Cosmo-politics

Introduction
Once upon a time, political coverage was restricted to policy and issues. Despite the tumultuous marital lives of John Kennedy and Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, newspapers instead focused on the more pressing national issues rather than the preseident's personal lives.

Obviously, these times have passed. Most of us came of age during Clinton's Monica Lewinsky scandal, and since then the political community has been more and more concerned with politician's personal lives instead of actual policy. In the 2000 presidential campaign, people made up their minds about whether they preferred Bush's perceived stupidity to Gore's supposed arogance and dorkiness. In 2004, the debate was initially focused on the war in Iraq, but soon veered back to Bush's verbal ineptness versus the possibility that John Kerry had exaggerated details of his tour in Vietnam. Even when there is not an election imminent, the political airwaves are filled with polemics and invective directed towards the personal lives of the people involved rather than the issues. Furthermore, the issues that we do concern ourselves with are more and more frequently issues of sexual privacy. Basically, we've gotten pretty frickin' nosey.


There are two points I want to make in this discussion:
1. The danger of voting for character rather than substance,
and,
2. The rise of tabloid politics, its implications, and how to beat it.

And here they are:


1. The cult of personality
When asked in 2000, a majority of Americans responded that they would prefer to have a beer with George W. Bush instead of Al Gore. A big deal was made out of this "likability" factor, and would be again in 2004. This phenomenon was not unusual--Reagan and Clinton were also both seen as very "likable" people. You still see political bumper stickers saying things like "Character will out" and other cliches trumpeting the personality of the politician that they celebrate. Americans seem to frequently vote according to their perception of the candidate's character, on their gut feeling about what a (wo)man s/he is. This is dumb for several reasons.

The first reason why you should not pass judgement on politicians based on their personality: you actually have no idea who these people are. It can be impossible to see through the carefully practiced, focus group-tested personalities they put on. Good politicians are skilled actors who practice delivering lines and sincere expressions in private and receive hours on end of coaching. The senator that you think is a honest, plainspoken man of the people is just as likely to simply be the guy who plays the best honest, plainspoken man of the people. Consider Ed Norton. I like Ed Norton. He is a great actor, and takes on roles in movies I usually enjoy. Have I ever seen Ed Norton interviewed? No. Do I have any idea what he is like as a person? No. Is it irrational that I like him? Yes. By this same token, it is irrational for me to like Barack Obama simply because I read his book, shook his hand, and generally admire his personality and back story. I should make up my mind on him based on his policy instead.

"Going with your gut" is a celebrated method of making a political decision in our culture-and a stupid one. It is a poor substitue for actually doing the work to research and understand the issues. Not only does it smack of apathy and intellectual laziness, but it is dangerous. History has proved over and over again that the door to fascism is always opened by a likable, charismatic leader who inspires confidence and trust. The examples are so overused that they've become cliched (Hitler, Castro, Stalin, etc), but they are ignored nonetheless. Perhaps it speaks to a major human flaw of misplacing trust in "likability."

It is not safe to vote for the person you like more; you have to do the research and pick the person whose ideals you most identify with. Even this is not enough: it's just as important to keep track of them after the fact to make sure that they live up to their promises. If even 1% more of the population were to shoulder their civic responsibility in this way, the world would be a better place.


2. Entertainment Tonight: Washington
Personal politics are everywhere. You've heard all about McCain, Giuliani, Kerry, and Gingrich's ex-wives, Edwards' hair, Obama's middle name and elementary school, et cetra ad infinitum. For example, a Google News search reveals that there were 1,340 articles written in the last month with the words "Mitt Romney" and "Mormon", but only 821 on Romney and the economy, 984 on Romney and immigration, 350 on Romney and welfare. Why is it more important that we know about the man's religion than his views on thsee other issues? 1,732 articles on Bill's influence in Hillary's campaign, compared to just 872 on Hillary and the environment?

By now, if your candidate has any shot in the general election, you have to put some money into smearing the other guy. "Opposition researchers" dig around in their history, then take everything unpaid parking ticket they can find and pay clandestine third parties to post that information all over the airwaves. Suddenly, George Bush's DUI or Al Gore's energy bill are on the lips of every 11 o'clock anchor rather than the infinitely less-exciting and more-important medicair that went before the senate that day.

While it's easy to blame the media for their sensationlist political coverage--and I frequently do--the fact of the matter is it's just as much our fault. Media outlets are businesses which must cater to their audience in order to make money, and I guarantee that if no one was interested in the personal foibles of our politicians these new outlets would not cover them. However, in the world of multi-billion dollar industries based on Brad Pitt's marital life, the media rightly recognizes that they can boost their viewership by covering that sort of stuff. Admit it: while you may condemn the personal politics conducted by the bad guys, you get a little schadenfreude every time one of them is involved in a scandal.

Every time you buy one of the trashy magazine in the check-out aisle of the Stop and Shop, every time linger on a celebrity gossip story as you channel surf, you are voting for more tabloid political coverage. Most of the money generated by television and print periodicals comes from advertising, and so the more attention you pay to a particular media, the more ad revenue they generate, and the more that network/periodical will carry the material you were watching.

It's a nice idea that the media should have the scruples to provide us with the information neccesary to make well-informed political decision, but the fact of the matter is that they are money-making endeavours, and must therefore be expected to make deciscions based upon their financial outcome. If everyone in the country got together and secretly decided to watch a lot of bass fishing, you can bet there'll be a whole lot more coverage of bassing (yup, I verbed it) on the daily news. Similarly, if the American public were to become more educated and pay proportionately more attention to political issues instead of the candidate's personal lives, news outlets would quickly revert to pre-Lewinsky news coverage.




Where I stop whining and start doing something: My pledge
I will not provide coverage or commentary on any personal politics on this blog. I will not click on any online news stories that deal with news about a politician's personal life. I will change the channel rather than watching it, I will not buy a magazine or newspaper with such a story on its cover.

So, there my vote: no more assasination politics.