Eighteen months from now, citizens will vote for president. If the
2004 campaign is anything like the last one, the election returns will
mark the culmination of a depressing media spectacle.
For news watchers, the candidates and the coverage can be hard to
take. Appearances on television are apt to become tedious, nauseating or
worse. Campaign ads often push the limits of slick pandering.
Journalists routinely seem fixated on "horseracing" the contest instead
of reporting about the huge financial interests that candidates have
served.
Media-driven campaigns now dominate every presidential race, badly
skewed in favor of big money. And while millions of progressive-minded
Americans are eager to have an impact on the political process, they
often face what appears to be a choice between severe compromise and
marginalization.
Remarkable transitions occur during presidential campaigns. People
who are usually forthright can become evasive or even downright
dishonest -- in public anyway -- when they declare themselves to be
fervent supporters of a particular contender. Nuances and mixed
assessments tend to go out the window.
Too often, "supporting" a candidate means lying about the
candidate. Flaws rapidly disappear; virtues suddenly appear. Replicated
at the grassroots, some kind of PR alchemy transforms longtime
opportunists into profiles in courage and timeworn corporate flacks into
champions of the common people.
This sort of dissembling was a big problem in 2000, when many
left-leaning supporters of Al Gore ended up straining to portray the
vice president as a steadfast foe of injustice. Under the perceived
rules of the media game, they could not acknowledge Gore's sleazy
aspects or the reality that he had done a lot to help move the nation's
center of political gravity to the right. In countless media debates,
Gore supporters tried to promote their standard-bearer as an implacable
enemy of privilege -- notably unlike the actual candidate.
For a long time, many Democratic Party activists have privately
bemoaned the party's subservience to corporate power while publicly
extolling Democratic leaders as exemplary. The rationale for this
schizoid behavior is that it's necessary for promoting a coherent media
image.
There's at least one big problem: For millions of potential voters,
that tactic just doesn't ring true. When they're invited to go along
with a political line that lauds nominated hacks as visionaries, a lot
of people would rather not vote -- or would much prefer to cast ballots
for a small-party candidate who has no chance of winning but whose
campaigners at least seem interested in being truthful and building an
honest movement.
But what if progressive supporters of the Democratic presidential
nominee tried something different next year? What if they resolved to be
candid for all the world -- including all the news media -- to hear? The
contrast would be striking.
Old mode: "Candidate X is an inspiring leader."
New mode: "Candidate X is rather phony, but compared to President
Bush he's a knight in shining armor."
Old mode: "The record of Candidate X shows that he will return
integrity to the White House."
New mode: "The record of Candidate X shows that he's a craven
servant of corporate America. But I'm going to vote from him because
George W. Bush is even worse."
Old mode: "Candidate X will bring balance to U.S. foreign policy."
New mode: "Candidate X is a deplorable militarist, but Bush is even
more dangerous."
The new mode might sound a bit strange, even bizarre. But that
ought to tell us something -- when candor seems weird and preposterous
claims seem quite normal.
Such an approach could attract many progressives who want to end
the Bush presidency but also want to be truthful in the process. For
those who find the Democratic nominee to be odious but not as odious as
George W. Bush, a new option would emerge -- what might be called
"denunciatory support."
Candor during an election year may seem like a radical departure
with hazy consequences. Admittedly, it's no guarantee of anything --
except more clarity and less obfuscation in American politics.
___________________________________
Norman Solomon is co-author of "Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't
Tell You." For an excerpt and other information, go to:
www.contextbooks.com/new.html#targe
