Nov. 3, 2010 (Politico.com) -- When foreign car companies started opening factories in the United States, back in the 1980s, it seemed like an act of obeisance. The plants didn't make economic sense -- Americans had to be paid so much more -- but this was a tactful bit of tribute to Empire Central. America wants auto plants? America gets auto plants.
Last week, BMW announced it was opening a plant in South Carolina. No special explanation was required. People were lined up for jobs paying $15 an hour. Equivalent jobs in Germany pay $30 an hour. We're now a bargain.
The theory that Americans are better than everybody else is endorsed by an overwhelming majority of U.S. voters and approximately 100 percent of all U.S. politicians, although there is less and less evidence to support it. A recent Yahoo poll (and I resist the obvious joke here) found that 75 percent of Americans believe that the United States is "the greatest country in the world." Does any other electorate demand such constant reassurance about how wonderful it is - and how wise? Having spent a month to a couple of years and many millions of dollars trying to snooker voters, politicians awaiting poll results Tuesday will declare that they put their faith in "the fundamental wisdom of the American people."
Not me. Democracy requires me to respect the results of the elections. It doesn't require me to agree with them or to admire the process by which voters made up their minds. In my view, anyone who voted for Barack Obama for president in 2008 and now is supporting some tea party madwoman for senator has a bit of explaining to do. But the general view is that the voters, who may be fools individually, are infallibly wise as a collective -- that their "anger," their urgent desire, yet again, for "change," is self-validating.