Long talk off a short pier.
I've never written a diary entry before, so forgive me if I do something wrong. I just had a long talk with a woman I know casually--she works at the dry cleaners I go to. She is AFrican American, about fifty, is happilly married with seven children, and has all their clothes dry cleaned right down to socks, blue jeans, and underwear (its one of the perks of working there). We've had lots of little conversations over the years, and recently got chummy over the folly of men. So today I asked her who she liked in the primary and discovered, for the first time, that she votes republican. Now, why does she vote republican? I can tell you after a twenty minute discussion, I still don't know. Her basic theme s were
a) politics is unimportant, she never used to vote at all and then when she started, well, it turned out that you couldn't trust anyone.
b) clinton had sex with monica, so he was a liar.
c) Whatever party is in power, the other one doesn't like them and attacks them.
d) everyone does what is best for them, so everyone is self interested, so what is the point of discussing anything political.
I should say that I wasn't really wholly surprised to have this discussion with her, once I found out she was a Republican. My sister-in-law is a life long republican (don't blame my brother, she married my husband's brother!) and I had the same conversation with her a few years ago and discovered a very similar set of beliefs and understandings. In fact, it was after my conversation with my sister-in-law that I began using the term "brand loyalty" to describe a certain kind of political stance. This woman, my dry cleaner, in fact began our discussion of politics by saying simply "don't you usually just vote for the same guy you did before?"
My sister-in-law at least had a kind of rudimentary series of definite beliefs (smaller government, etc...) that one could see as basically republican. What took me aback, a bit,in this conversation was that I couldn't get this woman to cop to any knowledge or any specific interest that would lead to a political stance. NOTHING that has been in the papers, or on the news, or that has taken up the time of the candidates recently, was part of her knowledge base/world view (and she was very surprised to find out that I knew or cared about such arcana). She did not know about the Medicare bill--even enough to know that one had passed. She had not heard of the Patriot Act, Clear Skies, Healthy Forests or No Child Left Behind. When we got to discussing Iraq and I argued that I didn't think we would have gone in under a President Gore she said (this was almost verbatim my sister-in-laws argument too) "oh, they all do the same things, how do you know he wouldn't have gone in?" And to every point I made about air pollution, falling dollar, rising deficit she would just say "has that never happened before, under someone you voted for?"
Like my sister-in-law this woman was willing to admit to a staggering amount of ignorance about actual policy positions, actual policies and their effects, and the names and identities of the people in power in this country. In fact, both women actually almost pride themselves on not knowing the details, and were surprised and a little perturbed to discover that there were facts out there that a person could know. Both women insisted that "knowing" things was a function of social identity: that is, each person only can know, and only should know, what is appropriate to a person who identifies themself as either a Republican or a Democrat. And naturally, they argue, what the other side knows is the inverse of what you know--its not "true" or "false" its supportive or not. Each person will reject, and by extension should reject information and ideas that don't support their basic identity/position as a voter. This was absolutely fascinating to me because it is at one and the same time so intellectually stifling and conservative a view, and so post-modern. Qua anthropologist, I'm trained to see the ways in which social class, or race/ethnicity, or ideology, or propaganda/media forces structure information received by individuals, and structure the ways that information is processed and understood. I'd assume that the individual might be more or less unaware of those forces. I'd never have believed, until I got into these discussions, the ways in which some people positively revell in the incompleteness of their knowledge. For them politics and political identity seems to stand utterly outside the realm of the real, the sensual, the factual. Its more like the allegiance one might have to a sports team: inherently irrational, local, emotional and permanent.
I can't say I won any converts for the cause--though I will say that we ended up on pretty good terms, I think--but I learned a lot about the ways in which people disenfranchise themselves from a world that seems too complex and frightening. For her, the morality issue (Clinton slept with Monica, Clinton lied) and the brand loyalty issue (people believe whatever they have to believe to feel happy with their political party) were paramount. (I should say that I think the abortion/gay issue might also have been very big for her, but it never came up). And I learned once again, if I'd needed any teaching on that point, that the Democrats have hurt no one but themselves by failing to draw incredibly sharp distinctions between themselves and Bush on each and every issue they can.
On the plus side, in the case of my sister-in-law, she says she is not voting for Bush again. I've learned that she has at least enough of a rational, policy based side to her brand loyalty that when the brand doesn't perform, she is willing to try another type. I think for my dry cleaner, only a front page story about Bush and a "dead girl or a live boy" could turn her off voting for him, and then she wouldn't vote for anyone.
apologies if I've formatted or written this in a clumsy way.
aimai