What does a Politician Really Mean by “Making the Tough Decisions”?
I learned many things in my time in politics. For example, I’ve learned where to get OFF of the turnpike if you want to get to Harrisburg. That took me 6 years, but in the meantime I got to know western PA really well!
I also learned that being a Senator is not the same as being a king, which really made me regret my purchase of a scepter. Mostly I’ve learned that politics has its own language. While many words mean the same in and out of politics (“balding” is a tragic example) many do not.
This weekend, I heard US House Speaker Mike Johnson talking about the recently passed “Great Big Beautiful, Hot Sexy, Erotic Big Bill” (“GBBHSERBB”) And this reminded me of a great example of politics-speak.
You see, Speaker Johnson, was looking downcast, in that “Jesus loves me and hates you” kind of way he has. He was talking about how cutting Medicaid and Food Stamps for the poor, was unfortunate, but it was time to make “the tough decisions”.
“Tough Decisions” is one of those phrases that means something different in politics than it means anywhere else. You always hear law-makers stand up and talk about how “we need to make tough decisions” and that “in these times, tough decisions are necessary.”
When I was young, during the Coolidge Administration, this talk used to frighten me. I would hear a legislator say “tough decisions” were coming and I would brace myself for what must surely be the utter abandonment of his or her previously held positions for the sake of the greater good.
But then, something weird happened. As one-by-one legislators spelled out the tough decisions that had to be made, I noticed that they didn’t actually change their historical position on anything. In fact, they just ratcheted up their rhetoric about how the idiots on the other side have to change THEIR positions.
And this led me to perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned in politics. And it is this: When someone says its time for “tough decisions” what he or she means is “tough decisions” for YOU. He doesn’t mean that HE wants to make any decisions that would be tough for HIM. That would be tough. And he’s made the decision, he doesn’t want to do that.
Let me give you some examples outside the context of politics. Here are some examples of tough decisions as politicians define them.
= The coach of the Knicks calling for Cleveland to make the Tough Decision to bench Lebron James for the rest of the game.
= Stephen Miller making the Tough Decision to deport the cast of Lopez
= A 9 year old boy making the Tough Decision to skip school, stay home and set the lawn furniture on fire all day.
As it applies to our recently passed Beautiful Bill, a lot of Republicans went on TV to lament the tough decision they made to cut taxes for the rich and programs for the poor, gut environmental protections and spend billions on removing brown people from the country.
The fact that these are policies THAT REPUBLICANS ALWAYS WANTED didn’t lesson the dark anguish they felt enacting them. These were decisions. And they were tough. In fact, their despair was so profound that it often manifest itself in quirky ways, such as profuse giggling, high-fives, and shouts of YIPPEEE~!!!!!
When asked about making the sort of decisions that might be “tough” in the sense of being things they weren’t always enthusiastically in favor of, the reaction changed.
For example, raising taxes on the rich would be an actual Tough Decision for Republicans. When that was suggested, the despair masquerading as almost erotic glee at cutting Democratic programs was replaced by somber somberness. It’s time for tough, hard, brutal decisions, but taxing Jeff Bezos is beyond the pale and clearly not what they meant by “tough”.
So the next time you hear a politician tell you he has to make tough decisions, look at where she has stood on issues her entire career, and know that she is fully prepared, come what may, no matter what, to make the tough decision to stay exactly there.
