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April 7, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
Who’s Up for Building Bridges?

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
I’m no expert on American politics, but I do know something about
holes. And watching the way the Republican Party is reacting to the
passage of health care, it seems to me the G.O.P. is violating the
first rule of holes: “When you’re in one, stop digging.”

Yes, I know, the polls show that the G.O.P. is not being hurt by its
“just-say-no” strategy. But there is no groundswell moving its way
either. Republicans will have to come up with more than “just-say-no-
to-everything-except-lower-taxes-and-more-drilling” to field a
credible 2012 presidential candidate. Here’s why:

If you step back far enough, you could argue that George W. Bush
brought the Reagan Revolution — with its emphasis on tax cuts,
deregulation and government-as-the-problem-not-the-solution — to its
logical conclusion and then some. But with a soaring deficit and a
banking crisis caused by an excess of deregulation, Reaganism has met
its limit. Meanwhile, President Obama’s passage of health care reform
has brought the New Deal-Franklin Roosevelt Revolution to its logical
conclusion. There will be no more major entitlements for Americans.
The bond market will make sure of that.

In other words, both major parties have now completed their primary
20th- century missions, first laid down by their iconic standard-
bearers. The real question is which party is going to build America’s
bridge to the 21st century — one that will strengthen our ability to
compete in the global economy, while practicing much more fiscal
discipline.

Obama is at least trying to push an agenda for pursuing the American
dream in these new circumstances. I don’t agree with every policy —
I’d like to see a lot more emphasis on innovation and small business
start-ups — but he’s clearly trying. I do not get that impression
from the Republicans, and especially those being led around by the
Tea Partiers.

Obama-ism posits that we are now in a hypercompetitive global
economy, where the country that thrives will be the one that brings
together the most educated, creative and diverse work force with the
best infrastructure — bandwidth, ports, airports, high-speed rail and
good governance. And we’re in a world with a warming climate that is
growing from 6.8 billion people to 9.2 billion by 2050, so demand for
clean energy is going to go through the roof. Therefore, E.T. —
energy technology — is going to be the next great global industry.

So, government matters. It needs to be incentivizing businesses to
build their next factory in this country — at a time when every other
nation is throwing incentives their way; it needs to be recruiting
highly skilled immigrants; it needs to be setting the highest
national education standards and funding basic research; it needs to
be laying down the right energy regulations that will stimulate more
clean-tech companies.

And — something neither Democrats nor Republicans have stepped up to
yet — we will need to pay for all this by simultaneously raising some
taxes, cutting others and by taking away some services to pay for
needed new investments in infrastructure and education. We can’t get
away anymore with a G.O.P. that wants to cut taxes but never
specifies which services it plans to give up, or a Democratic party
that wants to add services by taxing only the rich.

“Health care was the final act of the New Deal,” argues Edward
Goldberg, who teaches global business at Baruch College and is
writing a book on globalization and U.S. politics. “The 21st-century
will require a mix of cutting, investing and innovation and
entrepreneurialism beyond anything we have dreamed of.” To simply say
that government is not the answer, he adds, “when we are essentially
fighting four wars — Iraq, Afghanistan, the Great Recession and the
retooling of the American economy” — is ludicrous. Smart government
needs to be the leader or silent partner in all of these projects.

One reason the G.O.P. has failed to spawn an agenda for the 21st
century is that globalization has fragmented the party. Its Wall
Street/multinational corporate wing understands we need immigration,
free trade, clean-tech and government support for better
infrastructure and the scientific research that is the wellspring of
innovation. The Tea Party wing opposes virtually all those things.
All that unites the two wings is their common desire for lower taxes
— period.

Globalization has also weakened the Democrats’ blue-collar/union
base, but the Democrats have absorbed a new constituency created by
globalization — what Goldberg calls the “ ‘Newocracy’ — which
combines the multinational corporate manager, the technology
entrepreneur and engineer, and the aspirational members of the
meritocracy.”

These “Newocrats” previously would have leaned Republican, but now
many lean toward Obama. They don’t agree with everything he’s
proposing, but they sense that he is working on that bridge to the
21st century, while today’s G.O.P./Tea Party is just not in the game.
Today, we have no real opposition party with its own pathway to the
21st century. We just have opposition.


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