Sarah Palin and the Politics of Distraction

There are signs that the media's
Palin-mania is beginning to subside a little, opening up greater room
for public scrutiny of the candidate's stunning lack of qualification
for national office.

However, as part of this public
discourse, progressives need to make an explicit issue of what the Palin
phenomenon represents, for it is only the latest chapter in a manipulative
process that has distorted American politics for the past forty years.

We know that as the ship of
state flounders the political ads will keep the distortions coming.

A recent Pew Research Center
study noted that Sarah Palin dominated the media spotlight during the
week following her selection at the Convention. While not exactly
surprising, we need to take a closer look at how the process transpired.

At the outset, the Republicans
and the nominee herself went to great lengths to promote a Palin persona
revolving around her family and her personal lifestyle.

During her convention speech,
TV cameras cooperated by repeatedly playing on the key members of the
Palin cast, and the news media went to work feverishly to discover all
they could about Palin. As CNN's Campbell Brown put it, "You
know, this is a presidential campaign. Nothing is private.
The world is watching."

Almost immediately the Right
followed by counter-attacking the "liberal media" for making an
issue of Palin's family. As the Pew study reported, after a "day
or so of intense coverage," the media's behavior became a big story,
beginning with charges from Fox News correspondent Jim Angle.

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan,
"Here we go again."

It remains to be seen if the
"bold" McCain selection will pay off with a November victory.
But, what is the strategy designed to do?

The Palin nomination aims at
energizing the Republican Party's fervent right-wing/religious base,
providing a dramatic appeal to white working class and rural Americans,
and, as a bonus, drawing some women voters away from the Democrats.

It clearly succeeded with the
first target. If the remaining strategies succeed, they reason
(probably correctly), they win.

None of these strategies, however,
actually addresses the deteriorating American economy, pressing ecological
crises, and the decline of U.S. standing in the world. On these
fronts, except for occasional rhetorical flourish, we get more of the
same.

Once again, serious political
questions are being converted into an emotional battle over symbols
by an intentional strategy of distraction.

This same strategy enabled
a well-funded Right to take control of the Republican party 28 years
ago. Behind-the-scenes operatives like Michael Deaver and Richard
Wirthlin (Ronald Reagan), Lee Atwater (George H.W. Bush), and
Karl Rove (George W. Bush) have used the politics of distraction brilliantly
to dominate American politics ever since.

The strategy has two faces.
First, in real policy terms, it involves eliminating liberal
government, turning everything over to a market dominated by large conglomerates,
and pursuing an aggressively militaristic foreign policy.

As progressives know only too
well, this agenda is responsible for the mess we're in: an economy
that has worked well for investors (and when it doesn't, tax dollars
to the rescue) but has been disastrous for working Americans, a health
care system that rewards insurance companies while leaving millions
without adequate health care, and a foreign policy that alienates much
of the world and has us bogged down in two wars.

The strategy's second face
uses potent symbolism to play on the perceptions and emotions of Americans
who feel increasingly powerless as the economy turns sour. An
endless media parade of self-indulgent affluence and crass appeals to
uninhibited sexuality help the strategy work, as do examples of the
Right's favorite scapegoats: inner city criminals and youthful protesters.

That piece of the strategy
goes all the way back to the 1960s. While the Right and the corporate
center sought to use 60s images to turn the nation's political agenda
to the right, the commercial media themselves have consistently emptied
the same 60s images of their actual political content -turning them
into fixation with a generation-

thereby providing the propagandists
with a rich storehouse of useful referents.

Tack on the right's favorite
"issues": abortion, "family values," pride in the flag, gun
control, and now a snowmobile/hunting lifestyle. By voting according
to these themes, the Right suggests, we can return to a better past,
and discontented voters can stick it to those urban liberal elites.

In fact the conservatives these
voters elect don't actually do
much to deliver on the symbolic themes -in part, because they can't.
Instead, their real policies make life worse for millions of Americans
-including the very people their campaigns appeal to.

In short, appealing to people
who feel left out, they leave them further
out. Running against phantom liberals, they are in fact running
against their own record. It's a brilliant, though cynical strategy.

As for the "liberal" media,
these are corporate media produced by conservatives' pro-market policy
of deregulation. Driven by competition for audience attention,
the media constantly seek out instant drama, emotionally potent images,
and magazine-cover celebrities. [Naturally the Right overlooks
the fact that they behaved the same way when candidate Barack Obama
emerged (remember the Jeremiah Wright fiasco?).] These are
neo-liberal media.

As a nation, we cannot afford
to spiral downward any longer. We can no longer afford to be taken
in by the politics of distraction. In talking to our fellow citizens
about policies that might help get us out of this mess, progressives
need to help others see how the politics of distraction has worked to
the detriment of the very people it appeals to.