Like most political news junkies north of the 49th I’ve been following the American presidential race with eager fascination, a despondent and slightly abject fascination. Being confined as I am as a Canadian, to be a spectator in what will be, regardless of out come, the most profound decision in democratic politics of my (sliver of) adulthood, is frustrating. However, it does leave me in a reasonably good position to analyze the race with, perhaps, a greater degree of equanimity.
My first observation is that the power of rhetoric, particularly extended exposition, in this race is unparalled in my (admittedly limited) recollection of any political race. It gives me great hope that the power of the sound bite is being quashed by proper speeches and exposition and I can’t help but attribute that to technology - YouTube in particular, which allows people to consume lengthy discourse at their convenience. Speeches like Obama’s Race Speech would’ve been seen only by those few who tuned in, the rest would be forced to draw conclusions from the largely vacuous punditry that followed.
While I’m sure there are more original, and more accurate epithets for the kind of simplistic and ignorance promoting politics that we’ve seen in the last few cycles I dub it check list politics. It is, it seems, not merely a campaign style - it is a methodology of framing issues as an aggregation of soundbites and terminology. It is not merely using reductivist language like “cut and run” but it is the reciprocal process of reductivist thinking that the rhetoric triggers. That issues, and politicians’ stances on them should, or indeed must be condensed to binary support or opposition. It is the same thinking and methodology that triggers the kind of purile and reprehensible banter seen on shows like “Crossfire.” It’s no coincidence that the grand master at this methodology, James Carville, was co-host of the show for three years.
It is worth mentioning, for those that aren’t political nerds, that James Carville is the architect of the first Clinton administration’s campaign; I point this out to indicate that the conception of American’s as reactionist, ignorant and simplistic crosses party lines, predates Bush and is extraordinarily effective. James “God” Carville is regarded very highly amongst campaign operatives.
Checklist politics, that is the strategy of message, discourse, rhetoric even selections of leaders serve the mandate given by a statistical outlay of electorate preference. It is the “tokenization”, as in “token black man,” of everything. It is the view of political stance and agenda not as a systemic framework to tackle perceived existing problems and absorb and react to unforseen issues and unintended consequences, but as a grocery list of “To Do’s.” As if going to the white house was a shopping trip.
This distorted view of public responsibility, of democracy as teaching and convincing not as informing and leading, is as pervasive as it is disgusting. It is, unfortunately, very effective. Which is why the Obama candidacy, and his game-changing presence, gives me a Canadian with indirect and extraordinarily complicated ties to America’s fate hope. The potential this holds for Canada cannot be ignored. I hope, and believe Canadians are watching the United States and are beginning to question where that kind of discourse can be found in our country. Where can we find our audacity to hope?
I have heard it said by many that Canadians aren’t as illcontent as Americans, that Harper and Martin aren’t like Bush II. My response to that is similar to Obama’s response to animosity over Bush, hating Bush and voting premised on that hate misses the point. Just as hating Harper misses the point and the problem. The problem exists and can be seen in a system where someone who seeks to unravel the popular work of several Prime Ministers before him, men greater and smarter than he is can be elected and stay in office. Where the opposition, in a place of rightness, in a place of legitimacy when it is the best interests of the country to intervene is cowed.
Where cynicism, distrust and disgust cloud the views of the electorate who feel, nearly universally, disengaged and excluded. Who feel that it is too expensive, too difficult and too ineffective to make political change.
I want to vote for someone in whom I can believe. I cannot abide a system where I have to select a candidate based on how relatively nausiated I feel about them. I cannot abide a system where political strategy suprecedes principle. Where a leader is afraid to expose their ineptitude and so backs away from their principles.
The disgust with electoral politics is the same, and even if it isn’t the causes and problems with it are the same. Our working are poor, our educated immigrants aren’t using the education that got them here in the first place, our international moral leadership (a very fragile thing to begin with) is decaying, our indigenous people are marginalized and our corporations get a free ride on the labour of Canadians.
As someone who loves my country, who threw away his life as he knew it to pursue a future dedicated to its betterment by serving the people around me; I know there is something better here, I know we’ve got better minds and better voices; I’ve heard them, I’ve debated with them and I’ve been taught by them. Altruism needs to come back, hope, responsibility and a sense of gratitude to the voting population needs to come back. Now.