The Hidden State of the Union

We all heard what the President said in the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, but what did he mean? The speech, like most right-wing discourse these days, is in a kind of code, based on a moral system that not all Americans share.

Lying below the 50-50 political schism in this country are two opposing worldviews. Each sees national politics through the lens of an idealized family, either a conservative strict-father family or a progressive nurturing parent family.

The strict father sees the world as a dangerous and difficult place, where evil lurks, and competition will always produce winners and losers. His job is to protect and support his family, and as moral authority, teach his kids right from wrong. Through example and painful punishment, he instills in them an internal discipline to act morally and become self-reliant.

Moral people are disciplined and deserve to prosper. Those who are undisciplined are not moral and should not prosper. Mothers may comfort, but must be prevented from coddling, lest the children become undisciplined, immoral, and dependent. When the children are mature, they are on their own and parents should not meddle in their lives.

This family moral system, projected onto the nation, defines a radical form of conservative politics that Bush supporters implicitly understand and that provides the internal logic that lies behind the speech.

Let's start with foreign policy. As moral authority, the strict father president knows right from wrong and it is his job to protect the nation and punish "evildoers" -- and he doesn't need "a permission slip" or anyone's help to do it. "America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people."

Literally, terrorism doesn't fit the frame of war: There is no other nation, no organized army, no country to sign a peace treaty, not even a formal end. It more closely resembles crime, as Wesley Clark, who knows what a war is, reminds us. Bush's rejection of the crime frame and adoption of the war frame extends his strict father powers: The commander-in-chief is an absolute authority figure. The war frame, but not the crime frame, allows him to attack Iraq and reshape it as he sees fit.

Now consider social programs. In the strict father framework, they are immoral; they give people things they don't earn and lead them to become undisciplined, dependent, and incapable of moral behavior. Cutting taxes to produce a huge deficit rewards good -- successful -- people, and in addition takes away money from immoral social programs, which are referred to as "wasteful spending."

From the Bush perspective, it is thus a moral obligation to eliminate social programs that lead to dependence. He calls it "reform" -- Social Security reform, Medicare reform, education reform, and so on. If the reform is moral, those who oppose it are immoral and opponents of progress: "The status quo always has defenders."

The Bush strategy in these cases is the slippery slope -- take the first step or two and you can't get back. The prescription drug benefit for Medicare was such a first step. You are lured down the slope by the drug benefit. Since the government is not allowed to compete for lower prices, people will leave Medicare for private insurance that provides temporary savings. After two years, they can't get back into Medicare. The slippery slope draws more and more people out -- forever -- and the system collapses. The president calls these proposals "strengthening Medicare."

The Bush health care proposal is another slippery slope. The lure is 100 percent tax deductions for catastrophic health care coverage, but only "as part of our new health savings accounts." The goal is to get the government out of all health care: "A government-run health care system is the wrong prescription."