I'm sitting here reading for class, with no intention of diarying tonight whatsoever. But I came across a passage in a book I'm reading,
Seducing America: How Television Charms the Modern Voter , by Roderick P. Hart.
As the title indicates, the book is about the effects of television on politics, but there is something in there that I think resonates more broadly with the community and our view of politicians. Namely; hero-worship, raising people up to a pedestal, lionizing etc. And the nasty hangover that follows.
Yeah, it's a dreaded meta-diary. Sorry...
Hart's book is about the many ways in which Television is destroying our political system, but the two passages I want to focus on are from a chapter on political intimacy. Hart's point is about television, but I think it applies to this community both through television and through blogging.
Hart discusses the personalization of politics that has occurred in the last 50-60 years, and the effects this has brought about (All transcription done by the diarist, and any errors are mine).
Alas, such intimacy comes at a price: When we become familiar with a person in these day-in and day-out ways, we develop the sorts of expectations that any intimate association promises. But intimacy with a politician is a special sort of intimacy. Because it is political it is fractious and because it is electronic it is fragile. It is intellectual intimacy, not affection based. We come to know politicians, not necessarily to like them. It is the sort of intimacy that once-marrieds still retain for one another, a deep knowledge that produces a knowing glance and a snarl simultaneously. And so political intimacy is almost always a case of bait-and-switch. The politician opens up his heart. We are drawn in. He or she then does something obnoxious or stupid-an inevitability in politics. We jump back, scorned, again. We declare the lot of them toxic waste. (emphasis mine)
Hart sees this intimacy as both a positive and a negative. We get to know our politicians in a way that we did not previously. But there is also a price:
Intimacy, unfortunately, is a double edged sword. The closer we get to someone, the more pain we suffer when they hurt us. Thus, when Mario Cuomo behaved like an electoral prima donna, or when Ann Richards refused to raise taxes for education, or when Jesse Jackson became self-serving, love turned to loathing instantly. How dare such friends-of-ours act like politicians? we reason. How can persons who have bared their souls to us now behave so expediently? How can they woo us only to rape us? ...Charm begets adoration begets disappointment begets cynicism.
Ok. So now the connection. I think that this in part explains a troubling trend that I've noticed lately. We here at dKos have a penchant for raising politicians up on an incredibly high pedestal, and then tearing them down visciously. Cindy Sheehan and the Trail of Tears, Russ Feingold and John Roberts, Barack Obama and his diary, Wes Clark and Iraq. On one level, I think the animus came from pure frustration at what was being said and done. But on another level, I think people legitimately felt betrayed by what someone they had championed so fervently had done. Like Hart says, "Charm begets adoration begets disappointment begets cynicism."
The point? I think we need to, for lack of a better word, "worship" less. I think we need to stop searching so hard for a hero, for a knight in shining armor that will slay the evil Bush empire, cast perfect vote after perfect vote and never disappoint in any way. Politicians like that don't exist (well, at least not outside of The West Wing . Even Paul Wellstone voted for DOMA. Admiring and supporting politicians who do right is, to my mind, absolutely what we should be doing. And criticizing them when they do wrong is necessary as well. But this extreme of sainthood and treachery doesn't seem a productive one.
Our politicians are never as perfect as we originally hope, and they're rarely as evil as we end up believing. Bad votes are going to be cast by our closest allies, and good votes will be cast by those we've left for dead. And politicians and political actors will always say idiotic things (as long as Joe Biden lets them have the mic long enough).
Heroes and villians, attachments and loathings. I just wonder if any of it does anything but set us up for disappointment and cynicism.