In the days when there was still some civility in this country`s public discourse, David Brinkley was in the anchor booth at the Republican National Convention and his producers informed him that the NBC television broadcast was about to be beamed to Europe.
This was in 1964. Brinkley, sitting with his partner, Chet Huntley, was asked to explain to the European audience exactly what was going on down on the convention floor.
Brinkley thought for a moment. What he said next was his attempt to sum up not only the convention, but the American electoral process in general:
”It is partly political, partly emotional, partly propaganda, partly a social mechanism, partly a carnival and partly mass hysteria. It can be described as nonsense, and often it is-but somehow it works.”
Somehow it works. Since the country was founded, that has been the central article of faith underlying the political process, and especially the election of a president. Somehow it works. That political process has been frivolous at times, has been mean-spirited at times, has been overblown at times. But somehow, in the end-or so the citizenry believed-it always worked. That is what seems in danger of being lost these days. In a subtle, nagging way, there appears to be an erosion of the public conviction that the political process works. The canon without which a democracy cannot function- that the will of the people will be served-seems somehow imperiled.
It`s not just that the filthy turn politics have taken has dismayed people, although that certainly has contributed to the public mood. Throughout history there have been personal attacks on public people; the vilest of charges have been recklessly leveled, and the republic has survived. What has changed is that the dissemination of the filth has become so easy, so legitimized. It`s no big deal. The technology is in place to take a rumor that has been started on a Monday night, and to broadcast it around the world live into tens of millions of homes by Tuesday morning. At the very latest.
And the public has been conditioned to treat the facile assassination of the characters of public men and women as just another entertainment. Nothing is taken especially seriously; any human is fair game. The law of the land permits just about any scurrilous thing, true or false, to be said about any public person, without fear of punishment for the accuser; this is often treated as little more than a passing amusement. The casual vilification of the most private aspects of a public person`s life has been made acceptable;
presidential politics are observed with the same slack-jawed public lust for action and gore as is the Super Bowl. It is no coincidence that one of the major events of the primary season-Super Tuesday-derives its name from the world of sports.
As much as people complain about this, there is no real indication that they are ready to have it any other way. The most recent nationally televised debate among the Democrats seeking the presidential nomination drew fewer viewers than the lowest rated of all the entertainment shows featured on TV that week.
Much of the public likes to say they believe all politicians are crooks and liars; why, they ask, should anyone honor politicians by paying attention? That`s a too-effortless way for people to explain away their indifference. The fact is, though-and this is a seldom-discussed truth-that the vast majority of national politicians are much more serious-minded, much more concerned about shaping the future of the country, much better versed on the issues that torment us, than are most of the laziest citizens who dismiss all politicians with a contemptuous flip of the hand.
It`s convenient and self-fortifying to blithely say that politicians as a class are worthless; it`s a little more difficult to consider that the rest of us are often no prizes, either, that the reason we choose to be entertained by trash-both commercial and political-may not be because we`re so lofty and superior to political men and women, but simply because we`ve developed a taste for the trash.
When you have a political process that honors the most vicious and conscienceless kind of shot-in-the-dark hurtfulness, all in the name of victory; when you have a citizenry that increasingly considers politics to be little more than Roller Derby in suits and ties; then you have begun the final giving away of one of the most precious assumptions of our national life.
That assumption is that the political process, in the end, will serve us and save us. That somehow it works. When everything is trivialized, nothing is strong. Behind all the angry shouts and derisive laughter there is the sound of something hollow.
