{"id":1685,"date":"2023-04-27T13:14:30","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T20:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aculpableinnocence.com\/home5\/aculpabl\/anthony_blog\/?p=1685"},"modified":"2023-04-28T13:06:11","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T20:06:11","slug":"americas-political-pantomime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aculpableinnocence.com\/home5\/aculpabl\/anthony_blog\/americas-political-pantomime\/","title":{"rendered":"America’s Political Pantomime"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pantomime was an ancient form of human communication that found artistic expression in early Greek theatre where silent actors communicated mostly with actions while a background chorus provided the underlying theme. In our modern <\/span>political <\/span><\/i>pantomime, the players are candidates for public office who perform at podiums often with flaying arms and loud protestations, usually voicing their political Party\u2019s chorus of taglines and \u201ctalking points.\u201d This chorus is the Party\u2019s platform message designed to win the hearts and minds of the electorate. The problem with this pantomime is that it can mask authenticity. Who is the person performing this pantomime? On closer examination, we may find an actor playing a scripted part, often not unlike a TV huckster. His\/her message is a sales pitch scripted to persuade, not necessarily to win trust. As part of a campaign drama, a candidate\u2019s pitch may well mimic a deftly crafted commercial and be no more relevant than a product sales pitch. While candidates echo their Party platforms in a recognizable chorus, prospective voters and journalists may be lured to support them or, at minimum, be entertained by their rote performances. But does this pantomime convey a truth as Greek theatre intended? It may, instead, hide a more self-serving purpose lurking behind a benign fa\u00e7ade and rote chorus that should or could invalidate a candidate\u2019s election.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Presidential candidates, like Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush, for example, played a starring role in their Party\u2019s political pantomime. They both sang the choral theme of their respective Party during their campaign. Presidential candidate Nixon promised to end the Vietnam War. After winning his election, he did so by engineering a brutal escalation of aerial bombardments of Hanoi and enemy infiltrators in neutral border countries. But during his campaign, he had surreptitiously undermined his predecessor\u2019s ability to end the war by secretly subverting the Paris peace talks. That subversive act alone more than justified his pseudonym, \u201cTricky Dick.\u201d Subsequently, his illegal Watergate venture turned his own Party against him, preemptively disproving his \u201cI am not a crook\u201d testament of innocence. For Nixon sang his own tune, rather than harmonize with his Party. Likewise, President George H. W. Bush promised not to raise taxes during his campaign in line with his Party\u2019s platform\u2014remember \u201cread my lips.\u201d But he did and thereby lost his Party\u2019s full-throated endorsement for re-election as a result. Both Nixon and Bush helped cede the subsequent Presidential elections to the Democratic Party. They both ran afoul of the Party line whether dishonest, like Nixon, or too honest, like Bush. One promised peace, the other prosperity\u2014both worthy goals. Yet both were one-term Presidents. And both became discordant voices within their Party\u2019s choir.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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For most of the post-Roosevelt era, the Republican Party sang the same tune, a Republican chorus of conservativism rooted in principles of individual rights, separation of powers, crime prevention, free trade, and a Jeffersonian balance between State and Federal governance. Certainly, these positions reflected American values and our nation\u2019s founding principles, as documented in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Since both Democrat and Republican voters could identify with these values and democratic principles, they could also accept compromise on their differing policies wherever America\u2019s fundamental principles were preserved. Compromise, in other words, benefited the general welfare of all citizens, irrespective of Parties. The competitive Parties could then harmonize and reflect the voices of all Americans. But today, that harmony no longer exists. The political pantomime within the Republican Party, for instance, no longer reflects an intelligible choral arrangement. For it no longer has a platform. Instead, it spouts nonspecific opposition to the democratic institutions of our government\u2014the so-called \u201cdeep state,\u201d and the manufactured grievances of the Trump \u201cdemocracy terminator.\u201d It decries \u201cbig\u201d government,\u201d to include the very institutions created to serve a democratic constituency. The Party\u2019s chorus is now out of tune not only with democracy but with most Americans\u2014and even with reality. Traditional \u201cconservatism\u201d is now defined by propagandized grievances that seek the undermining of democratic institutions in favor of single Party rule. How else does one explain the outcry of a rigged election or Donald Trump\u2019s demand for his \u201ccontinuation\u201d in office? Besides this demand for absolute power, Republican-created discord runs afoul of positions most Americans support such as a band on the sale of military style weapons and universal background checks, the reestablishment of DOJ oversight of voter suppression laws or practices, general election reforms prohibiting gerrymandering, medically safe abortions of unviable fetuses, and return of government support for the comprehensive and universal education of our youth. Instead, the Republican chorus has propagandized political positions that attempt to whitewash history\u2014like the January 6 insurrection, misconstrue facts\u2014like the outcome of a fair and verified election, belie accepted precedent\u2014like medically safe abortions of unviable fetuses, and\u00a0lie about statements and events recorded and openly witnessed by the public.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The current Republican Party no longer reflects a conservatism that reflects our core American values, but now sings a new tune captured by a constant refrain of grievance or \u201cwokeness.\u201d Neither refrain admits specific definition since the former presumes the existence of \u201cthe deep state,” as an imagined bogeyman, infecting <\/span>all <\/span><\/i>government institutions and voting systems, and the latter is an undefined derogatory label for anything Governor DeSantis dislikes. If \u201cwokeness\u201d eventually finds its way into the American dictionary, it could only be defined as the past participle derivative of \u201cawake, \u201cthat is \u201cawaken,\u201d \u201cwoke,\u201d or \u201cwoken.\u201d But its definition would not then be as amorphous as its equivocal use by the ambivalent brain of its user. The Governor could use any cuss word in its place to convey his undiscerning distaste for anything he is incapable of understanding. Like his mentor, the Trump \u201cdemocracy terminator,\u201d he reframes Republican conservatism from a Jeffersonian perspective to a nihilist dictum of an all-encompassing grievance by means of a self-coined word that implies the opposite of DeSantis\u2019 usage or intent. Seriously, does he really mean to say that Democrats are \u201cwoke,\u201d meaning \u201cawaken?\u201d Or is he just lacking the language skills he should have learned from the books he wants to ban from Florida schools? Regardless, neither Trump nor DeSantis sings the same tune that Reagan\u2019s Republican Party sang in chorus for decades. Their tune, instead, is a cacophony that blunts intelligence and belies common sense.\u00a0It exemplifies a political Party out of tune with its own past, democratic values, and an easily recognizable reality.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Republican nominated Supreme Court Justices, as another example, have now reinterpreted the legally defined right of any woman to abort an unviable fetus \u2014that is, before 22 weeks (about 5 months)\u2014 to protect her life or a newborn\u2019s future because of her fetus\u2019 inability to survive in her womb or her inability to support a baby for reasons of rape, incest, poverty, or foreseeable special needs she or the medical establishment may be unable to provide. Instead, the Court determined this right does not reside with the individual woman in consultation with her doctor. Rather, she must be governed by State legislators who will regulate when, where, or how an abortion is permitted without consideration of science, safe medical practice, or the health of either the mother or the viability of the fetus to live outside of the womb (reference \u201cThe Supreme Court: A Bulwark of Liberty<\/a>\u201d). The State laws generated in support of the Court\u2019s opinion are a confusing cacophony that differ from State to State and too often put women\u2019s health\u2014even their lives\u2014at risk when forced to carry an unviable fetus until they face the precipice of their eminent death. This Republican staffed Court denied the relevance of the precedent set 50 years ago by Roe v. Wade, that is, of a woman\u2019s liberty as guaranteed by the 14<\/span>th<\/span> Amendment and believed by most Americans that women must have the right to decide on matters affecting their pregnancy and the viability of the fetus in their womb.\u00b9<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Instead, Justice Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, sites 19<\/span>th<\/span> century precedents written before women even had the right to vote. How is the general welfare of Americans served when the Supreme Court reverts to a dark age in American history as justification for overruling a 50-year precedent, thereby risking the lives of women, and ignoring the will of most Americans?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Republican chorus now gives lip-service to themes widely discordant to the ears of most Americans. It begs many questions. For example, does it want to turn back the 100-year progress of women\u2019s rights by governing how, where, and when their bodies should receive medical care during pregnancy\u2014even at the risk of a woman\u2019s life? Does it now favor public access to weapons of war\u2014even permit-less a\/o open-carry laws that some Republican-controlled states have already passed\u2014when gun violence in America far exceeds any other country and remains the leading cause of childhood deaths? Does it want to eliminate the teaching of America\u2019s racial history by punishing teachers and banning books that remind us of what we have overcome and what progress we must continue? Florida\u2019s Governor, for example, has demonstrated the height of stupidity by actualizing Ray Bradbury\u2019s fictional \u201cFahrenheit 451\u201d and replicating Hitler\u2019s actual book burning regime. Instead of supporting teacher qualifications and a learning curriculum that includes both liberal arts and technical proficiency in math and science, Republicans prefer to defund public education in favor of private schools that would exclude most middle-income and all low-income families, even with the unspecified promise of education vouchers. Are they likely to fund adequately a voucher program when unwilling to invest more in public education? Since the 19<\/span>th<\/span> century, America has supported comprehensive education as a prerequisite for an informed electorate and a vibrant democracy. When the current Republican Party sings the benefits of these adverse positions, they are conning the American public to accept slogans like \u201csupport for the culture of life,\u201d or \u201cthe only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,\u201d or \u201cteachers should be armed and schools hardened,\u201d or \u201cdon\u2019t say \u2018gay\u2019 in the classroom,\u201d or \u201cban \u2018wokeness\u2019 in classroom teaching and books.\u201d This Republican chorus is out-of-tune with reality and heralds the death knell of American democracy. It is not a culture of life that they support, but of the death of women, children, LGBTQ, and the comprehensive education of our electorate. That chorus, instead, intones a death Nell for both our democracy and our humanity.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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When you see Republican politicians parroting these slogans, ask yourself why would they broadcast their ignorance with not so cleverly shrouded slogans of misdirection? Perhaps, they are not as stupid as they appear, but merely mimicking the 24-hour bombardment of propaganda and salesmanship that too often displaces public life in America. We are not ancient Athenians where 500 or more of us can argue in a public forum about what laws and norms should define our society. Instead, we are millions of consumers of broadcast news and published articles, some of which are defiled by bias, political manipulation, or even foreign propaganda and incitement. For example, Fox, the largest broadcast news organization in America, was just sued for defamation by Dominion for lying about voting machines rigging the last Presidential election. Also, the Mueller Report painstakingly exposed the length and depth of Russia\u2019s interference in the 2016 Presidential election\u2014that is, the seating of the Trump \u201cdemocracy terminator\u201d in the American Presidency. More recently, it has been reported that China is also infiltrating and attempting to influence America\u2019s relationship with China. Daily, Americans are bombarded with special interest-inspired misinformation and political misdirection. This perversion of America\u2019s First Amendment may be the unavoidable price we pay for our freedom. But it offers no excuse for citizens in a democracy to imbibe so uncritically the words of liars, propagandists, insurrectionists, and foreign adversaries when they would shun the indiscriminate purchase of\u00a0goods purveyed by a dishonest huckster. \u201cBuyer beware\u201d is the principle that equally applies in either case.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The political pantomime performed by the current Republican Party is a caricature of our product advertising culture. Both entice unquestioning acceptance of sales pitches delivered ubiquitously on TV, billboards, flyers, and newspapers. But the political pitch is always reduced to a simplistic, easily remembered slogan, such as \u201cfake news,\u201d \u201crigged election,\u201d \u201cgaffe machine,\u201d \u201clock her up,\u201d \u201cmake America great again,\u201d \u201cthe deep state,\u201d and so on. The pitch is not designed to educate, but to persuade, entice, or even incite without any aforethought. Watch a crowd at a political rally. The audience may listen quietly while a candidate explains his\/her \u201cpositions\u201d on policy issues, but they rise and cheer when the candidate raises his\/her fist or shouts out a campaign slogan or the Party\u2019s rallying cry. The point of this charade or pantomime is to solicit \u201cgroup think\u201d or blind acceptance without any intervening critique or rational justification. If the listener already identifies with the Party, acceptance of its product may preclude any second thoughts of its value or relevance. And so, the political pantomime continues until we all become played and captive to a political metaverse disassociated from reality. Seriously, the antiabortionist \u201cculture of life\u201d promotes misogyny, and risks the health and potentially the lives of pregnant women. The \u201cgun culture\u201d of AR15 promoters has no relevance to hunters, farmers, or sport\u2019s target shooting. Ask any combat soldier about its purpose and mass murder of children will not be the answer.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Politics, unfortunately, cannot be so simplistic as represented by the political pantomime described here. To the degree that it is, America\u2019s democracy is doomed. Party platforms sell policies the Party believes will win offices and control of government. Unfortunately, winning an argument and an office is the least important achievement of politics. When politics is reduced solely to gaining power, it no longer serves or is integral to the <\/span>polis <\/span><\/i>(the body of citizens in city, state, or republic), in which Aristotle placed development of our moral nature. America\u2019s founding fathers were keenly aware of Aristotle\u2019s prescription since it found expression in both John Locke\u2019s \u201cTwo Treatises of Civil Government\u201d and Rousseau’s \u201cSocial Contract,\u201d two works with which they were familiar, most especially including James Madison who served a key role in defining the architecture of our government. Our founding documents reflect principles that define the moral backbone of America. Jefferson\u2019s Declaration and the Constitution\u2019s Preamble and first ten Amendments (which mirror Britain\u2019s Bill of Rights) are moral guidelines for both American citizens and our elected officials. They should guide the political and legal framework for a just society (reference, \u201cDemocracy and the Just Society<\/a>\u201d).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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George Washington was not an advocate for political parties which he feared would result in factions fighting for power and self-interest. He understood both the nature of man and the ideals heralded in America\u2019s founding documents. Since that nature and those documents are still with us today, we are and will always be battling the contention between our nature and our ideals. Each generation will face this challenge and must resolve this contention in the light of our democratic ideals. The political pantomime described here is politics played at its lowest level of crass self-interest. Both voters and candidates for office too often reduce the American democracy to just one or two objectives, like the election of a charismatic President or the promise of a strong economy. Well, how far has charisma taken Donald Trump? He has dedicated followers but has never gained majority support in either of his two campaigns or in any poll since 2015. And how has the Republican Party faired as the self-declared agent of strong economies? Well, since the death of Franklin Roosevelt until the Presidency of Barack Obama, not one Republican President has achieved the highest growth in gross domestic product, the highest growth in jobs, the biggest increase in personal disposable income after taxes, the highest growth in industrial production, the highest growth in hourly wages, the lowest misery index (inflation plus unemployment), the lowest inflation, and the largest reduction in the deficit.\u00b2<\/span>\u00a0Although both Parties subscribe to the statement, \u201cIt\u2019s the economy, stupid,\u201d only the Republicans have disingenuously claimed success in this regard without ever realizing any such success. Only Democratic Presidents did so. And that fact flies in the face of the laws of probability, unless . . .<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, as the Greek playwright Agathon once wrote, \u201cIt is probable that many things should happen contrary to probability.\u201d \u00b3<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

1<\/span> Oliver Wendell Holmes addressed how jurisprudence should recognize how liberty must reflect a dominant opinion. He said, \u201cmy agreement or disagreement<\/span> has nothing to do with the right of a majority to embody their opinions in law. . .. I think the word liberty in the 14<\/span>th<\/span> amendment is perverted when it is held to prevent the natural outcome of a dominant opinion.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

2<\/span> The San Francisco Chronicle, Insight (insert), October 19, 2008. (No comparable analysis was found for the Obama or Trump Presidencies. But Obama managed the country out of a recession he inherited. And Trump\u2019s Covid policies were disastrous for the economy. While Biden has had historic job growth as he led the country out of the Covid epidemic, his stimulus package has resulted in historic inflation. But his overall economic record is still being written as the results of his infrastructure and anti-inflation legislation are implemented. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

3<\/span> As quoted by Aristotle in his \u201cPolitics & Poetics,\u201d Translated by Benjamin Jowett and S. H. Butcher, Easton Press, p. 314.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pantomime was an ancient form of human communication that found artistic expression in early Greek theatre where silent actors communicated mostly with actions while a background chorus provided the underlying theme. In our modern political pantomime, the players are candidates for public office who perform at podiums often with flaying arms and loud protestations, usually […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-domesticissues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3UqUK-rb","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aculpableinnocence.com\/home5\/aculpabl\/anthony_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aculpableinnocence.com\/home5\/aculpabl\/anthony_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aculpableinnocence.com\/home5\/aculpabl\/anthony_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aculpableinnocence.com\/home5\/aculpabl\/anthony_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aculpableinnocence.com\/home5\/aculpabl\/anthony_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1685"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/aculpableinnocence.com\/home5\/aculpabl\/anthony_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1688,"href":"https:\/\/aculpableinnocence.com\/home5\/aculpabl\/anthony_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1685\/revisions\/1688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aculpableinnocence.com\/home5\/aculpabl\/anthony_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aculpableinnocence.com\/home5\/aculpabl\/anthony_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aculpableinnocence.com\/home5\/aculpabl\/anthony_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}