John McCain is a good man. His record of national service stands as one of the signal profiles of courage our generation has seen. He has boldly defied his political party’s leadership, speaking out against policies he believed to be unethical and immoral. He has built bridges of understanding across party lines, dismantling caricatures and stereotypes often foisted onto both parties. Early on in the campaign, he promised to take the high road, to do politics in a new way.
Barack Obama is a good man. He has pursued a path of national service that has eschewed great opportunities for financial gain, choosing instead to serve the needy in his community. He has courageously defied his political party’s leadership in order to promote policies seeking the greatest common good. He has built bridges of understanding across party lines, dismantling caricatures and stereotypes often foisted onto both parties. Early on in the campaign, he promised to take the high road, to do politics in a new way.
Either one of these good men could be a great president. Yet their journeys to the White House are taking not-so-scenic routes through the muck of political chicanery and hatefulness. TV commercial after TV commercial quotes these two men saying, “I approved this message” — a message that spews a polarizing, stereotyping, demonizing, distorting, disingenuous, and sleazy attack on the other candidate.
They have been taking the low road. Even Karl Rove, one of the chief architects of recent years’ slash-and-burn, gotcha politics has criticized both campaigns for “going one step too far.”
I don’t understand their actions.
Then again, I do.
Once both of these underdog party outsiders secured the nomination, their respective parties, determined to win the White House, switched on their marketing machinery to promote them. That machinery has honed its methods over the years, the most effective being to send chills of fear through the bones of the public about the dangers of electing the opposing candidate.
It’s a terribly sad commentary on our human nature, but most every one of us enjoys the insulting and mocking of “the other” no matter how we categorize that person or group, as was well showcased at both parties’ conventions.
Indeed, the political machinery has heaped scorn upon the opposing nominee — and more. It has set up all kinds of class battles among us: the working class against the wealthy, the family values faithful against the Hollywood hedonists, God and country against the cultural elites, rural America vs. urban, real people vs. inside-the-beltway politicos, the environment vs. the corporations, labor vs. management, citizens vs. immigrants, hockey moms vs. academic feminists, and on and on.
Of course one candidate is more guilty than the other. Surely you’ve noticed that your candidate is more honorable and decent that the other one. Right? Which of us is sufficiently free of personal bias to exercise objective judgment?
All of us can look at this quadrennial national exercise and see how it mirrors us. It stands in judgment of our own behavior by magnifying some of our own worst tendencies — the clarity we gain when we can caricature an alternative idea according to its worst manifestation, the pleasure we draw out of others’ embarrassments, the safety we feel when people unlike us get silenced and shuffled away, the exoneration we enjoy when we find someone else to blame.
If I were smarter I’d offer an answer to help the candidates return to their better selves, without having to wait for the day after election day to do politics in a new way. What I would urge upon the rest of us is to be a bit more circumspect and a bit less cynical, a bit more negotiable and a bit less reactionary, even a bit more self-controlled and a bit less Romans 7.
— JHH
