Undemocratic elections

Introduction
The fallout from the Lieberman controversy and the Mexican impasse raises this question: do elections resolve policy differences? In the New York Times, Presidential candidate Andres Obrador complained that the Mexican election was uncertain on account of fraud and manipulation. The Bandit was selected in 2000 under a similar cloud. Conservatives have flooded North American political markets with propaganda. Their advertising methods and arguments use psychological techniques to bring about voter responses with a high level of certainty. Has individual choice been rendered meaningless? What should we do about it?

Introduction

The fallout from the Lieberman controversy and the Mexican impasse raises this question: do elections resolve policy differences?

In the New York Times, Presidential candidate Andres Obrador complained that the Mexican election was uncertain on account of fraud and manipulation. The Bandit was selected in 2000 under a similar cloud. Conservatives have flooded North American political markets with propaganda. Their advertising methods and arguments use psychological techniques to bring about voter responses with a high level of certainty.

Has individual choice been rendered meaningless? What should we do about it?

The commonly accepted model of democracy was invented over 200 years ago, after a lengthy incubation in Europe. This model assumes each person is capable of making an independent assessment of the factors leading to a decision, and that the decision is made freely. In other words, people have "free will," or, as I would say, they are capable of voluntary choice.

On the other hand, in the Twentieth Century we learned a great deal about human psychology. As a result, people have been brainwashed, programmed and de-programmed. Zombification is no longer the stuff of fiction and jokes. We have a common expression, "pushing buttons," which expresses the notion that people can be made to act as automatons. Propagandists (modern practitioners of the ancient art of rhetoric) have filled an armory with increasingly effective tools of persuasion and manipulation. There is little doubt that most people will succumb to the deadly embrace of trained propagandists. That is why soldiers are now trained not to feel guilty when they are captured and "broken" under interrogation. It may be honorable to die rather than tell, but it is just as honorable to resist interrogation by telling lies and giving indirection, only finally telling the truth to save oneself. (The strategy is to confuse the enemy.) Those in the clutches of propagandists must know how to cope in order to escape and live.

In recent Canadian and Mexican elections, the same conservative propagandists at work in the United States have now extended their reach. The common method of intrusion is television, which those professionals have mastered. Mexican President-elect Calderon's campaign, for example, was almost totally TV ads. Calderon spent very little time with ordinary people, but a lot of time with influential and wealthy backers and political consultants. While Calderon's success could be looked upon as the drive of one man or a party to get elected, that picture would not be complete. The methods and organizations that worked on his election are the same ones that elected the Bandit. In other words, conservatives have built a global political machine. That is an unprecedented achievement.

The premise of conservative politics is exactly that people can be instructed to follow their orders. Since conservatives prefer the established order, and promote authoritarian principles and practices, their campaign methods are fully consistent with their fundamental beliefs. From the conservative point of view, the only issue is how to gain and ensure compliance. In the old days, that was done by sheer force: a permanent reign of terror over impoverished people. Since that is no longer feasible, the same result is brought about by more subtle methods. They discovered television is a very good tool for mind control.

This leaves opponents of conservatism in a difficult position, since the forms of democracy are observed but the result is constrained. The Democratic party, now led by Howard Dean, has decided to rebuff the conservative assault with similar tactics. In the war of fighting fire with fire, the electorate is assumed to respond robotically en masse to certain commands. Those commands are communicated by enchanting advertising broadcast on television. Since both sides seek to command a response by pressing the appropriate buttons at just the right time, the election is not about the intentions of the button pushers.

In such political campaigns, only virtual issues are noticeable and contested; actual issues and personalities are irrelevant. Thus, in his campaign to get elected by the Recall mechanism, Arnold Schwarzenegger presented himself in his mythic Hollywood personality, the Terminator, not as his real, everyday self. He continues to use that methodology, making it difficult to raise real issues (even corrupt practices). Once people have "bought" the virtual world, they tend to reject any conflicting evidence. The task of opponents is doubled: they must not only destroy a virtual world, but create another to replace it. Opposition usually only succeeds when the controllers of the dominant image make major mistakes and are unable to patch the flaws. Bill Clinton's armour with Monica was such an uncorrectable flaw. The correct handling would have been immediate admission; in effect saying 'What a stud am I!' Being uncowed leaves the audience stunned and reduces opposition maneuvering room. What's at stake is who controls the image, not its content.

Media wars are won by money and clever talents. The electorate always gives over power. Whoever wins those gladiatorial contests, the voters are mere observers, never participants until it is time for thumbs up or down. In such contests, the electorate does not control who are the contestants, the setting of the battle, the weapons to be used or the epithets to be hurled. All that and more is scripted. What might be going on outside our TV Colliseum is irrelevant. This fact suggests what the solutions might be.

The electoral structure needs to be changed. Ancient Athenians and New Englanders practice direct democracy which resists media elections The most important reason for that resistance is the flesh and blood meeting: real people must encounter other real people. In that environment, there is no way to make of the attendees anything but what they are. Similarly, there is no way to make of what is to be decided anything but what is at stake. If the question is fixing potholes, it is plain enough whose potholes would be fixed and who will pay for it. The Town Meeting works because real people and real issues are unavoidable; they are what is there.

So, one way to avoid media elections is to break the elections into small, personal groups. The decisions would be made by those present and voting. Each decision would be supported and opposed by real people who have a stake in it. In such meetings, votes are usually by public roll call, which means each elector expects to be held publically accountable for his or her actions. That visible personal responsibility makes a huge difference in the results. Of itself, the public ballot can defeat media campaigns, unless the voters have already been zombified. (The danger is that Nazis, Leninist Communists and others have used public meetings to intimidate the electorate into conformity.)

It might be objected that recent elections have too many candidates and items to be handled in a public meeting. The answer is simple enough: hold meetings over a period of several days. That's what they do in New England. Democracy does take time as well as thought.

Quick elections and snap decisions are an argument for tyranny.