Let’s face it – American politics is not rocket science. There’s damned little that goes on in a campaign that actually translates into policy once an actor (marketed like a box of cereal; the star of 15 and 30 second TV spots) is elected. There appears to be two dynamics at work here:
1. The Republicans are captive of the far right, and McCain has to play to that base to get elected. He is getting more extreme by the day. If he abandons the far right, he’ll lose the fundamentalist Christians, the hard-nosed neocons, FOX News, and the Limbaugh/Hannity crowd. He may have nothing to replace them with. He may be destined to lose save some earth-shattering event, like an attack on Iran, not out of the question with Bush.
2. The Democrats are captives of the Democratic Leadership Council, and are following a tried and failed formula – they appeal to the liberals and progressives in the primaries, and then abandon them in the general, and once elected. Liberals will follow, progressives will bitch. We’re an easy lot to con. In case the metaphor of Lucy and the football hasn’t been used before, I am using it now. I suspect that Bob Schrum is in the Obama mix now somehow.
There’s more at work with the DLC than just (and only apparent) stupid politics. The DLC, financed as it is by powerful think tanks and corporations, is interested in thwarting progressives and holding liberals in its pocket. It is not so much interested in winning elections as keeping American politics sterile – no health care reform, no campaign finance reform, no end to Iraq, tacit acceptance of the Bush agenda, strategic retreat – these are policies that the DLC is set to advance, and if it means that certain elements of the Democratic Party have to be stopped in their tracks, if it means losing elections, it doesn’t matter. Policy is more important than party. These are not stupid people.
One of the most widely read posts I’ve ever put up here was titled “Obama, Lieberman and the DLC“, in January of 2007. I wondered about Obama back then before falling under his spell. Two things stood out – one, the DLC spotted Obama and wanted him aboard, and two, Obama chose Joe Lieberman as his mentor when he entered the Senate.
That’s circumstantial, and it’s going to take a body of evidence to prevail in a debate now about how the heart of the Democratic Party has once again been stolen by its right wing, the DLC. It will be a matter of preponderance of evidence, and it is beginning now to mount. Since Obama clinched, he has backed down on his stance on NAFTA, and abandoned the fourth amendment to the constitution. Those, denial aside, are two issues of huge importance, and he has screwed us. More to follow, I’m sure.
If indeed, Obama is part of the right wing of the party, then let’s all have a good and hearty laugh. So was Hillary Clinton. We were screwed all along!
Liberals are the most squeamish political faction I have ever seen, forever captive of the myth of lesser of evils. They’re afraid to rise up, to demand things from those who supposedly lead them. They castigate and chide one another for failure to follow. Even lefty Thom Hartmann on his radio program says that we have to hope that if we elect a right wing Democrat, he might turn out to be a progressive after all. So far, it hasn’t worked.
Karl Rove understands that if a politician plays to our noble and higher instincts, he will take a thrashing at the polls. American politics is about very smart marketing people packaging products and selling them to a very dumbed down audience. The best we can hope for in such a situation is that a politician is playing the game for show, but playing for real behind the scenes. This is why I wrote what I did before, deluded as I was, that we have to place our hope in Obama. I have a hard time admitting that I’m as susceptible as everyone else to a packaged and marketed politician.
Now is the time to pressure Obama into advancing liberal causes. To do that, we have to bargain. The only way to bargain is to threaten to withhold votes. It’s the only thing he understands. Somehow, liberals have to be able to inflict pain as a consequence of failure to lead. But they won’t. Max Baucus has never been swayed by liberals because he knows they cannot hurt him, and wouldn’t if they could. So too have liberals telegraphed Obama that it’s OK to ignore him. Just win. And then they’ll do what liberals are so good at doing – looking the other way while he carries on with the business of the DLC.
Note in passing: It’s just a blog. I try to remember that. I just linked to myself three times in this post. I’m the smartest guy I know, I guess. By my calculation, there are perhaps 25-100 of us who regularly pass through this and other places, more elsewhere than here. Most do it while they are at work, God bless ’em, so traffic on Friday afternoons and on weekends is light. I like doing it, but always try to stay grounded. It doesn’t matter. Just like those people in the park who fly their toy planes on weekends, it’s a lot of fun, but not one passenger has even been transported anywhere.
Piece of Mindful 
Mark, you say that “if a politician plays to our noble and higher instincts” — by which you mean, “if he adopts a very liberal stance that will make me happy” — he’s toast.
Is it just possible that the sociologists, pundits and pollsters are right and the United States is basically a conservative country on almost every issue? Maybe it’s not a conspiracy of “powerful think tanks and corporations,” but a very open conspiracy among American voters not to vote for candidates they perceive as liberal. Maybe Obama knows that if he adopted even 10 percent of the beliefs you regularly espouse here, he’d win Vermont and no other state.
So, is it a failure of politics, of democracy, of Democrats … or is it a failure on your part to admit what seems obvious to so many other people?
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I think the American people are mostly guided by manipulation. When they are polled on the basic values, they want single-payer health care, out of Iraq, money out of politics, a clean environment. Those are not conservative values.
George Bush openly uses fear as a governing tool, and Democrats meekly play that game, afraid of the campaign commercials they will face when they come home, knowing that voters are susceptible to manipulation. In the end, it is a malleable public that is easily swayed by tawdry gimmicks and base emotions.
It’s not a conservative country. It’s just a dumbed down one where people are manipulated by their emotions by professional marketers. They’ve been studying humans and advertising for 90 years now – TV, our primary governing force, came on the scene in the 1940’s. They’ve had plenty of time to figure us out.
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You mention a few things the American people supposedly want. I’ll add a few things they don’t want: they don’t want gay marriages, they don’t want evolution taught in the schools, they don’t want the government messing with their guns, they don’t want environmental regulations that restrict their fun or raise the price of living, and they don’t want candidates who are skeptical or, God forbid, agnostic on matters of religion. I think the majority of beliefs held by a majority of Americans are basically conservative, or at least left of center.
For more than a hundred years, progressives of one stripe or another have tried to convince them that they are acting against their own self interest and against their own nobler and higher instincts. But maybe it’s just possible that they have come by their beliefs honestly and hold to them sincerely. I know you will never believe this because you have been to Oz and looked behind the curtain.
Is there anyone on the Right, just by way of clearing this up, who strikes you as an honest believer in conservatism, or is every single conservative either A) an easily manipulated dolt or B) a selfish hypocrite with a hidden agenda? I’d seriously be interested in an answer.
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And of course in the last part of the first paragraph I meant “right of center.”
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You’re raising many issues: What is the average intelligence of Americans, how susceptible to manipulation are Americans, and where does the public stand on various issues?
In addition, you’ve raised several American right wing attitudes, but failed to note that Americans actually get their wish from their politicians on right wing attitudes, but do not with left wing positions. Everyone can have a gun, we cannot have health care. Every president pretends to be religious; we cannot have campaign finance reform. What does that tell you? It tells me that our leadership is seated to the right of us.
How smart is the average American? 50% of us have IQ’s between 90 and 109. Not terribly smart nor dumb. Most of us are smart enough to make a living and deal effectively with other people. Everyone I meet on the blogs is smart. We’re mostly smart enough to get by.
How susceptible to manipulation are we? Very much so, and I include all of us in that, right and left, smart and dumb alike. (I cite Jacques Ellul, the French writer, who maintained that highly educated people were the most susceptible to propaganda, for a number of reasons I won’t get into.) We all tend to think we’re smarter than the advertising we see, and certainly are not guided by it. But we are. Advertisers are smart – they don’t invest billions in it and not get results – they study us, our every nuance. Every ad on TV has an apparent message and a subtle one – ad agencies have creative people, but are run by hard-nosed business people and psychologists who study our behavior and attitudes. They know how to manipulate us. They know which hand we hold our dicks with when we pee. They’ve studied us in detail.
In politics, most people don’t pay much attention, and are therefore highly susceptible to the ad men. Candidates are sold on TV – they must come across as friendly, but not too smart, quick witted and sincere. Issues matter least.
Think I’m wrong? Here’s a few facts garnered from voters in 2000 by the Harvard Shorenstein Center: They gave voters twelve candidate stances on issues, 6 each for Gore and Bush. They asked voters to indentify which stance belonged to which candiddate. Typically, 38% knew their candidates positions, 16% got it wrong (meaning many of those 38% were actually guessing), and 46% didn’t know. The majority of the votes could identify only once stance of a candidate on an issue.
This is what candidates know about us that they don’t let on – when we enter a voting booth, we haven’t studied or thought, and most of us are going to vote for some non-educated reason, like personality or traditional party allegiance or prejudice. Candidates know that issues don’t matter, that everything that will get them elected is contained in 15 and 30 second spots, and that the success of their campaign will depend on the quality of their ad agency.
Where do Americans stand on the various issues you raise? I suspect you’re right that Americans support you on those matters – I looked up just one – gay marriage. Seven years ago 65% opposed it, now only 53% do, according to the NY Times. That’s the role of progressives – civil rights, women’s rights, voting rights, shorter workdays, child labor – all unpopular with leaders, most unpopular with the general public, none advanced by the Democratic or Republican parties, but progressive issues. We are so damned out of it.
In answer to your question, I know nothing about “every single conservative”. I disagree with them on many things. Conservatives, like liberals and pwoggies, are easily manipulated. Few voters have hidden agendas, though they don’t talk about racism or such stuff. Most candidates do, more so for important offices than lesser ones, a sliding scale.
I hope I have addressed your questions. The source of my statistics is the book Deliberation Day, by Brucke Ackerman and James Fishkin.
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“I just linked to myself three times in this post. I’m the smartest guy I know, I guess. ”
You’ve absolutely GOT to get out more often! 😉
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