After their team won two games at home to open the NBA Finals against the Detroit Pistons, San Antonio fans were ready to proclaim the Spurs the ultimate force in professional basketball. Manu Ginobili, the Spurs' dynamic shooting guard, was a superstar for the ages. Comparisons to Michael Jordan got tossed around for the first time since, well, since Dwyane. Wade's Miami Heat had some initial success against the Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals before ultimately losing. In a rush by some fans to proclaim the Spurs the best basketball team ever, not-strictly-relevant considerations, like the team's consistently high quality since 1997, were brought to the fore.
Then the series moved to Detroit, where the Pistons scored two blowout victories and the script flipped. The Wallaces, Ben and Rasheed, were unstoppable, and the San Antonio bench was nowhere to be seen. Then came Game 5, when Robert Horry -- off the bench, of course -- won it for the Spurs, just as he's won big games for teams so many times before.
I have no real insight to add to the analysis of basketball except to note that jumping to conclusions is a common human failing. We see patterns where none exist, are bad at statistical reasoning, and tend to project trends further than we should. I'm told this all has a solid evolutionary basis, but it tends to make for bad punditry.
Just a few months ago, after the Democrats lost yet another close election, people were ready to proclaim the party on its last legs. Every faction with some gripe or another about its treatment was sure that until its dissatisfaction was resolved, no further progress could be made. Because so many people had so many gripes, the task began to look all but hopeless. And because George W. Bush had increased his margin by about 3 percent across the board between 2000 and 2004, there turned out to be lots of demographic subgroups that were "trending" Republican. All hope was lost.
Fast-forward to today, and things don't look so hot for the GOP. The embryonic 2004-vintage effort to call attention to Tom DeLay's autocratic rule in the House and the attendant corruption of the legislative process seem to be bearing fruit. Bush's effort to privatize Social Security is not going well. Democrats, thanks to a timely assist from malign forces inside the sugar lobby and clumsy negotiating by the U.S. trade representative, look set to deliver the White House a black eye over the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement. Bush's approval rating has sunk significantly lower than where Ronald Reagan's and Bill Clinton's were at this point in their second terms. And, perhaps most of all, the sense that the Iraq War was a good idea is reaching new lows, with more and more Americans eager to start bringing the troops home.
Things are looking up, in other words.
But, as in the NBA, current events tell us less than we might like to think about ultimate outcomes. The fundamentals simply don't change that frequently. In the NBA Finals, you've got two very good teams, with extremely strong defenses and significant playoff experience. The San Antonio offense is more dynamic, and the Spurs' best player is far better than anyone on the Pistons. But Detroit's top six is better than San Antonio's. The Spurs are deeper, but if the Pistons stay injury-free, that probably doesn't matter. Anyone could win.
In politics, much more so than in sports, the fundamentals change only slowly, or only rarely. Dramatic, transformative events -- like the Great Depression, or the confluence of the Civil Rights Act and the Vietnam War -- are both unusual and unpredictable. If the apparent failure of Social Security privatization teaches us anything, it's less that Democrats are on the rebound than simply that there is a massive bias toward “small-c” conservatism built into the American political system. The levers of power are not especially efficacious, especially when a monopoly on power is built on a foundation of narrow majorities grounded on unrelated issues. Year in and year out, two experienced, powerful teams slug it out -- usually to uncertain effect.
Democrats seem to have the upper hand today, but the weaknesses that ultimately led to defeat in 2002 and 2004 still exist. The party remains riven by the gap between its overwhelmingly anti-war voters and a national-security establishment that -- including most of the party's prominent elected leaders -- largely backed the use of force in Iraq. It's telling that recent congressional pseudo-hearings into the “Downing Street Memo” and related matters have been somewhat unprofessionally conducted and undertaken without the participation of the people who would play large roles in shaping the foreign policy of a Democratic White House or Congress. Gay marriage is still out there, still unpopular, and still too popular (and, dare I say, morally right) among liberal voters, donors, and commentators to ignore. Health care continues to be the party's best issue, but Democrats lack a consensus on what the goals should be here, or by which tactics they should be pursued.
Which is not to say that the GOP's future is untroubled: The sinking numbers, inability to maintain a coherent policy-making process, reliance on gimmicks rather than real issues to win elections, and abandonment of its small-government ideological core tell the tale. The point is simply that things change quickly. Just a few months ago, thanks to the surprisingly peaceful Iraqi elections, opponents of the Iraq War were widely thought to be discredited. Bush's forward strategy of freedom, you may recall, was about to create a strategic revolution in Lebanon. Hezbollah turns out to have won. Maybe housing prices will decline dramatically and tank the economy. Maybe everything will recover by 2008. But maybe not.
The future is uncertain, but liberal overconfidence worries me. Conservatives knew that large elements of their agenda are, when properly understood, broadly unpopular with the electorate. Thus, every political battle is an uphill fight to be taken seriously. Liberals tend to have an odd, persistent conviction that the wool is about to be lifted from the people's eyes and everything will soon be all right. Thus, transient successes breeds complacency, infighting, and ineffectiveness.
The Pistons play best, it seems, with their backs to the wall, and they may lose when they get too comfortable. Liberals should take note.
Matthew Yglesias is a Prospect staff writer.
