Chrysler’s Sorry Super Bowl Commercial Featuring Clint Eastwood

One commercial during Super Bowl XLVI that gained quite a few positive reviews was the Chrysler ad featuring Clint Eastwood, but my reaction was “What a dumb commercial.”

The commercial shows standard images of what we are told America consists of--flags, factories and determined folks--with a voiceover by Eastwood that begins with a brief statement of the problems America faces (“People are out of work and they’re hurting.”), then builds dramatically with swells of horns, and ends with Eastwood grimacing into the camera and delivering the following:

“This country can't be knocked out with one punch. We get right back up again and when we do the world is going to hear the roar of our engines. Yeah, it's halftime America. And, our second half is about to begin."

This message is one I am sick of hearing. Even President Obama, who used to show a natural resistance to American exceptionalism, has taken to throwing it around. Here is an example from last month’s State of the Union address: 

“This nation is great because we built it together. This nation is great because we worked as a team. This nation is great because we get each other’s backs. And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great; no mission too hard. As long as we are joined in common purpose, as long as we maintain our common resolve, our journey moves forward, and our future is hopeful, and the state of our Union will always be strong.”

If there is anything that all this bluster shows, however, it is not how strong America is but how weak it is. The national obsession with America's resilience is a sure symptom of its debilitation. 

And debilitated America is indeed. Aside from GDP and military spending, there are few areas left in which we are at or even near the top in world rankings. For decades, we have been falling lower and lower in upward mobility, quality of education and affordable healthcare, even as we rise higher and higher in the number of bankruptcies related to healthcare costs, the cost of education, and the percentage of the population behind bars. Those are but a few examples. Nearly every new statistic I hear echoes this trend, and I invite the reader to begin paying attention to the statistics. They are not good.

More than tough talk is necessary if America would be strong again. If our politicians and corporations would like to show there is some substance in their swagger, then they would spend less time talking and more time actually fixing problems. And we the American people, if we would show our supposedly admirable character, would do the same--starting by electing representatives who live up to their word.