Redeeming the present by leveraging the future
Not an acceptable political strategy.
(Photo by Roy Muz for Unsplash)
July 15
Judging from the frown-like demeanor of White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre during a MSNBC video briefing, voting rights were erased today from the White House ‘to do’ priority list. The “dealmaking” would center now on getting the infrastructure bill passed. Across town: “Forget the filibuster,”reiterated bad-boy “DINO” Sen. Joe Manchin, exiting a meeting with Texan Democrats/voting suppression refugees at the Capitol on Thursday. Translation: Manchin won’t ‘move’ on voting rights legislation.
The Biden 2020 Presidential campaign strategy of “low expectations” has collapsed into “leveraging the future,” a positive twist on ‘kicking the can down the road.’ Politicians, particularly Democrats “should know better,” taking a page from recent political history. (Jamelle Bouie Op Ed, NYTimes, July 14) It’s a failed political strategy, harboring a fear of consequences, often misplaced. Not risk aversion but change aversion.
Democrats don’t ‘know better,’ and here’s the transcendent irony: Democrats argue that they should know better, because… well, ‘they know better.’ We hear this collective-serving attitude echoing through the sound stages of CNN and MSNBC.
This attitude is not furthering social progress.
Left to our collective imagination, America is suffering a kind of knowledge delusion. One part is addicted to false information and trafficked conspiracy “theory,” the other claims to “know better.” The conversation stops there. One part refuses to emotionally engage with the other, vying rather for the “takeaway moment.” Knowledge, let alone information, is not shared this way. And responsibility for creating this grim reality falls not just on our intellectual elites but also on the popularizers, the media news dumb-downers, who monetize “engagement.”
As example one, take the recent revelation that Russia rigged the 2016 American Presidential election. A polite summation: Russia influenced the 2020 Presidential election. A headline from a recent Manchester Guardian speaks to this issue:
Kremlin papers appear to show Putin’s plot to put Trump in White House
Let’s be frank: what do we really mean by “influenced,” by “appeared?” This is the language of “analysis-speak,” the language of non-engagement. In the effort to corral collective understanding, purveyors of non-engagement reduce the risk of self-reflection and urgency.
Where does influence come from, really?
Consider an alternative headline:
Trump appeased a global adversary to win the Presidency, Kremlin papers reveal.
Currently, the American public in various forms is debating whether democracy can coexist with a nascent inequality and unraveling social order. Apparently bridges and roads are more important. Obsession of the material has smoothed America’s socio-economic formation, but also undermined her moral character. This actuality has taken an ominous turn which is what we read in Jean-Pierre’s sighs: voting rights will be delayed; a future put on hold.
And democracy?
Relegated to “influence.”
July 17
