Maher’s first mistake is to compare what is expected from a single Communist government with what is expected from 51 democratic governments.
A Bill Maher monologue is doing the rounds:
“You’re not going to win the battle for the 21st century if, you are a silly people, and Americans are a silly people,” Maher said, citing a quote from “Lawrence of Arabia” that as long as they stay a bunch of squabbling tribes, we will remain a silly people.
“Well, we’re the silly people now,” he said. “You know, who doesn’t care that there’s a stereotype of a Chinese man in a Dr. Seuss book? China. All 1.4 billion of them could give a crouching tiger, flying f— because they’re not a silly people. If anything, they are as serious as a prison fight.”
He went on: “Look, we all know China does bad stuff. They break promises about Hong Kong autonomy, they put Uighurs in camps and punish dissent. And we don’t want to be that. But there’s got to be something between authoritarian government that tells everyone what to do and a representative government that can’t do anything at all.”
“In two generations, China has built 500 entire cities from scratch, moved the majority of their huge population from poverty to the middle class and mostly cornered the market in 5g and pharmaceuticals,” he said. “In China alone, they have 40,000 kilometers of high-speed rail. America has… none. Our fastest train is the tram that goes around the zoo.”
Maher pointed out that the US has had “infrastructure week every week since 2009, but we never do anything.” Why? Because of the endless culture war.
“Half the country is having a never-ending woke competition deciding whether Mr. Potato Head has a d— and the other half believes we have to stop the lizard people because they’re eating babies,” he said, referring to a QAnon conspiracy theory.
“Nothing ever moves in this impacted colon of a country!” he said. “We see a problem and we ignore it, lie about it, fight about it, endlessly litigate it, sunset clause it, kick it down the road and then write a bill where a half-assed solution doesn’t kick in for 10 years. China sees a problem and they fix it. They build a dam; we debate what to rename it.”
Americans certainly talk about silly things, some of which Maher mentions. But I don’t think this is as useful a way of looking at the country as Maher — or as the many people who are praising this segment — seem to.
Maher’s first mistake is to compare what is expected from a single Communist government with what is expected from 51 democratic governments that, by design, expect most innovation to come from the market. In America, the federal government does not — and should not — “build cities,” and nor does it “create” the middle class. That’s not a bug, it’s a feature. We are different from China because we want to be different — and we are supposed to be different — from China.
That difference has unavoidable consequences. Maher draws a distinction between “authoritarian government” and “representative government,” but then he describes political differences at the national level as “squabbling tribes,” as if the democratic process playing out in a divided country is a problem to be solved. It’s not. Indeed, it’s unavoidable if, like Maher, you don’t want a government that breaks promises, puts people in camps, and punishes dissent. With apologies to Tom Friedman, there is simply no way of being “China for a day” without accepting all of the other stuff that we don’t want. China, I’m afraid, is a package deal.
This aside, it is simply not true that we “never do anything” in America. As a people, we are far, far more innovative than China, which is why they are so determined to steal or copy our stuff. Hell, as I write these words, we’re watching this country innovate its way out of a global crisis — just as it always, always manages to do. Do we think that just happened?
What about the specifics? It is certainly true that we don’t have much “high-speed rail” in America. But this is primarily because Americans don’t actually need or want high-speed rail — which we can tell by looking at Maher’s own state of California, in which this became painfully obvious after tens of billions of dollars had been spent by people Maher likes and votes for. It is true, too, that we haven’t passed a big federal “infrastructure” bill for a while. But, again, this is mostly because there is a lot less need for such spending here than there is in China, and because, as a result of that relative lack of need, most “infrastructure” bills end up as slush funds for people the incumbent government happens to like.
Like Maher, I would be thrilled to see one half of the country stop arguing about “whether Mr. Potato Head has a d—” and the other half stop believing that “we have to stop the lizard people because they’re eating babies.” Unlike Maher, though, I do not want this because I think it would be better if we all focused on empowering the government, but because those particular arguments are unfathomably stupid and get in the way of the more important questions about the shape of civil society that, as a free people, we would do well to spend more time considering.