The Fact About Fact
You have to hand it them–the Republicans have been incredibly successful in dismantling the concept of objective evidence or fact. In this campaign (just as in 2004 and 2000), it’s not facts that matter. It’s feelings. It’s emotions. It’s who would make a better drinking buddy or hockey mom.
This article from the Washington Post sums it up nicely:
As Campaign Heats Up, Untruths Can Become Facts Before They’re Undone - washingtonpost.com via kwout
This is the theme we see over and over and over again. In the unholy alliance between the big two parties and their big media friends, politics have degraded into “he said/he said” juvenile bickering with no adult supervision. No one is being held to any standard of honesty or integrity. Fact has become nothing but a four letter word.
In my mind, this election is as much a referendum on the American electorate’s ability for rational analysis as it is a contest between McCain and Obama. I really hope that fact still have a place in our Democracy. Because once we give up on that, what do we have left?
Filed under culture, education, politics : Comments (1) : Sep 10th, 2008 by tadfad
September 10th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Marketeers have long understood that 80% of the population make decisions not based upon evidence or fact, but upon the emotional response generated by the message.
In a wonderful article entitled “Pissed about Palin,” (http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/09/10/palin_feminism/index.html) Cintral Wilson does a great job exploring this phenomenon. Her description of Palin is awesome: “Damn, a hyperconservative, fuckable, Type A, antiabortion, Christian Stepford wife in a ’sexy librarian’ costume — as a vice president? That’s a brilliant stroke of horrifyingly cynical pandering to the Christian right. Karl Rove must be behind it.”
She concludes “The Republicans are, in effect, saying: We’re not going to win this race on the basis of being the better candidates. Barack Obama is going to make you think. You don’t like thinking. Here’s an It Girl vice president who is easy on the eyes, you stodgy old white baby boomer. She’s like a grown-up version of Mary Ann from “Gilligan’s Island.” She embodies the raw conviction that everything the Republicans have ever done has been right. She’ll make you feel better about yourself for voting for Bush. Twice.”
A brilliant, cynical and fact-free selection.