Sam Smith
With television, politics
moved from Washington to Hollywood. The first beneficiary of this was Jack
Kennedy, a handsome, unaccomplished senator whose ambitions were propelled by a
wealthy father of few restraints.
With television the voters’
relationship with politicians changed dramatically. It was no longer a matter
of stories formed in a community, favors
done for friends, or reports in the morning paper. Now the politician became a
theatrical icon to be judged the ability to create a comfortable fantasy for a
black and white screen. Kennedy was exceptionally good at it.
The shift from politics as
a craft crammed with complexity and growing out of a community's experiences
and myths towards a story externally controlled by those with little history or
contact with the voter was a phenomenon of which Kennedy was the first
beneficiary. His debate with Nixon, for example, was a clash of images and not
ideas.
Talking with NPR, historian
Robert Dallek said, “I think the most important moment was in that first
television debate with Richard Nixon, when Kennedy came across as
presidential,"
Given that Kennedy had few
political achievements and few proposals that varied markedly from Nixon, how
did he accomplish this?
Dallek said, “As someone
who was poised, who was witty, charming, handsome and deserved to be president
of the United States."
This was not some fan boy
speaking but a historian outlining what would be come to be the standard for
someone “deserving” to be president of the United States.
Similarly, in a recent two
hour program on Kennedy’s assassination on CNN, “handsome” was the most common
adjective used to describe the president.
After her husband's assassination,
Jackie Kennedy directly infused more of the theatrical into the story with the
Camelot metaphor. The media quickly bought into it and thereafter became more
than glad to supplant facts in political coverage with whatever fantasy was
handy.
At least three of our
subsequent presidents - Reagan, Clinton and Obama - were beneficiaries of TV soap
operas concocted by organizations and the media that in no way adequately
revealed either their roots or their reality.
And now we’re headed for
2016 with Hillary Clinton’s corrupt and dishonest past carefully hidden by the
media as we’re told to get ready for the first woman president.
Then we have rightwing
stars like Ted Cruz, who comes out of nowhere (and significantly the son of an
evangelical TV hustler). These
candidates are transformed into potential presidents for no other reason than
the media tells us so.
None of this would have
been possible without television.
And the money behind it.
From Joe Kennedy to the
Koch brothers, vast sums going to TV advertising and the public relations
manipulation of media stories, have caused massive damage to our political
system. Even when the former system was corrupt, it at least included serious feudal
obligations to voters. Today, constituents are owed nothing. They are no longer
to be served or represented, but only manipulated.
A 2010 Los Angeles Timesstory by Meg James described it well:
For
California TV stations, particularly those in Los Angeles, the midterm election
has led to a gold-rush mentality. One campaign organizer said the cost of a
30-second TV spot has been soaring in the final days before Tuesday's election.
A spot that went for $2,000 two years ago is going for $5,000 today.
Analysts
who track political spending predict that TV stations nationwide will rake in
two-thirds of the campaign dollars this year — about $2 billion. Commercial
radio, another old-media staple, is expected to collect $250 million. At least
$650 million will be spent on direct mail campaigns, those glossy fliers now
filling mailboxes.
Internet
sites should fetch about $50 million, less than 2% of the total.
"Television
delivers a mass audience in a short amount of time and you don't have that same
assurance with the Internet," said Wayne Johnson, president of Wayne
Johnson Agency in Sacramento, which advises Republican candidates.
Several
factors have contributed to this year's gusher, including a U.S. Supreme Court
ruling in January that now allows unlimited campaign spending by corporations
and unions. In August, a low-profile Federal Election Commission decision
opened the door for donors to pool their money and give anonymously, which
produced a bumper crop of ads from nonprofit political groups and committees
trying to influence voters.
Because television
campaigning has been with us more than fifty years, it is easy to shrug and
say, well, that’s the way it goes. But do we really want to live in a country
led by those whose politics are so distant from what they claim? Where
television reporters have no small part of their salary derived during a
campaign from the very people they are supposed be reporting objectively about?
Or where this money not only picks the candidates but brain washes the public
into thinking that it is those who are sufficiently handsome and charming who deserve
to be president?
When historians attempt to
figure out what caused America’s collapse as a democracy, an economy and a
culture, high on the list of perps will be that it all went down the tube while
we were watching the tube.
