Liberals always think there's something broken in politics. Conservatives always think there's something wrong with the culture. Why that gives Sarah Palin and the Republicans the edge in November.
By LEE SIEGELSeptember 13, 2008; Page W1
Thomas Frank's greatly influential 2004 critique of the Republicans' cultural strategy, "What's the Matter with Kansas?", has had such a negative effect on the Democrats' fortunes, for the simple reason that Mr. Frank assured Democrats that they didn't have to respond to the way the Republicans were manipulating organic culture. Mr. Frank cogently argued that the Republicans used cultural issues to distract their constituents from Republican economic policies which, ironically, were harming the very people who were voting for them. Mr. Frank believed that what Democrats had to do to win back the White House was to keep hammering away at Republican-induced economic disparities. Barack Obama's campaign is doing precisely that. For many people, however, faith in organic culture is intimate and empowering, while faith in politics is like trying to have a conversation with the TV.
Politics, by definition, is the art of making the abstract palpable and real.
Authority that is pre-humbled, as it were, has the tactical edge. John McCain's tale of ordeal as a P.O.W. in Hanoi doesn't only demonstrate his heroism and patriotism. It portrays his humiliation and the shattering of his ego, as Sen. McCain himself has stressed. The terrible image of Sen. McCain being beaten without mercy in some filthy torture chamber is an image of powerful authority -- a national politician, a United States Senator -- being made to bend to the higher power of malevolent necessity. It is an image that feeds contemporary democracy's leveling maw.
Sen. McCain is not above us, this carefully crafted story tells us, he is not on the elevated level of those three sitting ducks in a row, the articulate, intellectually aloof, Ivy-educated politicians Al Gore, John Kerry and now Sen. Obama (that name! like having a Democratic candidate for president named Pruschev at the height of the Cold War). Sen. McCain is very much unlike Sen. Obama, whose equally crafted autobiography tells a tale of youthful indecision, wandering, mild drug use and eventual redemption as a privileged young man working among the poor and disenfranchised. Sen. McCain, however, started in a dark hole of startling setback, a place that is a more extreme echo of other, mundane places where so many people find themselves day to day.
Sen. Obama still struggles with the sin of pride, he tells us with his confident grin and his air of perfect poise. You could be forgiven for thinking that he is proudly displaying his scorn for his own oversized pride. Sen. McCain, on the other hand, confesses, with his lean, Bogartian mouth set in a near-grimace, that "I've been an imperfect servant of my country for many years." And then he describes for us the gripping origins of his imperfection. Meanwhile, Professor Obama explains, eloquently and stirringly, the theoretical distinction between "ought" and "is." The difference between the destiny-battered Republican candidate and the issue-arrayed Democratic one is like the difference between a mass-market paperback and a college syllabus.
The most surprising development is the way the Republicans -- the party of Christian fundamentalists and of Allan Bloom's epigones -- have deftly adapted to the postmodern ambience. Both Obama and McCain are working the levers of the YouTube universe, Obama by telling his supporters that "This election is not about me. It's about you," and McCain by declaring that "I don't work for myself. I work for you." In this new, participatory culture, "you" has become a sort of generalized first person, and the first person does the work of a particularized "you." Vicariousness, in other words, has become a universal principle. We love people who make it possible for us to imagine inhabiting their lives.
In this climate, what might seem to be Gov. Palin's blatant struggles with inadequacy serve as proof of her potential to lead. She wins the vicarious sweepstakes hands down. Every As for Obama the abstract talker, his autobiographical tales of triumph over ordinary human imperfection stick him with the appearance of being insufficiently imperfect to lead. revelation of a seeming deficiency in her temperament, judgment or character offers a new avenue of access into her life.
There is historical pastiche, as Sen. Obama gives us a shmear of JFK, a sprinkle of LBJ, a smidgen of FDR and dollops of MLK, and as Sen. McCain offers up a little Reagan here, some Nixon there and a bit of Truman everywhere.
It is bad enough for Sen. Obama that in his "complexity" he seems to bear the same relationship to action-hero, yet-no-dummy McCain that nuanced and complex Adlai Stevenson bore to action-hero, yet-no-dummy Eisenhower. Even worse, in Sen. Obama's elevated way of thinking and speaking, he cannot touch what seem to be the mean, petty, vindictive, narrow-minded hockey mom's achievements in the realm of sheer human messiness.
No, there is no culture war. ?? am not getting that conclusion. There is the Republicans' unilateral mastery of the cultural strategy. The Democrats consider any attention to the practices and prejudices of everyday living a mendacious diversion from the "issues," while the GOP, the party of the status quo, has proven itself astoundingly skillful at using its cultural antennae to adapt to new times. The Republicans may or may not be the party that will effect change. But they are certainly the party that knows how to ride it.
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