Ronald Reagan's PR Director 'Our Political System Is Basically
Dysfunctional'
David Gergen, 70, media expert and communications director for former US
President Ronald Reagan, fears that even a second term won't help current
President Barack Obama overcome the deep divides in Washington. The next few
years are going to be tough, he says.
06/14/2012
SPIEGEL: In opinion polls, American citizens' confidence in business
leaders, politicians and the media has declined dramatically. Is there any
institution Americans still trust?
Gergen: We have entered new territory. There are many examples of when our
politics have been extremely polarized and contentious, such as during our
Civil War, but there have been very few instances in which we have also been
paralyzed. I worked for Richard Nixon, one of the most controversial
presidents ever. But even in that presidency, I found that generally people
could find common ground.
SPIEGEL: And that feeling has evaporated in Washington?
Gergen: We had a brief moment after 9/11, when people came together and
united behind President George W. Bush, and he got bipartisan support to go
into Afghanistan. But that moment did not last long. Right now our politics
are even hurting our economics. When we saw the big fight in Congress over
the debt ceiling back in August 2011, our consumer confidence took one of
the biggest drops in modern times. That has slowed down our economic
recovery tremendously.
SPIEGEL: Has the economic crisis not been the primary factor for the current
polarization? Americans are feeling anxious and insecure.
Gergen: Certainly the recent economic crisis has contributed, but it is
worth remembering that polarization began to deepen in the 1980s and 1990s,
a time when we were creating 20 million jobs a decade. Cultural factors have
also been at play, and as someone in the media, I confess that the media has
also played a role. I have had senator after senator tell me that they get
invited to go on a talk show and be seated next to someone from the other
party. Then the producer calls to discuss the segment and if you tell them
you're going to have moderate things to say, you want to work with the other
side, the next day you get a call saying, "Sorry, we're going to get
somebody else."
SPIEGEL: So you can't be a successful politician in America unless you are
willing to polarize?
Gergen: It is very hard today for moderates to win and to be heard in
Washington. That is why they are dropping out.
SPIEGEL: On the other hand, Americans always say they are yearning for
moderation in politics. How does that fit together?
Gergen: The activists on both ends of the spectrum are remaining highly
engaged. They drive a lot of the conversation. They care deeply and they are
committed. The moderates would like to see a middle in US politics, but many
seem unwilling to spend the time making it possible.
SPIEGEL: America has a silent moderate majority?
Gergen: Exactly, and this majority has been eclipsed by the noisy fringes.
Look at the media landscape: Not long ago CNN was the most watched of the
cable news channels, but in this age of polarization, its efforts to remain
unbiased have contributed to a drop in ratings. Fox News on the right, and
to a lesser extent, MSNBC on the left, have moved up. We are also seeing
greater polarization in our newspaper world.
SPIEGEL: In Europe, a very partisan media culture has existed for a long
time. Why has a similar development led to such a decline of the public
discourse in America?
Gergen: Because people here only read opinions that reinforce their own
views. If you do not listen to opposing opinions, what actually happens is
you begin to see reality through different lenses. The right in America now
thinks that President Barack Obama is very anti-business, while the left
thinks he has coddled business. It is the same reality, but people see it
differently. Within the parties, of course, there are also different
understandings of reality -- the Tea Party versus moderate Republicans, for
example.
SPIEGEL: Speaking of reality, when you worked as communications director for
President Ronald Reagan, one of your revolutionary ideas was to "spin" a
reality every single day -- a reality shaped by Reagan's message. So, you
opened Pandora's Box and are part of the problem that led to America's
current polarization.
Gergen: I do have some regrets that I contributed to "spin," but I don't
think I contributed to polarization. For decades, I have opposed excessive
partisanship. On spin, please understand that when Reagan was elected
president, we had had a succession of presidents who had left office not
having achieved what they wanted. John F. Kennedy was killed. Lyndon B.
Johnson was forced out of office. Richard Nixon was forced out by scandal.
Gerald Ford was forced out of office. Jimmy Carter was forced out of office.
By 1980, there was a real sense that a president could not govern and that
America had lost its way.
SPIEGEL: And staging a daily media message was supposed change that?
Gergen: We thought that the presidents had lost their capacity to persuade
because they had increasingly lost the capacity to govern through
television. Hence, we tried to get the president's message out aggressively
every day, to reach the broad public. That was what was called "spin" in
those days.
SPIEGEL: Which led to even more polarization.
Gergen: Frankly, I thought what we did in the Reagan days was justified --
certainly much of the country thought we had a leader in the White House
again. But in years since, the "spin" has gotten excessive in US politics,
and I regret that we have gotten this far down the road.
SPIEGEL: As a former spin master, do you feel responsible for candidates
like Sarah Palin -- all style, no substance?
Gergen: Me personally? Not at all.
SPIEGEL: But how could it happen that a figure like Palin became so
important in American politics, a situation that spawned other silly
candidates like Donald Trump or Herman Cain this election cycle?
Gergen: Please don't over-interpret American politics. She was very popular
for a while, but her influence has diminished as other figures have emerged.
SPIEGEL: The US media still reports every single statement of hers.
Gergen: Because she is interesting. But I fundamentally reject the idea that
my influence on politics had anything to do with Palin. That's not what I
worked on for 40 years, nor what I have stood for since. And by the way, you
are underestimating Reagan -- he was a man of substance as well as style,
just as John Kennedy was.
SPIEGEL: Were you surprised that Obama, who was a very gifted orator in the
campaign, hasn't become a better communicator in office?
Gergen: Some of his speeches as a candidate, such as his Philadelphia speech
on race, were really inspirational. I voted for Obama because l hoped that
an African American coming to that job could really help to transform our
culture. And the surprise for me started with his acceptance speech. It did
not have the uplift that I expected. That was very disappointing.
Unfortunately, that trend has continued. Obama was also overexposed in his
first years in office. Recently, he has begun picking his appearances more
carefully, and his popularity ratings have since improved.
SPIEGEL: Americans liked to adore their business leaders, the "Superstar
CEOs." But they also have fallen out of favor after the financial crisis.
Gergen: The problem is even broader. There was such a thing as the American
establishment before. People looked up to its members and they followed
them. Presidents of universities had large followings. People who were
leaders of religious faiths would have a large following. But there are not
very many people who have that anymore. This is the first time I can
remember we've had a collapse in the leadership of both business and
politics, and it's left the country adrift.
SPIEGEL: With the exception of the military?
Gergen: Yes, because they're very professional and they get the job done. I
also believe that the younger generation -- those in their 20s and 30s today
-- have great promise for the country. They are idealistic, volunteer in
greater numbers and hate the current polarization. Many of our best new
leaders have come home from Iraq and Afghanistan, eager to rebuild America.
SPIEGEL: Speaking of the younger generation, how does the explosion of
social media affect politics?
Gergen: It is a double-edged sword. Clearly, social media made a huge
difference in the Arab Spring. Politicians in Washington also occasionally
had to back down on something because there was an uproar in social media.
But Malcolm Gladwell, from The New Yorker, has remarked that social media
can get people to show up to vote, but you couldn't run a civil rights
revolution through it. Social media is not good at getting people to do hard
things, things that take a sustained effort.
SPIEGEL: So it's good for campaigning, but not for governing?
Gergen: Obama used social media and the Internet extraordinarily well to
mobilize during the campaign, but he's had a very difficult time using it
for governing. I thought coming out of the campaign: "He's going to have an
army out there of young people. Anytime he brings up an issue, they're going
to deluge the Congress." It did not happen.
SPIEGEL: You, a Nixon and Reagan man, were brought into the Clinton White
House to make the trains run on time when his White House was about to hit
rock bottom in his first term.
Gergen: I'm not sure about making trains run on time. I had known President
Clinton for a long time and he asked me to help. But he is the one who
deserves all the credit for the way he regained his balance.
SPIEGEL: Why didn't that happen in the Obama White House? After early
setbacks, why didn't his team bring in somebody with a slightly different
background to reach out to moderates?
Gergen: Barack Obama is a very smart man. He has many gifts. Bill Clinton is
a better politician. Clinton believed right from the beginning that, in
order to win the presidency, he had to put together a team that came from
many different parts of the political spectrum. Obama has very good people,
but they're almost all from the same group, and they all came from Chicago.
I had this conversation with him and said, "Keep your current people; they
are obviously good. But it would also be helpful if you enlarged your inner
circle, bringing in people with different perspectives."
SPIEGEL: What was Obama's response?
Gergen: He brought in a strong businessman, Bill Daley, to help him as chief
of staff, but Daley was essentially marginalized right from the beginning.
He quit after less than a year on the job.
SPIEGEL: Why does Obama generate so much hatred in the country?
Gergen: I would like to believe it's not race, but I'm sure that's an
element. But, after all, we voted for an African American. If there was so
much racial hatred, he never would have gotten there. There is a quality
about Obama that he sometimes seems to be lecturing you, and people resent
that.
SPIEGEL: He didn't show that trait during the campaign, did he?
Gergen: No. He changed when he became president. He has another problem: He
ran a campaign in which everybody could see in him what they wanted to see.
I'm a moderate centrist. I thought that he would be a moderate centrist. The
left thought he was going to be one of them. There are many different people
who invested their hopes in Obama, and when he had to start making choices,
people discovered he's not who they thought he was, and they got upset about
that.
SPIEGEL: Has he actually made enough of an effort to reconcile the political
parties in Washington?
Gergen: He has tried. But he is more of an introvert than I thought he was.
He doesn't feel he needs a lot more friends, and I don't think he has tried
to build relationships in Washington, the way Clinton or Reagan tried.
SPIEGEL: But would the conservatives have been receptive?
Gergen: I think it would have made sense if he had reached out more to the
Republican leaders in Congress. In fairness to the president, though, there
were a lot of Republicans who wanted to destroy him right from the
beginning.
SPIEGEL: Is there any chance for a "restart" in Washington if Obama gets
reelected?
Gergen: One always hopes, but history shows that almost every second term
has been weaker than the first one in terms of effectiveness domestically.
You can often get a lot of things done overseas in a second term but not
much at home. The next few years are going to be really rough. I think our
political system is basically dysfunctional.
SPIEGEL: To break the gridlock in US politics, what qualities would a leader
need?
Gergen: I don't think any single individual can do it now. We need a new
generation to help us. It might be helpful if we had a woman in charge,
because the press would be more respectful for a while.
SPIEGEL: Hillary Clinton?
Gergen: I think if Clinton were on the ticket today, she'd probably beat
everybody handily, including Obama and Romney.
SPIEGEL: But she has ruled out another run. So America is stuck for now?
Gergen: I am more optimistic in the middle and long run, when a new
generation of leaders can come into place. But the next three to five years
will be problematic, no matter who is elected in November. I thought Barack
Obama was the first person in a long time who could break through, and so
his failure has been a source of enormous disappointment. The hopes of many
Americans, particularly the young ones, were broken.
SPIEGEL: How can their broken hearts be mended?
Gergen: It may take a different kind of leader, a less charismatic one. A
colleague of mine at Harvard Business School, Bill George, argues that in
the business world, one outcome of the latest crisis is the return of more
responsible, though less glamorous CEO's.
SPIEGEL: But would a quiet political leader not be mocked by the media for
being dull or stiff?
Gergen: I am not sure. What I know is that there is a lot of respect among
Americans who do business in China for the competency and efficiency of the
leadership there.
SPIEGEL: Are you serious? Communist China is supposed to serve as a
leadership model for the oldest democracy on the planet?
Gergen: It is hard to believe, I know. But Chinese leaders are currently
perceived like US generals -- they are competent and they get things done.
Americans are aware, of course, that China has internal problems and
Americans worry about an expansive China. But we see them building a modern
infrastructure -- and wonder why we aren't investing more in the future
ourselves.
Interview conducted by Marc Hujer and Gregor Peter Schmitz
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Received on Thu Jun 14 2012 - 15:43:02 EDT
