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TechnoratiThe Conquest by Presidentialism
You have to hand it to John McCain -- his campaign ads are (inadvertently) the most incisive commentary on the death of Jeffersonian democracy ever broadcast.
Superficially, they lambaste Barack Obama's worshipful crowds and messianic promises that a heavenly "light will shine down" on his candidacy. But what the ads really lampoon is what Vanderbilt professor Dana Nelson calls presidentialism: our paternalistic view that presidents are godlike saviors -- and therefore democracy's only important figures.
"The once-every-four-years hope for the lever pull sensation of democratic power blinds people to the opportunities for democratic representation, deliberation, activism and change that surrounds us in local elections," she writes in her new book, "Bad for Democracy: How the Presidency Undermines the Power of the People."
In a country whose anti-royalist founders constitutionally constrained executive authority, what explains the metastatic growth of presidentialism? The evisceration of journalism and social movements.
The media's Watergate triumph sired the current Age of Stenography. With personal glory the new priority, correspondents figured out that transcribing White House prognostication is a far easier way to gain notoriety than Woodward and Bernstein's shoe-leather investigations. The result is journalism run by grotesque sloth and vapid speculation-the kind exemplified by The New York Times' top three political correspondents this week. As inflation hit crisis levels and the Russia-Georgia conflict inched the planet toward World War III, these "reporters" devoted a stunning 2,148 words to fact-free guesses about selections for vice president-a position with no power and zero impact on ordinary people's lives.
Media consolidation and cost-cutting have sped up this decline, turning many local news outlets into collages of wire copy and presidential punditry from D.C. bureaus. Meanwhile, the 21st century's most celebrated model of "grass-roots" movement-building is MoveOn.org -- a top-down group whose primary function is to land stories about itself in Washington gossip rags and send e-mail spam about presidential candidates.
The resulting noise reiterates one message: The only thing that matters is 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Why is this dangerous? First and foremost, by ignoring local elections and issue-based organizing in favor of presidential politics, activists make presidential progress less likely. "Even the best presidents need social movements to accomplish transformational change," warns community activist Deepak Bhargava in The Nation magazine's latest White House-centric edition. "FDR could not have succeeded without the agitation of the unemployed workers' councils and the unions, and LBJ's greatest accomplishments were made possible by the civil rights movement."
Worse, presidentialism leads us to ignore the arenas where issues are already being sorted out.
For example, how many of the Democratic convention delegates incensed by the Obama-McCain energy brouhaha have any idea that just beyond Denver's Rocky Mountain horizon, a battle over Colorado's massive gas reserves will more immediately impact the national energy crisis than the inane presidential back-and-forth about offshore drilling? Better yet, how many Democratic enthusiasts donning Obama T-shirts know who their state representative or city council member is-or even what a state legislature or city council does?
In his upcoming book, "You Can't Be President," journalist John MacArthur ponders the depressing answers to these kinds of questions, reminding readers of Alexis de Tocqueville's 19th-century writing.
"It is in vain to summon a people, which has been rendered so dependent on the central power, to choose from time to time the representatives of that power," he observed. "This rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity."
Published 168 years ago, the passage is a prescient warning as the upcoming Democratic and Republican conventions toast presidentialism's conquest of democracy in America.
16 Comments so far
Show AllYour so-called representatives, for the large part are - as Michael Moore so aptly called them - whores. They have the unfortunate task of appeasing the constituents, though, at least right before election time. It's a scam, representative democracy. We need to find more direct ways of doing it. Computer age helps. When I was a young man, all we had were 2, sometime 3 partyline phones, the snail mail, and word of mouth. Some of us got a lot done anyway. Ralph Nader springs to mind.
Doesn't matter who wins the election. The empire will continue to step up it's agenda. They are frightened about losing power. Why else the FISA bill, the new, massive prisons, Homeland Security, Patriot Act, perpetural wars, etc. People are getting restless, jobs are gone, economy tanking, no health care, global warming. All we can do is fight and support those who are trying to get these corporate bloodsuckers off our backs, they are destructive entities for the most part. No candidate already vetted by the corporate power elite will turn their back on the powers who put them there in the first place.
So what's left for the little people to do. Answer: Join together collectively and dig in our heels. They need us - but that's changing fast - as much or more than we need them. And there are a lot more of us.
While I agree with the gist of the argument, still I must contest the line: " about selections for vice president-a position with no power and zero impact on ordinary people's lives." How has everyone let this sentence go by? Dick Cheney is the most powerful, Rasputin-like figure in Washington and had been for 7 years. Bush is a mere fool, the Vice president is totally in charge of the information that gets to the president. Arrest Cheney first!
Disestablishmentarianism is what we need. Economic and political institutions have privileges (tax breaks simply for self-perpetuation, disproportionate political power, and immortality, to name a few)denied to individuals.
McCain's most recent stumble (bumble?) was not knowing how many houses he (and Cindy) own. Couple that with his quantification of what "rich" is (that would be $5 million). It is an absolute indication that he lives in a world that most Americans wouldn't recognize. His attempts to paint Obama as being of the privileged "elite" is pathetic given that Obama earned $1 million less than McCain's self-proclaimed standard of $5 million. Most Americans would be deliriously happy to live on that 20% difference. I don't know what the actual demographics are for income and assets in the US, but I'd bet that the vast majority earn under $100,000 and own less than two homes -- and are paying a whopping mortgage on that one home, to boot.
Let John McCain be president of the Iraq/Pakistan border rather than of the United States.
Not only is he bad at geography (he was mistaken since there is no such border), but he sucks at economics, tribal distinctions and the environment-- which of course just makes him more popular with warthogs-- however, like his Siamese Twin Bush he is also bad at chess, and that is serious bidnis for a president, general, or even Military man.
When a good chess player like Putin or Kasparov has trouble near home, he puts his forces there, not in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, or any other far place.
It sounds almost as if I'm trying to give John McCain that kind of advice (sound); but, I'm confident that he won't take it, for he is crass, and lost all moral stature when he renounced his principled and previously heartfelt opposition to torture.
The form of his crassness is that he is a warthog appealing to warthogs, who recognize themself.
free2bee In the U.S. the President has always been held responsible for maintaining an image of truth, law, and policies laid down by our forefathers.
Until NOW!
When I attended grammer school, CIVICS was one of our important subjects. We
learned about how the government is structured and the way the responsibilities were undertaken for the three branches making up our government.
So what happened? Instead of patriotism did capitalism win out?
Since we are entering a new way of life, many problems such as the Envoirment, global warming, energy, food supply, etc., must be resolved. Certainly not by another administration of Republicans will meet the challenges.
Another great article David. And a good argument for direct democracy.
Wow. I can't blame this one on retrograde Mercury, the way comments are now fed in from bottom to top alters the flow of responses... welcome to weird planet, forum style!
You have the option to reverse the order---lizard
Siouxrose - I thought this new way was pretty cool. Just click on the reply of the post you want to answer, and there it is. No more scrolling around looking for the name of the person you want to respond to, or having to copy their comments. There's still a lot about the new system for my aging mind to get used to though.
JACOB FREEZE: Just as food is empty in nutrition but chock full of color and faux content, so, too the "food for thought" served to "the masses." I don't think Adam Sandler (though he definitely makes being a fool look more cool) deserves to be placed with rap "music" and reality TV; however, what passes for culture is a 21st century rendition of the Roman arena, and it's beyond the pale that any who have looked at history's bloodbath would endeavor to fertilize the ground for its recurrence.
FILM in particular holds the power to move hearts and sway imagination, so it's another tragic loss of venue that screen magic would be used to serve lesser gods, than those that would lift enough souls into necessary realizations for laying down arms to join hands, and make of our wounded (earth) Mother, a banquet of acts of homage & healing taken en masse.
This is why just changing the king won't change the kingdom. American society is the root for all all our domestic social, political, religious, problems but the root of our foreign relations problems is Corporate America. We were supposed to be a country, not an empire. If middle-class America is stupid, it's because their corporate masters didn't program them correctly. Shooting the messenger is now an inherited trait in America.
Hoa binh
Obama and McCain are already US Senators, for gosh sakes...how much more power and influence can one have, if one truly wishes to influence? Apparently, they'd rather campaign...too bad, because we need real Senators...any would be nice...
The beautiful media can also claim some credit for the public "gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity."
Rap music, reality TV, and Adam Sandler comedies are the most efficient conceivable engines for producing sub-humans, and they never stop grinding away.
Jacob Freeze
Presidentialism is a fancy word for the cult of personality. Cut the crap, cut the spin, and call it for what it is, rather than attempting to define the US as being better, or at least different, to other kleptocracies.
But what gave rise to this cult of personality? Is it a recent thing? Is it unique to the US?