By Ronald Austin
The Republican Conven-tion is over. As I write, the Democratic Convention is about to begin. It has already seen and heard the soaring oratory of Michelle Obama and other rising stars such as Julian Castro, Cory Booker and Deval Patrick. The two princes of oratory are to take the stage on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. Yet, for anyone minimally literate in the current politics of the United States, it would be foolhardy to believe that these conventions will have a decisive impact on the thinking and decisions of the electorate.
It bears repeating that this is a deeply divided voting demographic. There is only a sliver of independent voters to persuade, and perhaps, some of the white male voters. It is no surprise, therefore, that Mitt Romney and his political cohorts did not get a significant “bounce,” as is usually the case after their convention, and the Democrats might suffer the same fate. I, therefore, turn my attention elsewhere.
Anyone following this current presidential election must be impressed by the sophistication and complexity of the media infrastructure that surrounds it. It is really amazing to see, for example, that even as Michelle Obama spoke more than a thousand tweets were going out every second.
There is also the constant and febrile activity on Facebook and the traditional media outlets. The information about candidates, policies, personalities and what the Americans call the “back story” are analyzed, sliced and diced to the point that one is hard put to identify the core significance of any event or development. What is interesting here is that one would have thought that with this consistent and persistent flow of information there would have been a greater impact on the electorate. Not so at all.
The greater the information flow or the availability of hard facts, the more the different elements of the electorate cling to their pre-determined choices.
Because of the array and scope of the information superstructure, people tend to place themselves in a particular segment of it and very rarely move into other areas where comparative information may be available. For example, Republicans and right-wing members of the electorate get their news and information from Fox 5, individuals of extreme views such as Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck. They never, or only occasionally, consult the more liberal news channels such as MSNBC and CNN. Each segment of the electorate seems to exist in its own bubble. And the divisions in the information domain parallel those in the realm of politics. A politician does not have to be fearful that anything he says will be challenged once he stays on his side of the line.
It is now that political scientists, commentators and not a few politicians are beginning to appraise the phenomenon, more usually encountered in the activities of the masters of the Kremlin or the pages of 1984: politicians go on repeating a lie, even after it has been demonstrated that they are wrong.
The chief culprits are the Republicans. However, as I shall show, the Democrats can be just as careless with the facts. Whether this will help both political parties is of less consequence than the harm it can pose to American democracy. In the words of the former Secretary of Labour in the Clinton administration, Robert Reich: “Democracy cannot thrive where the truth becomes irrelevant. To the contrary, history teaches that this is where the demogogues take root.” This criticism was aimed at the Republicans but it can be applied to some Democrats.
Mr Paul Ryan, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, is a serial offender. His facts have repeatedly been challenged but he continues to repeat them. Mitt Romney is most cavalier with facts in his determination to gain the White House. The position of the Romney campaign is summed up by one of its pollsters, Neil Newhouse: “We are not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers…” I have not heard anyone ask Mr Newhouse by what standard of truth the Romney campaign will be conducted. The fact checkers came into being precisely to ensure that while the politicians are entitled to their own opinions they are not entitled to their own facts.
They hardly completed their soaring oratory in the Democratic National Convention than the Demo-crats were caught creating their own ‘facts.’ The keynote speaker, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, made the bold claim that 4.5 million new jobs had been created by the Obama administration. The fact of the matter is the economy has regained only 4 million jobs. Castro also claimed that the Romney and Ryan plan would “gut” Pell Grants for low income college students. This is not correct.
The Ryan budget calls for “limiting the growth” of spending on this programme. I have not as yet heard or read that the Democrats have made any correction. The Democrats are wont to accuse the Republicans of being careless with the facts and it is now for them to take the mote out of their own eye.
I raise the question about standard of truth in this campaign and the necessity for political parties to be careful in putting facts before the electorate, because after all it is upon the basis of these facts that the Americans will decide whether the Republicans or the Democrats will occupy the seat of the next government. To mislead the population is to invite them to make the wrong decisions which could be disastrous for their own country. As I have indicated before the question of telling the truth in this campaign does not stand alone. I have written about the blatant attempts to suppress potential Democratic votes by Republican-led administrations in several states.
Added to this is the rather disconcerting phenomenon of prominent politicians em-bracing some of the most backward policies and ideas, such as questioning evolution and climate change.
For decades the American democratic system has been crown jewel in its foreign policy. It has proclaimed this around the world and in fact has sent envoys into different countries to teach the natives how to conduct elections and build a democratic system. When the shouting and analyzing and propagandizing and the spending of vast monies come to an end and a decision is made on November 6, will it be said that American democracy is a model for the rest of the world?
