Analysis of The Triumph of Politics

David Stockman, in The Triumph of Politics, has written perhaps one of the most self-serving books ever written. This essay will summarize and critically analyze Stockman's book, focusing on the thesis that Stockman's sole purpose is to show what an economic genius he is, and how the world of politicians and other assorted fools conspired to keep him from saving the country with his supply-side brilliance.

Stockman says in his Acknowledgements that "this book is a story about politics" (ix), but it is not about politics in any sense associated with democracy or constitutional government. To Stockman, politics is the set of obstacles set up by the idiots around him to keep him from doing his job. He is a man without real connection to the government he is supposed to be serving. From the first page of the book to the last, the book is about one thing---the genius of the author and the idiocy (sometimes well-intentioned idiocy, as in the case of Ronald Reagan) of all others, with a few grudging exceptions.

The author's very requited love for himself is evidenced in the Prologue when Reagan asks Stockman (the Director of the Office of Management and Budget) how he could have given the magazine interview which seemed to skewer Reagan and his economic policy. Instead of answering the question, Stockman launches on a meandering biography of himself. He loves himself and he is not afraid to show it.

The economic genius of Stockman is comprised of a very simple formula, despit

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e is no other possible conclusion to his book than that he has been an idealistic genius struggling against impossible odds: "As I shuffled back to my office on that brisk January day in 1984, it seemed ironic that in only four years my Grand Doctrine for remaking the world had turned, finally, into a dutiful loyalty to nonsense" (375). This, then, is the main point of the book---the politicians and bureaucracy and a weak President have conspired to keep Stockman from implementing his supply-side program and saving the nation. Stockman has written this book to show what a martyr he has been for his country, how he has suffered, but, more importantly, how the country is doomed because it has forsaken him and his genius. Stockman's thesis is preposterous for two reasons. First, he fails to understand that the government of this country is based not on Stockman's genius but on a Constitution which institutionalized democratic processes. He believes that Reagan was a King who could have and should have turned the economic structure over to Stockman and left him alone to work his magic unhindered by such annoyances as, for example, the Congress. Second, Stockman's thesis is ridiculous because he believes that if he had had the

Category: Government - A