EQUAL-OPPORTUNITY LETDOWN

By Dermott McCallscreener

Republicans, of course, are allowed to love Sarah Palin. They’re allowed to love John McCain.

It’s not their support of their Party’s chosen candidates that makes me feel like tagging myself out of this pathetic wrestling match.

I can’t even say that I’m exclusively disappointed with “Republicans” or “conservatives”.

The soul-crushing fatigue I feel this morning goes deeper than that.

I’m disappointed with Americans. I’m disappointed with my country.

Although, really, I can’t say that I’m surprised.

I’ve been bulldozed for the past year with ceaseless media coverage of a trumped-up pissing contest masquerading as a democratic election.

I have never felt more disconnected from the American political process.

I have never been less certain that anyone in the federal government represents me in any way whatsoever, or is even casually interested in doing so.

I was always skeptical.

Now I’m convinced.

Something isn’t working.

At the risk of sounding like a pockmarked teenager who just discovered punk rock: the story we are sold about this country in social studies class is becoming impossible to keep down.

We are not being heard, none of us, from either side of the political aisle.

Pandered to, yes.

Studied in focus groups and then cravenly marketed to, yes.

But not heard.

We are being fed.

Some of us have enough sense to at least bare our teeth to the hand that feeds us.

Most of us love that hand. Pine for it. Deify it.

Everything ideal we see is co-opted, twisted and distorted to suit whoever happens to be spouting it.

One day, the talk is all about “political experience”. The next day, its all about “real life experience” – as if this is not something that all human beings have, but rather a quality to which one party (or one woman) can somehow lay exclusive claim.

Either way, we let the media decide who has which experience, and which matters more, and who we should love.

Obama’s accomplishments reduced to presiding over “community bake sales”.

Sarah Palin emerges as some kind of paragon of “real life”. As if we, as real people, need real life explained to us. And as if this woman, out of nowhere, has somehow defined “real life” for us. What did we know about real life before she came along? Nothing, if you believe the talk. It’s a new concept, a new product – she sells Real Life.

We are not a voting public, or a thinking public – we are a viewing public, and are marketed to as such.

We are being insulted and relishing it.

Some new Everywoman has materialized who, some of us are told, puts Obama to shame.

Suddenly, somehow, we have an image of Obama in an apron making cookies. Where did this come from? Does anyone care that this in no way describes what he did as a community activist?

Doesn’t being a community organizer represent dealing with “real life” and “real people”? What is community activism if not practical and visceral interaction with people who are marginalized and neglected? Is this not “real-life” experience?

And over and over again, we hear that Sarah Palin has dealt with “real life” – she’s a mother, with a special needs child….and on and on and on.

They’re calling her an “activist mother”.

Real Life.

Mother.

Child.

Life.

Real.

It bears repeating: “activist mother”.

Ready-made buzz words that didn’t exist yesterday and don’t deserve to exist today.

They must have a drawer full of these things somewhere.

In case you didn’t know, the TV screams, “You identify with this woman!”

She is you. You are she. Indivisible. She wants what you want – even if you don’t know it.

Easier to let the TV tell you what is you might want anyway.

He, on the other hand, is Other.

Unless you are Other, too. In which case she is Other.

Either way. There’s a party somewhere and you’re not invited.

Reality.

TV.

List ten ways in which these two things are different. Which is more real?

This is not about Republicans vs. Democrats.

It’s about the soul of this country.

It’s about our voracious appetite for reality-TV style crap.

We are becoming an episode of the Real World.

Just like that ostensibly “real” program, someone chooses a handful of characters, paints them in bold strokes, gets them hopped up on meaningless, ephemeral 15-minute fame, and lets them loose to parade before our eyes. All the while we are told that these people represent us.

So many of us buy it.

Who am I talking about here? John McCain? Sarah Palin? Barack Obama?

I don’t even know anymore.

Is the above maudlin? Melodramatic? Poorly thought out and poorly put, even?

Yes.

But why should I hold myself to any higher standard? After all: have you watched TV lately?

THE FOLLOWING ARE ACTUAL TEXT MESSAGES I RECIEVED LAST NIGHT FROM MY FRIEND LOWEL, AND ONE JUICE YUEN.

10:07 PM

From: Lowell

Can Republicans say more than 4 words without mentioning Reagan?

10:44 PM

From: Lowell

Did you know that being a community organizer is apparently the dumbest thing in the world that a person can possibly do? I don’t get this at all.

10:47 PM

From: Lowell

Rudy and Palin said that Obama was a community organizer and used it like a punchline both times. The crowd blew up laughing. Both times.

10:57 PM

From: Juice Yuen

They love Palin. Which show was warning about this again…? Hmm…

11:13 PM

From: Lowell

This is pathetic. Palin is a joke and they support her without question. With Obama, we waffle.

11:28 PM

From: Juice Yuen

They LOVE her. What now?