty much exactly what happened, and it’s the major reason we’re in a recession right now. Still, this hasn’t stopped Krugman from taking to those same pages and pimping for a huge increase to aggregate demand to cure this recession. What’s that old definition for insanity again? Something about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results….