Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 28, 1994 TAG: 9410280052
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ARTHUR R. POSKOCIL
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The reason for that, in turn, is to be found in the declining prospects for middle-class Americans, in the fright and bitterness of the first generation of mainstream Americans who cannot hold out realistic hopes that their children's lives will be as socioeconomically advantaged as their own.
Surely Rorty is correct about the sourness of the electorate. As he observes, we always show ourselves to be a more generous-spirited people when times are good; but a declining quality of life brings out a defensive uncharitability in us - and a taste for leaders whom we perceive as tough and even ruthless, the kind who can convince us that saying no to the needy is the mark of moral courage as well as fiscal responsibility.
Rorty is right about America's mood, and about its underlying cause, but his thesis is simply not adequate to explain the popularity of so atrocious a candidate as Oliver North. Yes, Americans are in a foul humor, and as the polls tell us, resolved as never before to politically clean house. Moreover, Chuck Robb, North's only real opposition now, is a Democrat, an incumbent, and a man tainted by scandal in his personal life. Nevertheless, when the opposition is Oliver North, none of these facts begins to explain why 40 percent of Virginians are promising to act as moral idiots on Election Day.
The facts about North are inescapable and damning. However honorably he may have conducted himself in Vietnam, his character flaws have since asserted themselves with a vengeance. He makes Oedipus and Macbeth look like pikers - flaw-wise, that is. Unlike either of them, however, North knows no shame.
One might expect his flinty-jawed, in-your-face hero's stare to be somewhat deflected by revelations that he used money from his secret Iran-Contra fund to buy himself snow tires and groceries; that he accepted illegal gratuities from his war-profiteer associates; that he even let them set up a multimillion-dollar Swiss bank account for him; and that he knowingly allowed his Contra contacts to raise money by smuggling drugs into the United States. None of these evidence-based charges fazes Oliver North, however, and his current front-runner status indicates that his continued soldierly self-presentation weighs more strongly with his supporters than any number of facts incongruent with the image they have chosen to endorse.
Image is indeed the correct term to describe what North's supporters are attracted to - but not image in the traditional sense of a facade that might function to deceive the observer as to underlying substance. If it were the latter, then North's image would long ago have cracked under the toll of almost daily revelations of his venality, Iying and reckless disregard for the very principles on which this nation was founded.
To the continuing amazement and consternation of his detractors, however, North has out-tefloned Ronald Reagan by a country mile, cowboying on unscathed either by denunciation of his character and integrity by both fellow Marines and Republican icons John Warner and Reagan himself, or repudiation of his fiscal platform by expert observers, including the quintessential Republican balanced-budgeter, Warren Rudman.
North's image isn't subject to being seen through because, put simply, it itself is the object of interest and support by his constituency, not any idea of underlying substance that old-fashioned, linear thinkers might infer to be central. His supporters want to perceive him as credible, and that does not mean they care if he tells the truth. They want to see him as virtuous, and that doesn't mean they are concerned if he has committed felonies, even for self-gain. They want him to impress them as an independent and effective leader, and that doesn't mean it will bother them to learn that he regularly fawned over his Marine Corps superiors or that his Marlboro Man act would make him an utterly ineffective senator.
For these voters, the image is the candidate. Moreover, in thus accepting the proffered image of North, they purchase a complementary image of themselves as down-to-earth, good Christian, patriot-appreciating real Virginians. These individuals can be understood only as the ultimate legacy of a half-century of television, a medium where image is always transcendent, and where today's factual revelations will be conveniently off the screen tomorrow.
In The New York Times, just the day after Rorty's commentary appeared, a front-page article reported that, for a majority of Americans, televised political ads are the primary source of their conclusions about candidates and issues. If this outlandish fact were to be interpreted linearly, it would force the conclusion that this same majority of Americans are a set of perfect dupes and gulls, willing to trust in what simply has to be the single worst source of either balanced perspective or reliable factual claims.
But of course that otherwise reasonable conclusion would miss the point that for many Americans it is not balance and fact that ultimately weigh in their decision, but the images they form of candidates. And political ads, whatever their faults, are a marvelous source of images. Such voters will doubtless protest to themselves and others that they really do value substance over image, fact over fantasy, but they will nevertheless find a way to ignore, downplay or resist all facts that threaten the images they have formed.
Television, then, holds the explanation for the apparent moral distraction of the 40 percent of my fellow Virginians who plan to vote for Oliver North. Just figuring this out has been a solace to me, personally. Although the prospect of being from the state that elects North to the Senate is still shamefully appalling, at least I won't continue to go through the agony of moral revulsion every time I spot an "Ollie" bumper sticker, or read a letter to the editor whose author can't distinguish in magnitude between Robb's personal philandering and North's betrayal of his country. Now I will know where these folks are coming from, although I fear I will still have an idea too about where they should go.
Arthur R. Poskocil is an associate professor of sociology at Hollins College.
Keywords:
POLITICS
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