The war with Iran that never really ended is back on. Like everybody else, including the Trump administration and the Iranian regime, I have no idea how it will end. But it eventually will, and how it will be remembered will matter enormously.<\/p>\n
Politics is about many things, but whether you call it \u201cspin,\u201d \u201cframing\u201d or \u201cnarrative competition,\u201d storytelling is never far from the heart of it. As the philosopher Richard Rorty observed, \u201cCompetition for political leadership is in part a competition between differing stories about a nation\u2019s self-identity, and between differing symbols of its greatness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sometimes the story itself is the point, like the recent clashes over the American founding \u2014 1619 vs. 1776 \u2014 and sometimes the story is a means to some other political end, like winning an election or passing controversial legislation. If people believe the spin that elections are routinely stolen thanks to votes by illegal immigrants, then passing the SAVE Act makes sense. If they don\u2019t believe that story \u2014 perhaps because it\u2019s not true \u2014 but do believe that the bill is another chapter in the story of President Trump\u2019s goal of undermining confidence in elections, then passing it doesn\u2019t make sense.<\/p>\n
Very often the story is more lastingly important than the facts.<\/p>\n
Take the New Deal. Save for the Founding and the Civil War, I\u2019m hard-pressed to think of a story that shaped American politics more. The modern Democratic Party was defined by it. And in many ways, so was the GOP.<\/p>\n
For decades, the reigning view was that President Franklin Roosevelt\u2019s New Deal was a huge success. To deny this was \u2014 and often still is \u2014 dismissed as nuttery. According to legend, the New Deal unified the country, defeated the Great Depression and proved that politicians and experts could plan the economy for the benefit of all Americans. Hence the unceasing progressive quest for a<\/a> \u201cnew<\/a> New<\/a> Deal<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n This story has facts in its favor. It also has facts heavily weighted against it. The economy didn\u2019t really recover until well after the New Deal was over. The 1930s was no period of \u201cwe\u2019re all in together\u201d unity. Instead it was a time of significant domestic upheaval: the Harlem Riots and labor unrest \u2014 \u201cthe Uprising of 1934<\/a>\u201d alone was one the largest industrial strikes in American history \u2014 and hundreds<\/a> of unemployment protests.<\/p>\n