reflectivepundit

Inducting Senator McCain into the Political Hall of Shame

By Brigitte L. Nacos

As I get ready to leave for a trip abroad, I am appalled by Senator John McCain’s latest disservice to the nation he claims to love. This is from an AP dispatch about the former presidential candidate’s appearance at a rally in support of Sharron Angle:

“McCain, the 2008 presidential nominee, told the crowd at a Las Vegas casino that the ‘election will change America. The world is watching.’

‘Sharron brings hope and Sharron brings action,’ he said after embracing the former Reno legislator on stage, with an oversized American flag draped behind them.

McCain's appearance was intended to bolster Angle's credibility, particularly with moderates…”

McCain can drape himself in all the flags he can find. He can talk all over again about his patriotism as member of the military and as prisoner of war. But nothing excuses the damage he has inflicted on his nation during the last several years in his desperate effort to win—first the presidency, now reelection in Arizona and a role in the pitiful tea part extremism of his party.

He actually deserves a starring role in the tea party’s campaign horror movie production because without his selection of Sarah Palin as running mate in 2008, there wouldn’t be a tea party movement with the influence it has gained among Republicans.

After all, Palin is not only the most influential figure in the tea party crowd but she has also made it perfectly fine for the most clueless and divisive men and women to throw their hats into the political arena and run for high offices.

McCain deserves to be indicted into the political hall of shame. If he gets his will as it seems likely to happen on Tuesday, the “election will change America,” indeed, as he said. But not for the better. Sharon Angle bringing hope and action? For whom and for what? Of course, McCain knows the truth.

He is right on one count: the world is watching. But mostly with disbelief or stunning Schadenfreude.

I try to convince myself that it may be easier to watch next week’s news from afar.

Freak Politics, the Myth of a New Grass Roots Movement, and the Pipe Dream of Third Party Salvation

By Brigitte L. Nacos

American politics and policy-making have always been more fascinating to me than to most Americans born and raised here—for good reasons: political parties and the political process in the United States are very different from what I grew up with in post-WW II Germany and got to know in neighboring countries. The differences explain why I chose American government/politics as my concentration once I continued my education in the U.S. Although very familiar with the nature of American government and the electoral process, I am shocked and alarmed by the horror show that right-extremists have staged in a bold attack on the country’s fundamental values and constitutional rights. 

Politics in liberal democracies are not immune from occasional wackos who have outlandish agendas and appeal to fringe groups. But the take-over of the political realm by a line-up of intellectually challenged candidates and their sinister backers and handlers is a far more serious threat than the solo-flight of an occasional wacko. The so-called "tea party" movement has managed to frame the political issues and put its stamp not only on the far-right fringe of the Republican Party but, more shockingly, on mainstream Republicans and a chunk of Democrats who lost their backbones and run scared toward the right. The few Republicans who tried to counter or did not fully embrace the reactionary “tea party” agenda have been defeated in the primaries or fallen in line. 

With the traditional news media—not merely FOX News-- and the growing field of ambitious bloggers vying for attention, the most outrageous of the most clueless “we the people” agitators (i.e., Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck) and candidates (i.e., Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell) dominate campaign coverage.

Never mind that contrary to what its public faces and the media tell us day-in and day-out, it is a myth that the "tea party" is the result of a genuine grass roots movement. On the contrary, the “we the people” narrative was concocted by a bunch of very same wealthy people of the reactionary John Birch Society variety who finance non-profit front organizations with misleading names to dupe the chronically alienated right-extremist strata and more recent victims of the economic downturn into a receptive crowd.  

What the hidden financiers and persuaders have in common with most of the movement they created is this: Be destructive rather than constructive. Tear down rather than build and rebuild. Divide rather than unite. Roll back the achievements of the past.

Mainstream Mass Media as Demagogues’ Best Friends

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Publicity is not only the oxygen of terrorism but also the lifeblood of demagoguery.

Just as terrorists try to motivate their particular in-groups to hate, scapegoat, and harm out-groups, demagogues promote their extremist political, social, economic, and personal agenda by pitting their “good” in-groups against “evil” out-groups.

To be sure, today’s preachers of hate and division do not have to rely solely on the mainstream media to carry their toxic messages, they establish their own web sites, utilize the sites of other hate-mongers, or simply communicate their propaganda via virtual social network vehicles.

Yet, the leading news organizations--newspapers, television and radio networks, and news magazines—still matter a great deal because they continue to have the by far largest audiences.

In the fierce competition for news consumers and advertising dollars, most news outlets are increasingly biased in favor of the most controversial and divisive self-promoters and bigots regardless of the harm they inflict both in the domestic and international context.  That is precisely why the mainstream media, not only the cable networks, were the midwives at the birth of the Tea Party Movement. Without the news media hyping the most outrageous among the uncivil protesters at town hall meetings during the health care debate and without reporting relentlessly on the most clueless attack dogs in the Tea-Republican Party line-up, the political climate would be healthier and more prone to actual problem solving. 

Or take the recent case of “pastor” Terry Jones of Gainesville, Florida and his announcement before the ninth anniversary of 9/11 that he and his congregation planned to stage the burning of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, in commemoration of the attacks on September 11. For a few days, he was the number one newsmaker here and abroad. At the time for a conference in London, I was shocked that he made the front pages of most newspapers, the lead stories in newscasts of British, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Chinese, and Arab television networks. Almost all international print and electronic media organizations failed to mention that this publicity stunt was the work of a man whose tiny “congregation” is not affiliated with a mainstream church and that he was characterized by his own daughter as a cult leader.