In last Friday’s Argus, Aaron Sussman lamented that the people dying over in Iraq make it rather unfunny to ridicule politics these days, the facts turning the “theatre of the absurd” into the “theatre of the tragic.” He concluded in truly rousing fashion: “Soon, we will be hit by reality and woken up. Soon, a demand for change will emanate from the people at a volume that can never be matched by a ballot. Take a shot.” That this stirring peroration brings his article back squarely into the theatre of the absurd we will put aside for now, because his point was otherwise well taken.
In the same issue, we also got the pleasure of Max Goldblatt taking on the new movie by the South Park creators, “Team America: World Police,” by which he was really “bothered” due to its “un-PC humor border[ing] on bigotry” and the fact that Parker and Stone “make a satire about the state of the world and they don’t mention Bush once.” He neglected to mention, of course, that they also mention a grand total of one world politician in the whole movie, that being Kim Jong Il, who plays nearly the exact same role that Saddam Hussein plays in South Park’s world. He neglected to recognize the obvious, that Bush, Cheney and company are the ones being skewered by Team America’s own incompetence, preferring to bemoan the untimely demises of the “liberal activist actors” in the film. He also failed to remember the movie’s funniest scene, when we learn why one of Team America’s members hates actors; he also seems to have missed the fact that the plot structure of the movie was 100% irrelevant and satirical in its own right; he is also correct to say that the movie could have been much funnier… But I digress.
Most of you by now will have heard something about Jon Stewart’s brutal condemnation of CNN’s Crossfire, delivered with a seriousness we are unaccustomed to see from the jocular Daily Show host. His performance was a reminder just how foreign to political commentary the unadorned truth has become. Stewart accused Crossfire of purveying simple “partisan hackery,” and Crossfire’s Tucker Carlson, the glibly bow-tied Republican cheerleader, countered that Stewart had given John Kerry puffball questions when the Senator from Massachusetts came on the show. Stewart’s response was both brilliant and arresting: “The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.” And here we arrive at the point.
There were clearly people out there who really hoped that a movie that included gratuitous puppet sex would turn the tides of this election. Tucker Carlson really had the gall to call Jon Stewart Kerry’s “butt-boy” on national television. And, quite frankly, the best political commentary I’ve seen lately is Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, tackling the spin room at the third debate and dubbing it “Poop Valhalla.”
Why has it come to this? Fahrenheit 9/11 and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth give you one clue, while the fanatical denunciations of Ralph Nader as delivering the Kingdom of Heaven to the infidel neo-cons give another.
The problem is there are precious few public figures these days willing to prioritize the truth above the importance of this presidential election. This view may find a great deal of sympathy among many who have personally gone to the trenches for this campaign. After all, this is serious business! Armageddon or World War III surely hangs in the balance! Or at least the institution of the family or the ultimate rights of woman!
Some variety of these beliefs affects a disproportionate portion of the voting public, no doubt. Perhaps no larger share of the media subscribes to these beliefs than any other part of the population; I see no way of knowing. What is certain, however, is that on shows like Crossfire, or the O’Reilly Factor, these views are not only the norm, but rather the enforced version of the truth. Those viewers who agree wholeheartedly with one side or the other are gratified, having been reminded how grave this gravest of elections is. The rest of us are left to seek other avenues for any sign of levity (not to mention reasonable compromise) in politics.
For all the talk of record voter turnout for this election, come election day if two out of three eligible voters takes to the polls, it will be a very disturbing sign indicating the kind of political unrest that Aaron Sussman seems to think may be imminent. History tells otherwise, however. Not since 1968 has the nation topped 60% participation of eligible voters, and in 2000 the figure was just 54.5%. One of the implications of this trend is unmistakably negative: many non-voters feel effectively disenfranchised. This speaks to rather deep problems in our nation’s political system. The farcical system of presidential primaries is one, the Electoral College another. Take note, in this context, of the truly ridiculous power given to the voters of New Hampshire.
There is another way to understand the low turnout, though. Despite indicating some obvious problems, I think it speaks extremely highly of our nation. It shows that there are huge portions of the voting public who don’t partake of the media frenzy about how it will be this election that decides the course of history, once and for all. It is evidence that many people feel that the choice of our national leadership is not a decisive factor in their own lives. Such widespread indifference is a pretty good indication that neither life nor the government’s actions are so bad as to rouse most people to anger.
I’m not saying that there aren’t salient differences between the two candidates, or even that this election isn’t of particular importance. I’m just saying that there’s no reason to take to the streets on Tuesday night if things don’t go the way you want them to. Really. If Nixon could concede (as he does at least in Oliver Stone’s world) that Kennedy stole the election fair and square back in 1960, then even the unfolding of the most sinister scenarios on Tuesday wouldn’t be fatal to this nation’s well-being.
So, in short, if you played drinking games to the rather staid presidential debates, more power to you. If you live in New York, who could really blame you for feeling that you had no input into the process anyhow, so why bother? If you really like Ralph Nader, well, it’s too bad that voting your conscience would send you directly, without passing “go,” to the ninth circle of hell, where perhaps Lucifer will take Judas or Brutus out of one of his mouths for a chance to chew on you.
How about me? Well, being a legal resident of Ohio, I am a more equal citizen than most of you. And since I am not quite so indifferent as I would like to pretend, my vote is already cast. And I have to admit, punching out the little holes and ripping off the hanging chads was truly cathartic for a political junky like me.
Leave a Reply