Ezra Klein: uncertainty

Transcript context

…Let’s say we put aside the GDP metric and move to an influence-in-the-world metric, and let’s just say, I suppose, 85 percent of the import of what the US government does is foreign policy, or some pretty high percentage, right? This is America. We have a lot of impact on the world. If I look at foreign policy, things, to me, seem less polarized. Now, I get on any moment, “Oh, we talked about Russia, Putin, Ukraine.” People go crazy being polarized. But they almost don’t even know what the places are they’re talking about, and it can fade in an instant. And when you ask, what does each party actually want to do when it’s in charge, I’m not sure I could even describe the differences. And the parties seem, in a way, incoherent on foreign policy — both of them — to me. Do you think that’s a fair characterization, that in foreign policy, putting aside moment-by-moment, that polarization has gone down? I don’t know if it’s gone down, but I agree that it is incoherent, and I’m not sure it’s gone up. I don’t think, in general, we are super polarized on foreign policy. But, again, I’m not sure it’s gone down. For instance, something I note in the book is that opposition to Vietnam War — when opposition to Vietnam War was at its height, it was actually pretty evenly distributed between the Democratic and Republican parties. During that period, when he was running as Ford’s vice president, Bob Dole famously said, “The Democratic Party is a party of war.” People were very upset about that. But there was a reason he said it. A lot of the wars have been launched by Democrats. So, while I agree with you that I don’t think foreign policy is highly polarized in a way that some other things are, I’m not sure it was more polarized in the past. As you probably know, our mutual friend Josh Barro once wrote a piece saying Rhode Island was the least polarized state. Is that something they should be proud of? Is it a problem? How do you view Rhode Island within the framework of your book?…

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