This morning’s top story on CNN was whether Bill Clinton had role in asking Rep. Kendrick Meek to step down from the Florida Senate race. Meek is already behind in the polls with both the Republican and Independent candidates leading the way. However, when other Democratic supporters of Meek were interviewed about his chances, the general statement was, “Don’t give up. You never know what will come out about the other candidates over the weekend.” And, in campaign season, opposing sides are never hard-pressed to uncover potentially hazardous facts about their opponents. It makes you wonder just what Florida Democrats have up there sleeves.
The stereotypical argument against campaigning is that the attack advertisements and false promises render Americans frustrated and unable to make informed decisions about candidates. So, we respond by not voting.
But, what could be the potential influences of political campaigning on Americans’ understanding of politics in general?
A 2005 article in Science Communication discusses our tendency to use unrepresentative exemplars and heuristic processing when making decisions about issues in which information is a scarcity or the risks of such decisions are relatively high. When someone says “Republican” or “Democrat,” the chances that a particular values-based image comes to mind are quite high. And depending on your values system, the same is probably true for things like science, religion, liberal, conservative, government, and even politics. Both the polarizing forces associated with these enterprises and our general inability to make decisions based less on facts than on opinions logically result in more polarized opinions among the public.
The country was already polarized before the mid-term campaign season began. If you payed any attention to the news, one of the key words associated with politics for the past year was “bipartisan,” or the hope that Democrats and Republicans could work together. If any bipartisian initiatives actually succeeded, they’re currently well under the radar as Republican candidates for office are readopting the “change” metaphor used by then-presidential candidate Obama two years ago – only now we must change Congress.
With this in mind, go out and ask your friend what they think American politics means. The simple fact that politician can effectively take months off their jobs as civil servants to go campaigning in hopes of a future job is comparable to the rest of us taking the same amount of time off to simply hang around our industry without actually contributing anything to it. And getting paid just the same.
It’s no surprise that voting rates in America are so low. While the rest of us work, politician spend their time traveling, making television appearances, and doing whatever else they can to increase their likability while decreasing their opponent’s. And, they can do so because they have money gained from institutions that have professionalized the concept of political polarization – something that is successful only because we think in generalizations.
Just because you believe party X is inherently evil, this does not mean party Y is the savior. The challenge for us is to think rationally and systematically about our world. And in case you forgot, thinking does take work.
Other words/phrases without meaning (that appear on CNN for the next few minutes):
– GOP Machine
– Agenda
– Blacklisted (used by actress Janine Turner, completely out of context)
– Special interests
– American sentiment
– Political stunt
Billy W Collins 