Political Perspective

The recent fervor of the political marketplace has me thinking about this particular time and place in the whole of human history. As this candidate or that pleads his/her case, reads laundry lists of all that ails us and tells us who to blame, scares us into believing that anyone else in power will lead America to certain ruin, I find myself weighted by pessimism and a bleak vision of the future. Perhaps worse, I find myself believing them.

Allow me now to take a step back, regain perspective, and offer you all one of the more reassuring (or terrifying) political theories I have proposed to date: it’s a show, a façade, a vaudevillian farce by the powers that (wish to) be for the benefit of the masses (us).

In reality, it matters very little who is elected to the presidency in 2008. In the American political system no one individual can expect to redefine the landscape on the grand scale promised during campaign season. Hillary won’t get universal health care (she already tried once when Bill was in office and failed miserably). Barack won’t either. McCain won’t pass sweeping immigration legislation. Huckabee won’t forever abolish homosexual marriage (like Bush, he may only succeed in delaying the inevitable).

So why the election season circus? Why is the issue treated as a matter of life or death?

Because we need symbolic figures to take the reins, to assure us that under their watch we’ll be ok, that their respective policies will mend our wounds. We need them like a child needs a blanket (thanks to Fergie for ruining that metaphor) even though it’s become too threadbare to actually keep him warm (does extending the metaphor make it better?). They are our security, our comfort. Without our politicians we have no one to tell us what to fear and no one to protect us from these promised threats. Politicians are our anchors. Without them we are nothing more than individuals loosely affiliated by imagined borders indiscriminately blown by the whims of fate and chance.

But the truth is that America, like all great historical empires, is a product of the masses. We appoint leaders to act as representatives, but whatever control they maintain is an illusion, and whatever power they’re given can be stripped away as soon as the masses realize it’s theirs to take (think The French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the fall of the Soviet Union, etc.).

For another perspective, think of the monumentally positive movements that long outlived their respective representatives: slavery was not reinstituted when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. The Civil Rights Movement went on after Martin Luther King Jr.’s death.

The point is this: history and the masses elevate otherwise unexceptional men to “greatness,” but what we need to understand is that the masses (us) are the force that affects change, not the individuals we have appointed to represent us. What they do in DC is a stage show for the benefit of the news media. Change starts in communities, in neighborhoods, in schools and on the streets. The catalysts for change are disenfranchised yet inexplicably hopeful men and women who seek to alleviate suffering around them; men and women who posses a vague sense of having been cast aside by the very leaders they elected to be their voice, but still desire to positively impact humanity.

America’s economy will rise and fall. International opinion will change with the seasons. Wars will end and new wars will replace them. And America, like all empires, will one day fall. This is the cyclical nature of history, of time.

So what does this mean for the democratic process? Should we ignore it? Boycott it? Remain indifferent?

Not this year.

Throughout the nominating process I’ve been an ardent supporter of Barack Obama, but I wasn’t always able to explain my enthusiasm. I now can. Barack Obama is the one candidate who recognizes that a nation is a community on a large scale, existing only because of its citizens (all of them). America can be no more and can be no less. While the other candidates are splitting demographics, specifying their appeal to specific race, age or gender groups, Barack is staking his campaign on the wild theory that he can unite all to move towards a common good.

As I’ve said, none of the candidates are capable of fulfilling their campaign promises. But Barack Obama is capable of mobilizing the masses.

Thanks for reading.