Facts versus Feelings

By William L. Garvin

Political campaigns are conducted on two levels; one is logical and the other is emotional.  As a society, we should be concerned about the shrinking role of the logical and the increasing emphasis on the emotional when it comes to critical decisions facing the nation.  Remember that this constitutional republic we practice as a democracy was predicated on the premise that votes would be cast by an informed citizenry.  With increasing frequency, this is not the case.

It doesn’t matter whether you are watching Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” segments or “Watters World” on Fox or listening to Howard Stern’s interviews on Sirius.  The inescapable conclusion is that far too many eligible voters know next to nothing about their responsibilities or the issues on which they will be voting.  In Mark Bauerlein’s book THE DUMBEST GENERATION, he recounts a Leno segment:  “Where does the Pope live?”  The answer: “England.”  Leno’s follow-up question:  “Where in England?”  The answer:  “Ummm, Paris.”  Hopefully, that person confines his or her voting participation to “American Idol” and “Dancing with the Stars.”

While the entertainment shows may be exhibiting isolated examples, Bauerlein notes that in a national history exam, 57 percent of high school seniors scored “below basic,” i.e., not even “possessing a partial mastery of prerequisite knowledge and skills that allow for proficient work.”  He also cites a report titled “The Coming Crisis in Citizenship” which tested 14,000 college freshmen and seniors in areas such as history, government, foreign relations, separation of church and state, federalism, women’s suffrage, the Bill of Rights and Martin Luther King.  The average score of the freshmen was 51.7—an F!    By the time they were seniors, their score had increased by only 1.5…still an F!

Given the general dumbing down of America, it is not surprising that politicians would adjust their campaign tactics accordingly.  If the voting population is unlikely to do any substantive research on candidate claims, why not run ads based on emotions?  Why not resort to blatant falsehoods such as “they want dirty air and dirty water!”  “They gonna put y’all back in chains!”  “They’ll throw Granny over the cliff.”  “They’ll take away your birth control and a woman’s right to choose.”  Even if it gets “Four Pinocchio’s,” most people will never read the fact check or think through the obvious sophistry.  This is especially true if the mainstream media has a dog in the fight.  Chances are, if they do any investigating or fact checking at all, it will be one sided on “their” opponent.

Compounding the problem is the cultural shift from a character ethic to a personality ethic.  If a candidate is “cool” and has a pleasant smile, it doesn’t matter what he actually does.  What he says is not as important as how he says it.  What he did is less important than what he says he did.  It doesn’t matter if you claim to be a victim of circumstances if you’re trying to enlist the votes of victims.  Why not talk about raising taxes if you’re trying to get the votes of people who pay no taxes?  Why not promise “free stuff” to lots of people if you’re going to pay for it with other people’s money?  Image is everything; honesty and integrity is an impediment.

Gasoline prices have doubled and unemployment has exceeded 8% for 43 straight months.  Fewer people are working now than when he took office and he can still claim to have “created” 4.3 million jobs.  He has increased the debt from $10.6 to over $16 trillion in less than four years and still claims to be fiscally conservative!

Surrogates like Stephanie Cutter can insinuate that Romney is a tax felon and Harry Reid can falsely charge on the Senate floor that Romney paid no taxes.  Cutter can coordinate a campaign ad that says Romney is responsible for a steel worker’s wife’s death and Susan Rice can say the death of our Libyan ambassador is all because of a movie trailer.

The Middle East goes up in flames and Obama’s foreign policy poll numbers go up.  GDP numbers for last quarter go down to a pathetic 1.25, food stamp recipients reach a record number of 47 million and Obama’s economic policy numbers go up.  So we see form without function.  We see style without substance.  We see movement without progress and flash without sizzle.   It looks more and more as if H.L. Mencken was right:  “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”