In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn, Huck and Jim hook up with a traveling group of actors who are, to be kind, less than honest. To me, the most memorable stunt they pulled is in a little Arkansas town where they advertised a show:
AT THE COURTHOUSE!
for 3 nights only
The World-Renowned Tragedaians
DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER!
and
ENDMUND KEAN THE ELDER!
Of the London and Continental Theatres
In their Thrilling Tragedy of
THE KING’S CAMELOPARD
or
THE ROYAL NONESUCH!!!
Admission 50 cents
LADIES AND CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED
The performance, as it turns out, is in two parts. First, one of the “actors” gets up and makes a little speech praising the tragedy. Then the curtain goes up and another actor, wildly painted but otherwise naked, cavorts around on the stage for a while. The crowd, which makes up about half of the men in the town, is quite amused by the performance until the curtain comes down and they realize that they’ve been had.
Rather than admit that they’ve been had, the audience agrees to talk up the show and convince the other half of the people in the town to see the show the next night. On the third night, now that everybody in town has been had, a large number of people show up with rotten eggs and other nasty things to throw at the actors. The actors, knowing full well how these things go, light out from town without putting on the show the third night, taking with them over four hundred dollars they got for the three showings.
In the 30 years since I read that book (thank you again, Mr. C.), I have come to realize that the behavior of the first night’s crowd in this story describes very well the behavior of people in many situations. Rather than admit that they’ve been had or don’t understand something that others say is insightful, funny, profound, or whatever, people will try to convince others of the thing’s value. Even if they know that the thing is worthless. To most people, it seems, it’s much better to agree with the crowd than to point out that the Emperor has no clothes.
This behavior explains a lot of things, like the idea that books like Moby Dick and The Catcher in the Rye, or movies like The Thin Red Line, In The Bedroom, Titanic, or The Last Emperor have any redeeming value. It also explains most of what passes for political thought in this country. Rather than actively think about important issues and how to best solve them, all too many people glom onto whichever politician stirs their emotions, and then try to convince others that the object of their adoration has all the answers–usually by doing a poor job of parroting sound bites and without understanding the issues or the motives behind the politician’s point of view.
In Huck’s story, the foolish people in that little Arkansas town figured it out. Nobody actually believed that the “tragedy” was good or worth the 50 cents they paid to watch it, and on the third night they were going to run the rats out of town–most likely in a very unpleasant way. The American people, on the other hand, have not figured it out. Oh, sure, we’ll run the rats out of Congress periodically, but we do so by electing another set of rats who are as bad as if not worse than the ones we’re getting rid of. We don’t know what we want. All we “know” is that we don’t want what’s currently there. What we get is no better than what we had–just different on the surface.
Don’t believe me? In 1976, there was no possible way that a Republican could have been elected President. With the Watergate scandal, Nixon resigning, Agnew forced to resign in disgrace, the economy in a long period of stagflation, and our withdrawl from (one might say defeat in) Vietnam, there was no way that the American people were going to elect a Republican. And four years later, with fuel shortages, interest rates at record highs, the economy no better in the eyes of most people, and the embarrassment of the Iran hostage crises, there was no way Carter could be re-elected, or any Democrat elected President. The same thing happened to George H.W. Bush in 1992 (although he really was an ineffective President), and to Al Gore in 2000 because he had to contend with the beginnings of the dot com bubble bursting. 2008 was in many respects a repeat of 1976: there was no possible way any Republican could have been elected.
In most cases, the President was little more than the fall guy. One could make the argument that G. W. Bush instituted policies that made Republicans anathema to many Americans, and America anathema to much of the world, but those policies were in large part ratified by a bipartisan Congress. Carter inherited his economic troubles, and history shows that his decision to take the bitter pill of high interest rates was the proper solution to the problem.
The same sort of thing happens with Congressional elections, most notably the 1994 election when Republicans gained majorities in both houses, and in 2006 when Democrats did the same thing.
The tribalists who make up the majority of the voting public probably don’t cross party lines very often. The number of people who will vote “Democrat” or “Republican” regardless of the person behind the label is astonishing. Some sources say that elections are decided by as few as 10 percent of the voters–those who have no strong party affiliation. Whether those people vote based on their beliefs in the candidate’s fitness for the job or for an entirely different reason like a desire to throw the bums out is an open question.
The point is that the voting public, as a group, is fickle. When election time comes, we too often blindly throw out the old in favor of the new, either not realizing or not caring that the “new” is really just the same old thing in a brand new box.
Mid-term elections are this November, and the media are making some noises about Republican gains. Or, more to the point, Democratic losses. It’s unlikely that Democrats will lose their majorities, although I suspect that their days of nearly total control are numbered. That’s all to the good, by the way: we should never allow a single party to control the Executive and both houses of the Legislative branch of government. Not that it’s mattered much in recent years. Between 2006 and 2008, President Bush and the Democrat-controlled Congress were like mutual rubber stamps. Whatever one wanted, the other granted.
My biggest fear is that Republicans, if they make significant gains in the upcoming election, will take the wrong lesson from the experience. They will call it a “mandate for change.” (How often have you heard that before?) How quickly they forget. In 2006 and 2008, voters overwhelmingly threw out Republicans. And now we’re poised to unseat many of those we placed in those positions so recently. We aren’t voting for anybody, but rather against the current situation. The electorate is behaving like a blind man trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle in which all the pieces are shaped the same. No matter how you put it together it “fits.” But the picture is wrong–it doesn’t work. And two years from now we’ll scramble up the pieces and blindly try again.
I’m not entirely convinced that people want meaningful change. I think the voting public, as a whole, is still too comfortable with the way things are and is unwilling to put forth candidates who are fundamentally different from the slick, polished, cookie-cutter phonies we’re presented with every election season. When I see wide support for candidates who are a little rough around the edges, who supply real answers to tough questions, and who are serious about addressing real issues rather than the silly superficial crap that Congress is always focused on…then I’ll begin to have faith in our political system.
Until then, I’ll do what I can to select the best from the poor crop of candidates I’m presented with.