Politics from the Playground

          Yesterday at dinner, our youngest daughter reported on how her school had conducted a “Bullying and Bias” assembly.  Well, as usual, my wife and I listened attentively to determine if we were going to have to (1) augment the lesson, (2) re-teach the lesson, (3) or schedule a meeting with the school administration.  Well, no drama there, but I was reminded of it later in the evening during the presidential debate.  To watch the debate and the FB posts that followed, I felt a bit like a 44 year old under “playground rules”.  I have to commend my FB friends though, they either stay completely out of it or they at least made the effort to post logical arguments and counters.  It is clear that FB is not the best place for political debates, and twitter is - flat out - the realm of sound bites.  In the end, most FB debates end with a version of the parental favorite, “because I say so.”  I am perplexed by the shift to “schoolyard politics” and worry that in our haste to get information quickly we have lost the art of the argument and debate.

                To say politics has changed over the years is an understatement.   For starters, both parties embraced television and the notion of the sound bite.  The political parties have undergone a rebranding of sorts, each trying to claim they are the representatives of the majority of citizens.  This has met with very few successes.  The only one that immediately comes to mind is the brilliant achievement the Democrats have had with revising history and stereotyping.  The Democrats have been so successful in this narrative that they are now the party of minority African Americans.  I frequently have to re-read the history books on Jim Crow laws, segregation, and the KKK to ensure that my memory is still correct, and that these were all Democrat initiatives that were then “corrected” by the Republicans.  The coup de grace, however, is the assertion by the Democrats that Republicans are rich, and rich equates to evil.  This was brilliantly executed.  Save that win, however, there have been no true successes in how politics are currently conducted.    Television and the convenience of the internet developing and honing the sound bite have gradually made the general public increasingly ignorant.  Enter the talking heads to explain politics to the ignorant masses, and the sound bite editors to keep it simple for everyone to understand.  The less the masses know about specifics, the less they will actually question the issue.  Somewhere around 2004, people started exercising some of those underutilized recesses of their brains and the electorate starting becoming more educated…well, at least in the arguments that interested them.  Unfortunately, most only go to the sites that mirror their own beliefs, and support their contentions.  They do not actually want information – they want reaffirmation.  Presto!  Instant pundit.

                So maybe with so many pundits we have simply lost the ability to debate.  This is one of many areas that I truly admire and respect my wife.  She loves the anatomy of an argument.  I’m serious.  It may be because of her chosen profession or maybe it is taught in law school, but she loves and studies every aspect of an argument, any argument, from either side.  It makes absolutely no difference to her which side she argues, at least in the beginning.  In contrast to her elegance, as usual, is my more Draconian approach; study the subject, form an opinion, then fight allowing for the occasional regroup.  Again this is possibly a result of training and experience since the majority of my life I have been a uniformed warrior.   Barring the readymade “re-post if you like/believe/care/love/etc” arguments made on those comfortable websites that cater to our desires, most of the arguments poised on Facebook have been provocative and engaging.  To be fair, even some of the readymade re-posts could be worthy, with some fact checking and research.   There is, however, a propensity to resort to the ad hominem.  I’ve seen arguments in the last 12 hours like, “they are slime because I say so,” and “I am against EVERYTHING that man (name withheld) is for.”  So maybe we could use some refinement of our arguments.  Debate and argument are becoming a lost art in a world of sound bites and instant information.  Pundits offer an issue, or criticism, but it is only a tertiary glimpse without any real substance or facts to support.  Relaying, re-tweeting, or reposting only the sound bite opens the door to the hyperbolic argument, since there is no real information available regarding the issue.  The inability to formulate an argument, or effectively debate an issue, leads to the “schoolyard politics” which leads to the ad hominem, name-calling, or personal attacks.   

                The current election has a sense of volatility, with each party making the opposition candidate a virtual blight on humanity.  Is Romney evil?  Is Obama awful?  A closer investigation of these two men and their histories indicates they are both smart men, dedicated to their beliefs.  There is clearly an intense divide between the parties, and it seems unbelievable that there really are “undecided’s” out there.  Perhaps the volatility between the two parties would be marginal if elected officials were held accountable by the masses – not just the opposition.  The President may be on the fast track to re-election if only a few officials had been held answerable along the way.  Certainly the pundits tell us that any show of weakness is bad, but history has shown that it is accountability and responsibility that are the true tests of strength.  The never ending saga of Libya is a good example.  The issue could have been a non-issue within a few days if the President and his Administration would have explained that a mistake was made, rumor was offered as fact unintentionally, and that person will be held responsible.  Done.  Most Americans go to work and are held accountable for the job performed.  It is directly linked, in most cases, with compensation and retention.  It cannot be any real surprise that there is this mess when our elected officials continually get a pass.  It is a misnomer that the power of the electorate is linked to the particular elected officials.   That is an illusion.  The power Americans possess, by virtue of voting, is to hold elected officials accountable.   Shying away from that responsibility results in our abdicating the only power we possess.  When holding our officials liable for their actions becomes the norm, I suspect actual tolerance will increase, and perhaps, there might even be some…dare I say it…satisfaction with the officials that we didn’t vote for.