Sunday, September 05, 2004
We're Cool, Really, We Swear
Try as they might, Republicans just are not capable of hipness. Take for example the conservative bloggers working the Republican Convention. They looked down their noses at Democratic Convention bloggers and accused them of being starstruck and of reporting on parties they attended and celebrities they spotted rather than on substantive issues. Republican bloggers promised they wouldn't fall into the same trap at their convention, but they did--only it was worse for them, because the parties they attended were populated by B-listers, has-beens, and wannabes. The end result of their reportage was like nothing so much as the class nerd trying to convince people he got to second base with one of the cheerleaders.
One of the big stories of convention week was the political coming-out of Jenna and Barbara Bush, which served mostly to illustrate the political divide yet again by simple comparisons with the Kerry Daughters. The "W Stands for Women" event was part of an attempt by the GOP to woo female voters, although as James Ridgeway reported in a Village Voice piece leading up to the convention, women have little reason to vote Republican, because GOP policies have disastrous effects on women's lives. But the administration has a solution to the problems women face--stop reporting statistical data that illuminates them. Ridgeway mentioned the practice in his article, and the Daily Misleader had more detail late last week. It doesn't get much notice in the wider sea of political news, but as an abdication of the government's responsibility to look out for the welfare of the citizens, it's enormously important, incredibly dangerous--and about as useful a political tool for the Republicans as could be imagined. It reduces every debate about policy and responsibility for policy to he-said-she-said pissing matches, because there's no reliable data to back anyone's assertions. That in turn makes candidate personality more important than it already is. When choosing which unfounded assertion to back, the decision ultimately comes down to who seems more likely to be truthful. And appearance triumphs yet again.
The Republicans, of course, have ridden the absence of reliable data and he-said, she-said pissing matches to electoral glory before, they did it last week, and they'll keep doing it until the end of time. Rick Perlstein of the Voice came up with a word to describe "the kind of utterance that produces this uncanny frustration, this furious oscillating over whether to call something you swear you just heard a lie, a product of ignorance, or a side-effect of lamentable political self-hypnosis." He calls them "not-so's," and his post-convention wrapup is stuffed with examples.
Quotes of the Day: The Ridgeway piece, even though it's a week old, has some great lines in it. For example, "Bush can focus on women because he probably thinks he has a lock on the other gender. Young white men in the South are said to love him because of the president’s swaggering 'Fuck You' style." Up North, too. Politicians of all camps were handing out stickers yesterday at various events here in Madison, and I noticed that lots of thirtysomething men were wearing Bush/Cheney at the football game we attended yesterday. Listening to them talk and watching their body language, you can gather that these are people who admire Bush for his perceived toughness, and they couldn't let themselves be Democrats because that would betray an unmanly concern for things like the environment and the downtrodden. Bill Clinton is right--Americans will always prefer strong and wrong to weak and right. Therein lies Bush's appeal to male voters, and it's something John Kerry couldn't beat in a hundred years of trying.
A better quote from Ridgeway, however, is this one: "Bush's entire social policy is organized around sex roles, so that you qualify for things like welfare, tax breaks, unemployment insurance, and health care based on where you do it, how you do it, when you do it, and, of course, with whom you do it. To the Christian fundamentalists, fucking makes the world go 'round." Well, it does for everybody else, too--but most of us can think about something else now and then.
Try as they might, Republicans just are not capable of hipness. Take for example the conservative bloggers working the Republican Convention. They looked down their noses at Democratic Convention bloggers and accused them of being starstruck and of reporting on parties they attended and celebrities they spotted rather than on substantive issues. Republican bloggers promised they wouldn't fall into the same trap at their convention, but they did--only it was worse for them, because the parties they attended were populated by B-listers, has-beens, and wannabes. The end result of their reportage was like nothing so much as the class nerd trying to convince people he got to second base with one of the cheerleaders.
One of the big stories of convention week was the political coming-out of Jenna and Barbara Bush, which served mostly to illustrate the political divide yet again by simple comparisons with the Kerry Daughters. The "W Stands for Women" event was part of an attempt by the GOP to woo female voters, although as James Ridgeway reported in a Village Voice piece leading up to the convention, women have little reason to vote Republican, because GOP policies have disastrous effects on women's lives. But the administration has a solution to the problems women face--stop reporting statistical data that illuminates them. Ridgeway mentioned the practice in his article, and the Daily Misleader had more detail late last week. It doesn't get much notice in the wider sea of political news, but as an abdication of the government's responsibility to look out for the welfare of the citizens, it's enormously important, incredibly dangerous--and about as useful a political tool for the Republicans as could be imagined. It reduces every debate about policy and responsibility for policy to he-said-she-said pissing matches, because there's no reliable data to back anyone's assertions. That in turn makes candidate personality more important than it already is. When choosing which unfounded assertion to back, the decision ultimately comes down to who seems more likely to be truthful. And appearance triumphs yet again.
The Republicans, of course, have ridden the absence of reliable data and he-said, she-said pissing matches to electoral glory before, they did it last week, and they'll keep doing it until the end of time. Rick Perlstein of the Voice came up with a word to describe "the kind of utterance that produces this uncanny frustration, this furious oscillating over whether to call something you swear you just heard a lie, a product of ignorance, or a side-effect of lamentable political self-hypnosis." He calls them "not-so's," and his post-convention wrapup is stuffed with examples.
Quotes of the Day: The Ridgeway piece, even though it's a week old, has some great lines in it. For example, "Bush can focus on women because he probably thinks he has a lock on the other gender. Young white men in the South are said to love him because of the president’s swaggering 'Fuck You' style." Up North, too. Politicians of all camps were handing out stickers yesterday at various events here in Madison, and I noticed that lots of thirtysomething men were wearing Bush/Cheney at the football game we attended yesterday. Listening to them talk and watching their body language, you can gather that these are people who admire Bush for his perceived toughness, and they couldn't let themselves be Democrats because that would betray an unmanly concern for things like the environment and the downtrodden. Bill Clinton is right--Americans will always prefer strong and wrong to weak and right. Therein lies Bush's appeal to male voters, and it's something John Kerry couldn't beat in a hundred years of trying.
A better quote from Ridgeway, however, is this one: "Bush's entire social policy is organized around sex roles, so that you qualify for things like welfare, tax breaks, unemployment insurance, and health care based on where you do it, how you do it, when you do it, and, of course, with whom you do it. To the Christian fundamentalists, fucking makes the world go 'round." Well, it does for everybody else, too--but most of us can think about something else now and then.
