Wrangling

All right, it's very late and I've had a very tiring day and I still have a debate about some important election or something to listen to, so for all these reasons and others I will try very hard to keep this brief, and even to write more directly without trying to make it a polished essay. We'll see how well that works. Anyway, speaking of the election I am both disturbed and deeply disappointed by the negativity of the latest political campaigns, and political campaigns in general as this is hardly a phenomenon unique to the latest batch. Here are a few thoughts on the matter.

As far I'm concerned the main offenders are of two types. There are the political ads that are 100% negative content, and there are the subtler but no less offensive machinations of the speeches. I will explain. First the ads.

What's with the ads? I hate to think that valuable money is being poured into these when it could be better used on almost anything. I hate to think that anyone considers this an effective campaign strategy. I hate to think that one might be right. That the political race is a competition, and that it makes sense to point out the reasons for which the other candidate decided to run in the first place, I will grant. I do not grant any justification for what we're actually seeing. When an ad comes on the air and, accompanied by absolutely chilling music no less, attacks the very character of a candidate, suggesting that, to pick a random example, he or she is downright sinister and may well be working to undermine the country, this is offensive to the candidate, to the position for which he or she is running, and to me as a voter. If it were true, certainly that would be important information for me to know, but that sort of claim will never be grounded in anything factual if it's presented in such a format as that of a political ad. It's a metaphorical kick to the groin, the down and dirty cheap tactic of the campaign war when all that's left is mud-slinging, and it shouldn't happen. How much worse when I consider that the ad is nothing but this bit of slander. If you're going to claim your opponent is Satan, at least also explain why you are...well, 'God' is probably a bad way to go, but offer the contrast. What is truly important, what I want and in fact deserve to know, is why to vote for a certain candidate, not why I shouldn't vote for the other. I care about contruction, not destruction. Is this so hard to understand? Politics is traditionally a dirty game, and the sad truth is that those underhanded strategies, while reprehensible, can be effectual because in the end we are easy victims of suggestion and repetition. But it doesn't have to be this way.

There is such a thing as an honest negative ad, which must necessarily be less nasty. Advertisements that rely on statistics, such as approval ratings and effectiveness rankings (however that's measured) have some foundation. Still, I would rather not be presented with this information exclusively. Tell me only what's bad about your opponent and I am left to assume that you are merely the lesser of two evils, and hence no one to get excited about.

The other phenomenon, which really gets my goat and my neighbor's goat and should enrage everybody and his grandma, is one that has its own share in political ads but tends to frequent political speeches and, dare I say it, debates, most often. Does this sound familiar: "My opponent voted against [fill in your worthy cause of choice]." Heavens! What will we do; it seems that candidate must eat babies and, er, well I can't think of anything on the same level as baby-eating but suffice to say it's a bad, bad scene. You want some news? I got your news right here: with, perhaps, the occasional exception, politicians are not evil. Sometimes small-minded? Probably. Greedy? No doubt there are examples. Selfish? Who isn't. But evil? I don't think so. I feel confident in asserting that no one of influence in Congress, and certainly no serious contender for any important political leadership position, actually wishes, say, to take away funding for the education of our children or to deny our troops the equipment they need to survive or to cause all health care as we know it to self-destruct and take everything with it. I don't think any of these characters, whatever their respective levels of personal virtue, actually votes against things that are unequivocally 'good.' So what's happening? It's the great American (and indeed human) tradition of taking things out of context! Yes, let's hear it for manipulating the facts for the sake of demagogy. The most obnoxious part is that everyone knows the trick that's being pulled - the press knows it, the people certainly ought to know it, the candidates definitely know it, and yet they do it anyway and it's effective! Frankly I find it an insult to my intelligence and capability for making decisions. I mean, what's their motivation? If, for example, a candidate decides to claim that her opponent voted against an educational reform bill - the truth is that no bill is about just one thing and that that educational bill was bundled with a lot of other policies, against which the aforementioned candidate was really voting. But the first candidate doesn't tell us this in her speech - she distorts the truth by making it appear that the opposition is against making education better. Which is a ridiculous claim that no one should take seriously because who is ACTUALLY going to be against improving education? Oh no! this candidate must have voted against the reform so he could take the money to line his own pockets and buy a new yacht. No, it's just a lie, and one that the opposition calls her on and that the press debunks and yet politicians on both sides continue to use this tactic. What's going through their minds? Do they think we're not smart enough to vote if we're presented with the truth and so we need to be manipulated? Because we are being manipulated by these maneuvers. Or do they think they can't win if they actually tell the truth about their opposition's policies and their own? Or are they so desperate to win that they take whatever shot they can, however low? I don't like any of these options, and I don't like being treated with condescension, manipulation and disrespect. Shape up!

I guess it's hopelessly naive to imagine a campaign where the candidates treat everyone with the utmost respect, where they explain their own platform and why they believe it to be preferable to that of the their opponents using information such as expert analysis and differing views, where they don't say things like "I respect and have always been a close friend of [opposing figure x]" followed immediately by a slam, where there really is straight talk and the candidates answer even the toughest questions directly without vague hyperbole and rehearsed prattle, where the debates are not extended sessions of one candidate making derogatory claims about the other while that other denies them but is ignored. But why should it be naive? What does that say about us? Nothing good. When did politics go from a legitimate science and example of our humanity to a circus with performing tigers and magicians, and how do we get it back to where it once belonged? I am cheered to hear that I am not the only one being soured on the political scene by the predominance of negativity - in fact there seems to be a general discontent. This gives me hope not only that those underhanded strategies are not working as well as their authors hope, but also that there could be reform. How that reform would come about is not as clear to me. I mean, what are we going to do in protest? Not vote? Put a bill into law saying "Don't be a jerk anymore?" There must be a way, and I trust more brilliant minds than mine will find it. It certainly deserves finding. It's true that we get a lot of cultural mileage out of pointing out and mocking the deficiencies of others. But there are limits.

Oh well, so much for that foolishly-optimistic brevity.