Michael Gurstein on 16 Dec 2000 15:11:38 -0000 |
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[Nettime-bold] America's Sucker-in-Chief |
> The Financial Times Thursday December 14 , 2000 > > America's Sucker-in-Chief > > by Thomas Frank > > After a decade choked with fake populisms - presidents munching Big > Macs, national leaders emoting at town hall meetings, chief executives > listening to focus groups and online chat rooms, and every billionaire the > object of his own grass-roots movement - it finally came down to this: an > election in which the power and righteousness of the common people > were everywhere celebrated and in which only the power and > righteousness and almighty millions of the corporation mattered. > > Formally, of course, there were important differences in the way the > two candidates tried to talk the language of the working class. Al Gore > made a half-hearted effort to summon up the blue-collar fire that was > once the Democrats' most reliable weapon. His efforts, though, were > compromised both by his obvious unfamiliarity with the concerns of > working families and, more glaringly, by his own record. > > Bill Clinton had used the same workerist language back in 1992; > within three years his administration had joined in the Republican war on > the New Deal, deregulating here, privatising there, abolishing welfare and > allowing antitrust enforcement to go so slack that the greatest wave of > mergers and conglomerations in the nation's history was soon under way. > Mr Gore's sheepish, late-blooming populism was, in other words, more > than a little hamstrung by his lengthy and conspicuous service on behalf > of the nation's financial elite. > > George W. Bush's populism, meanwhile, suffered from no such > contradictions. An utterly unrepentant son of privilege, he embraced a > novel and purely American vision of the class struggle, a market populism > according to which it is one's attunement to the needs of business that > signals one's sympathy for the working man. > > Market populism is an idea that one encounters everywhere in the US > these days. In understanding markets as democracies far more vital than > our formal electoral system, market populism hails internet billionaires as > hierarchy-smashing revolutionaries; it portrays stock markets as > parliaments and small investors as militant sans-culottes; it understands > corporate raiders as activists and chief executives as tribunes of the > people; it interprets every hit film, every popular TV show, every best- > seller as a transparent expression of the general will. > > For George W. Bush, the charmingly illiterate offspring of the oil > industry, market populism is an idea so natural that it requires little > explanation. Completely untroubled in his faith that the perspective of his > class is also the perspective of the common people, he instinctively > believes that capitalists stand united with workers in righteous battle > against a mutual enemy, the taxing, regulating, profit-reducing know-it-alls > > of what he reviles, simply, as "government". > > Market populism is not primarily a product of political thought. It is, > rather, a populism constructed largely by business itself - through > advertising, management theory, the literature of the bull market - and > this is why Mr Bush's campaign so frequently sounded like a > advertisement for an investment company or the latest best-selling > demand that the Dow Jones ascend immediately to 36,000. > > But this was an election decided on issues of attitude and personal > bearing and that was where Mr Bush's market populism was at its most > effective. Americans were encouraged to support the Bush heir's claim to > the throne not so much because of his specific policies but because of his > "humility", because his struggle was said to be identical with that of the > nobodies in their battle with the intellectual elites - the people who > obnoxiously try to bend the world to their will without going through the > good offices of the market. > > Stop to think about Mr Bush's market populism for more than a few > seconds and you realise it is delusional stuff, a deliberate effort to > humanise the real masters of the world we live in. These are the same > truly arrogant corporations that have polarised the distribution of US > wealth to a degree unknown in our lifetimes, that would pay workers > nothing and dump toxic sludge freely if they could get away with it and > that also happen to have bankrolled both candidates' campaigns. > > In this climate of pervasive dishonesty, what seems to have made the > difference was sincerity. Mr Gore mouthed the honest language of > workerist populism when he had no right to do so; Mr Bush spoke a > degraded language of corporate populism that he seemed to believe > without hesitation. > > There is something about the man that makes him a perfect specimen > of the age. While Al Gore was a technocrat, everyone knows that the real > credit for the great bull market goes to simple, uncomplicated believers > like Mr Bush, the ones who faithfully swallowed the TV commercials, who > bought at the top, who gaped at the internet just as they were told to do. > > This is an age of faith in the US - the more guileless the better - and in > George W. Bush, America has found itself a sucker-in-chief. > > The writer is editor of The Baffler magazine > _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold