As you may have noticed, Tuesday is Election Day. Like most elections, this one has been laden with sound and fury, but embarrassingly short on sense.
In many ways, however, it has been the most dysfunctional, dissociative and downright disturbing of any in modern times. Parsing the current public discourse is not unlike listening to a crazy man talk to himself on the bus. You know there are probably some nuggets of truth and relevance somewhere in the babble, but the overall narrative is thoroughly divorced from reality.
Much of the responsibility for this can be shouldered by a mass-media culture that prefers to promote false narratives for sport and profit, rather than report ignorance and hysteria for what it is. We are told by the talking heads that Republicans are on a roll that will sweep out the failed Democratic experiment of the last few years, and that their vanguard consists of the Tea Party, an exciting and important new force in our political culture. We are presented with book burnings, angry anti-mosque mobs and nonexistent immigrant crime waves as the pre-eminent issues of the day. We are told that the Democrats are in trouble because they spend too much, have strayed too far left, blah, blah, blah, blecch.
Gag me with a teleprompter. This tired old narrative is less true now than ever. In fact, the Democratic Party’s approval ratings have been 10 points better than Republicans in some polls, with the Tea Baggers lagging even further behind. With regard to Obamacare, the “socialist” bugaboo that provides one of the biggest talking points for the torch-and-pitchfork crowd, the majority of people declaring dissatisfaction with it cited a concern that it did not go far enough in making health care available to everyone.
How about that “failed” economic stimulus? The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and other independent analyses have established that the stimulus generated somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 million jobs. In fact, a primary reason unemployment remains so high is that the stimulus did not go far enough. How about “liberal” spending? The same sort of independent analysis recently concluded that the Republicans’ Medicare prescription-drug scam, literally a midnight mugging of the taxpayer passed during the darkest depths of the Bush years, will cost more than the health-care law, the Wall Street bailout and the stimulus combined.
But it’s too easy to blame the media for such mass misunderstanding. Despite the electorate’s apparent resistance to the Republican agenda, the Grumpy Old Party has consistently polled 10 points ahead of the Democrats in generic ballot questions. In Arizona, our governor’s lack of competence and integrity have made her the national laughingstock of this election season, yet she has continued to poll comfortably ahead of her sensible, experienced, eminently qualified opponent, having sewn up the idiot vote and the hate vote early on and coasted ever since.
What gives? Are we insane? Masochistic? A bit nihilistic, perhaps? Syndicated columnist Eugene Robinson chalked it up to a collective temper tantrum, prompted by impatience over the pace of reform and economic recovery. I wish that’s all it was, but I fear the problem goes much deeper than that—it is the refusal of our citizens to civically engage on a level that allows them to see the daisies through the horseshit. Instead, they see immigration avenger Jan Brewer posed as Rosie the Riveter on a billboard and think, “Yeah, that’s my girl!” Never mind that the Wicked Witch of the Southwest and her troop of flying monkeys are in contravention of virtually everything for which the Rosie icon ever stood. Such historical perversion is easy when you’re dealing with voters who are largely clueless as to the provenance and portent of current events, let alone historical lessons.
The whole overblown Tea Party phenomenon is neither new nor inherently important. These are the same people who have been posting dim-witted, fear-mongering, patently false and, yes, often racially motivated claptrap on comment threads for many years now. The only things that have changed are 1) they’re shouting louder than ever because there’s a black socialist Muslim terrorist in the White House; and 2) the media have suddenly decided to report their ravings as somehow relevant. I’ll wager that the Tea Party’s brief blip of “success” in this year’s primaries will ultimately cost the Republican Party more than it will benefit.
The only relevance of this movement lies in the possibility that it signifies that our noble experiment in representative democracy is no longer creeping toward ignorant and hysterical fascism; it has broken into a trot.
This article appears in Oct 28 – Nov 3, 2010.
Well said Randy,
The relevance of the “brown shirts” however, is that they are precisely fulfilling their role as a distraction, facilitated by our corrupted 4th estate. All the while, the “too big to fail” criminal organizations complete their consolidation of power and plunder what little remains of our once great nation’s wealth.
What is even more sad than what has been lost since 1980, is what could have been gained had we remained true to our founding heritage and stayed on course. By now, we truly would be that shining beacon on the hill for all to emulate. I was foolish enough to believe that to be an ordained destiny.
Instead, now we allow corporations to steal trillions, and no indictments are forthcoming. In fact “foreclosuregate”, the denouement of this 3 act tragedy is currently being played out unimpeded. And of course the biggest blow, I don’t know how your conscience is fairing (mine, not so well), is that we are all complicit in having tortured human beings. Something for which, I could never, ever, have imagined being culpable.
And the bad news is that it is about to get really ugly. Things are going to get much worse before we can start heading them once again in a moral direction.
Robert Alexander Dumas
How many subscribers do you have to this rag?
This is unbelievable! LOL GVJaneAz – I would also like to hear who subscribes to this rag? I just stumbled upon it…what a joke.
Hey folks – Tell us which planet do you live on??? Surely not this one…I’ll check in on this site after next Tuesday’s election when “we the people” kick your collective butts. Maybe you should move to California…I think you will like it there.
What do you base your figures on?
How is it in 2006 when Dems gained control of both houses of congress unemployment was in the 4% range, when Bush left office it was in the 7% range, now after 21 months of Obama it’s almost 10%, and you say the stimulus gained us 2 million jobs?!? This election is no more disturbing than 08, it’s just this time your side is going to lose. One party in total power is a dictatorship of sorts, here in the USA we don’t go for that for long. I would take your point on the tea party under consideration if it wasn’t for the fact your argument is based on ignorance, and fear, mixed with elitism. You have to be a progressive, only those snobs have such high and mighty attitude while looking down on all the uneducated rednecks. If 800 billion dollars wasn’t enough then what is? You are the perfect example of the American Liberal in all it’s glory, bigger government, less freedom, and giving other peoples money away till it hurts them. Dont cut spending, just TAX TAX TAX!
Thank GOD we only have 2 more years of listening to Obama and the liberals blaming Bush for everything they are doing wrong!
So many angry people in this world… do they actually think their anger validates what they say? It’s simply gibberish full of “sound and fury” – unfortunately Serraglio left out the rest of the Biblical quote: “told by an idiot, signifying nothing.”
Da Coach,
I don’t think the quote is biblical. It is the peroration of Macbeth’s mini-soliloquy about the transient nature of life upon learning of the queen’s death.
Dear Da Coach:
Watch the “View” Barbara Walters show, and then tell me who’s angry.
If Joy Bayhar and Woopie get any more vile and hateful they’ll get arrested.
Liberals are out right hateful this election, even your leader has told the right to “sit in the back”! Shades of the Alabama! You simply bush aside any opinion or thought that challenges yours as coming from an idiot, meaning nothing. I’m not the least bit angry; I just don’t buy into the progressive lies being thrown around by Obama and his pal’s on the left.
Europe and the so-called “social democracies” are broke, why are the French demonstrating over raising the retirement age 2 years to 62?
If you want to give all your money to the government then by all means do so, just don’t try to tell me to do the same.
The only tired narrative is this one. Every election is the same because all politicians are hacks so hacking is what you get. My father and his father said the same things your saying. Blah, blah, blah.
I think that quote is from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Da Coach. No matter.
One party in power in both houses and the presidency is not a dictatorship, Viper. It would only occur if we voted them in. Oh, hell, I can think of so many more actual facts to dispute what you are saying, but why bother. Who listens to facts in America anymore?