An Electorate in the Wilderness?

Woodrow Wilson won reelection in 1916 by hawking the dovish campaign slogan, "He kept us out of war." He ultimately did not, of course, and the public's subsequent disillusionment with America's interventionism led it to profoundly re-endorse FDR's 1940 promise that he would "not send American boys into any foreign wars."

Roosevelt's was little more than a rephrasing of Wilson's: He has kept us out of war, he is keeping us out of war, and he will continue to keep us out of war. That didn't quite work out, but the point is, America's sentiment for war throughout most of the 20th century was decidedly negative. And its politicians played to that sentiment. We fancied ourselves a peaceful breed, happy to go our own way and let the world do the same. "No more war" was the one promise from political leaders sure to grab our hearts and minds.

Contrast that history with today. Or, to be a bit more pointed, contrast that history with what the Republican Party is hawking today. Keeping us in war -- a vague, perpetual, virtually endless world war against the vague enemy of a tactic -- is the once-isolationist GOP's promise to America. It's on its masthead, it's in its blood, it litters its rhetoric.

For the GOP, gone is the bottom-up politics of the 20th century. Or, at least, the GOP wants it gone -- banished in perpetuity. What it has to sell is top-down fear, complete with Orwellian broadcasts on the big screen, full of dire warnings that unseen enemies threaten us everywhere. We must stay engaged, stay the course, stay unremittingly embroiled hither and yon.

What drives the party of perpetual war is merely, of course, a perpetual propaganda machine, every bit as ugly and pointless as Orwell's. We must win the war, although the war is amorphous. We must defeat the enemy, although he is just as amorphous. We must persevere, although the object of our perseverance is unattainable -- the eradication of a centuries-old political tactic.

Victory is at hand, so we cannot surrender, although the conflict will last for generations. Such is the GOP's "message." And just try squaring that circle.

Nevertheless that is today's Word from the top-down boys, and in this election they mean to make a fight for the eternal soul of America. They can't run on the economy, since they botched that up -- but good, so they mean to frame the contest as one in which one side defines America's character as endlessly triumphalist.

There is, however, nothing bottom-up about the effort, as politics was once played. The public has since forgotten why it is we have tens of thousands of troops slowly bleeding in the Middle East, so the GOP is launching a preemptive, frontal assault on the public's memory. Its top-down, coordinated attack is a propagandistic wonder to behold. Oceania's Big Brotherhood would drool with envy.

The warmonger in chief is already in the game, re-hammering the prefabricated message that this election will "present the country with a stark ideological choice at a time of war." The co-chief of warmongering has also hit the stumps, casting about what you might call a kind of hopeful doom: "The important thing for all of us to remember is that six and a half years after 9/11, the war on terror is still very real, that it will not be won on the defensive, and that we have to proceed on many fronts at the same time."

The presumptive propagandist is at it already, as well, mapping a course of nine solid months of framing not America, but his party, as determined victor: "If we had announced a date for withdrawal from Iraq and withdrawn troops the way that Senator Obama and Senator Clinton want to do, al Qaeda would be celebrating that they had defeated the United States of America and that we surrendered ... I will never surrender." Not "we," but I, the political equivalent of a warring godhead.

And naturally all the might-have-been presumptive propagandists are falling in line, joining the GOP orchestra's tune that they, too, will never "surrender to terror."

From here on out, from now till Election Day, the GOP will strive to make every day seem like September 12, 2001. It is already propagandistically strident almost beyond belief. Said the presumptive one just yesterday: "We all know what will happen to the United States of America if the wrong party wins in November."

Sorry, I'm afraid I don't. But thanks for the warning.

The message contained another warning, however -- one not quite as helpfully intended, and for the other side. If the opposition nominates a candidate who was somewhat unclear on the need for top-down direction from the beginning, that "stark ideological choice" that the chief warmonger spoke about will, in fact, be something dramatically less than stark. And the top-down boys won't let the electorate forget it.

Comments

[GOPHater]

Bush and Cheney are war criminals who should be in prison awaiting execution for war crimes, treason, murder, torture, violations of the U. S. Constitution and violations on International Law.

[Jim]

Ron Paul 2008

[mk]

Let's put the neocons on the front lines, with the same equipment that is given to the troops. I bet Condi would look lovely in Army green.

[Realist]

It isn't just the Republican Party that glories in war. Ever since this nation defeated fascism in 1945, war has been the raison d'etre for just about everything American, domestic and international. To boost this lifestyle and belief system in the populace, we are raised to revel in death and destruction through games and play, through "patriotic" songs, "entertainment", politics, and through our education.

The history of WWII is edited down to Pearl Harbor, D-Day, and Hiroshima (with a short nod to Showa), which tells the message that "they hit us first, so we hit back much harder." As a result, even the simplest mind can grasp the desired understanding of America's "role" in the world.

That "role" is what the Bush administration is attempting to achieve, and with the help of the Quisling Democrats, they are well on their way to doing so.

Sieg Heil!

[Bill McWilliams]

Speaking of "an electorate in the wilderness", I'm sorry to have to say that by failing or refusing to
acknowledge the fact that 9/11 was an inside job, it's difficult to take Mr. Carpenter's analysis seriously.

After all, the illegal invasions, wars, dismantling and curtailing of
our rights, the deepening state of our economy and standard of living, all accelerated after the
9/11 false-flag operation.

Johnson used the fake Gulf of Tonkin lie to justify expanding the war in Vietnam and the bush Administration has just recently been caught trying a similar lie
about the Iranians.

Who will tell the people? So far,
not Mr. Carpenter, that's for sure.

[John]

I’m not sure what to be more afraid of the terrorism inflicted upon us by al Qaeda or the terrorism inflicted upon us by George Bush and the Republican party. So far though, it looks as though the master chimp and his mindless drones have the upper hand. If anything, going into Iraq created an environment where al Qaeda could flourish. This dim witted man diluted our capabilities by leaving Afghanistan and going into Iraq thus exposing our limitations to our adversaries. Now Afghanistan is heating up in a major way and Pakistan is unraveling as well. All because the idiot in power is a one dimensional man trying to comprehend a multidimensional world and failing miserably. So instead of seeing the world for what it is, he sees it for what he wants it to be, and repackages the turd with tortured linguistic acrobatics.

[Big M]

Message to "realist:" This country defeated fascism? Check this out: http://www.swans.com/library/art8/gowans26.html

[Realist]

This country certainly did defeat fascism, Big M! The control no longer resides in Berlin, Rome,or Tokyo. As of September of 1945, it moved to the New York-Washington-Kennebumkport Axis.

By the way - your link doesn't work. Hard to convince someone of your point when that happens.

[beamer]

oh my.which corporate hand puppet shall i support?
in all things american&political one question needs be asked:cui bono?...who benefits?...follow the money,we are the united states of exxon/mobil..

[Elmer]

Well said, even if Congress cut funds for the War, Bush would ignore it with a signing statement.

[The Oracle]

"Said the presumptive one just yesterday: "We all know what will happen to the United States of America if the wrong party wins in November."

Too bad Democrats didn't use this Terror Card against Bush and Cheney in 2000, because I'm certain that a President Gore's administration in early 2001 would have gone after bin Laden and al Qaeda in Afghanistan once it was determined (in January 2001) that these right-wing religious terrorists were behind the U.S.S. Cole attack...and a President Gore would have kept Clinton's excellent counter-terrorism effort in place and thwarted the 9/11 hijackers.

Oh, and another way of describing Bush's highly illegal "signing statements" is to call them what they really are: line-item vetoes. Of course, Congress has never constitutionally or legislatively given any president this authority, but the rogue Republicans in the Bush administration seized on this illegal scam anyway as a way to get around constitutional congressional mandates. Bush and Cheney should have been impeached a long, long time ago.