The pixilation of American democracy

The NY Times's notoriously astute Timothy Egan looks at America's political crackpot mecca, Arizona, what with its Sherlock secretary of state, its Maricopa sheriff of Nuttingham, and its frightfully pixilated grifter of a governor, and concludes that

There’s no mystery what a nation run by the Tea Party and talk-radio zealots who’ve taken over the G.O.P. would look like. It would be Arizona.

Well, that, or the U.S. House of Representatives majority, among whom progress is abhorrent, the status quo is unendurable, and the mythical past of a John Galtian Ozzie Nelson is hugged by the eye-twinkling pixilation of a Gov. Jan Brewer.

What did we do to deserve this? Egan says "The people who now control [Arizona] are proof of the old saying that in a democracy, voters get what they deserve"--meaning it's not so much what most voters did, as what they didn't do: vote.

It's a bit cruel to tell voters who actually took the time to vote and perhaps even registered other voters and worked at the polls and canvassed neighborhoods and licked envelopes and manned phone banks and in general surpassed the electoral elan of even Andy Jacksonian troopers that they got what they deserved--unless of course they labored for the triumphantly pixilated Galtians.

And therein lies a gross and rather curious disequilibrium of late. Right-wing crackpots aren't so disillusioned with the Haydenesque participatory democracy they despise with their Adorno-like authoritarian personalities that they reject its very real potential. No, they mobilize and vote--like they mean it. Everyone else, not so much; not even potentially and not even when in the hideous grip of some of the most horrifying crackpotdom around. Here, for instance, we should look not at Arizona, but to Wisconsin, the birthplace of progressivism, where a manifestly monstrous swindler of a right-winging governor can nonetheless justifiably envision a recall victory.

It's a fascinating, if profoundly demoralizing, conundrum. In American democracy a decided minority of anti-government zealots is determining the government we have, while the by-rights controlling majority is letting slip the government they demand. And in that, the majority would seem to be as pixilated as the minority.

Comments

[Robert Lipscomb]

Your post dovetails with a recent NYT article that reported on the Obama campaign's alternative to the GOP strategy of using GOP super-PACs to carpet bomb the airwaves with negative ads. According to the article, big-money Democrat supporters are loathe to duplicate the GOP strategy otheir general principle against Citizens united.

Apparently, the Obama campaign is investing heavily on grassroots organization in an effort to get out the vote. In a perfect world, I would have them do both, but that does not seem to be an option.

i have spent ten years screaming for the dems to invest in grassroots organization. So, I am hypocritical when I now look upon the campaign's decision to to take "my advice".

Do you or any of the the others have an opinion about this reported strategic decision?

[Marc McKenzie]

@Robert: The Obama campaign used the same strategy--heavily invest in and support grassroots organizations--back in 2008. Which was, frankly, the best thing to do, since it finally took care of a major weak spot of not only Democrats, but liberals in general.

And what PM spoke about is the cold, harsh truth. For years, the Right Wing has organized, hit the grassroots and local levels, and gotten people to vote--against their own interests, of course, but they went and voted. It seems that they read Alinsky's "Rules For Radicals", but that the people who _should_ have read and used that book did not. Take a look at the Occupy Movement today, for instance.

Sadly, the GOP and the Right Wing are not afraid of getting their hands on the levers of power. They are not afraid of getting into the political arena. On the other hand, we who call ourselves liberal or Progressive have to get over our revulsion and fear of politics and understand that nothing will be changed unless we get into the system and fix it from the inside, not by standing in a park and waving a few signs and screaming that "both parties are the same!".

President Obama and a few hard-headed realists understand this. Why can't others like Michael Moore and Cornell West?

[57andFemale]

I've been long overdue in telling you how much I love your writing and your insights. You are a true treasure, PM.

[Peter G]

I think the idea of a super rich lottery to which one gets a ticket by voting is an intriguing idea.

[Robert Lipscomb]

@MarcMckensie: I was raised in a lower class household: the first half with union steward parents in Detroit; the second half with the same parents but as southern farmers/sweat shop factory workers.

I was taught that Jimmy Hoffa was a hero, even though he was mobbed-up and certainly ruthless. But that was why he was considered a hero to my father. he would ask, "Do you think the rich guys are gonna let go of their monet without a fight?"

I am not suggesting that we mobbed-up, but taking power away from the powerful is not for the feint of heart.

Thus, I continue to repeat, "Organize. Organize. Organize."

[Marc McKenzie]

@Robert: "I am not suggesting that we mobbed-up, but taking power away from the powerful is not for the feint of heart.

Thus, I continue to repeat, "Organize. Organize. Organize.""

Well said, Robert. Well said.