However lurid the phrases used to describe how the Democratic and Republican parties select, and advise the American people to vote for, their presidential candidates, it is clear that they are inadequate to the event itself. This applies even to 1988, when the fact that both parties knew in advance who they were going to nominate deprived the conventions of much of the tension and what might be called their interest. Of course master self-publicist Jesse Jackson made a show of contesting the Democratic nomination but his attention is actually on presidential elections of the future; what he did at the Democratic convention was no more than a gesture. a threat to be mildly disruptive unless he was accepted into the party leadership — a tactic sometimes adopted by some of Thatcher's sacked ministers.
So this time there were none of the traditional smoke-filled rooms crammed with wheedling, bullying, bargaining political pros while out on the convention floor the party faithful were taking their regular fixes of blind hysteria which motivates them to go out and campaign for policies which only a deranged myopic could see any merit in. There were, as usual, plenty of distractions. The Democrats' keynote speaker's scornful tirade against George Bush went down so well that she felt emboldened to produce her baby granddaughter to give the audience something else to cheer about. Continuing with the theme of the political message of the close-knit family, a senator dragged out his nephews and nieces and Jesse Jackson always had his wife and kids at the ready to stage ecstatic, congratulatory embraces at the end of his speeches. And of course there was the inevitable Kennedy offspring, without whom no Democratic convention can feel that its hunger for emotional guzzling has been satisfied.
The Republicans, whose 100,000 gathering was a record for the New Orleans Superdome (bigger than the Rolling Stones, bigger than the Pope) kept releasing great clouds of balloons from the ceiling, which may have diverted too close attention from the gaseous rubbish coming from the podium below. One victim of assault by descending balloon was Ronald Reagan, bringing the curtain down on his greatest, longest-running role yet. His was — as Reagan may well have intended — a hard act to follow but George Bush managed it with surprising success, proving that he has little to learn in the matter of delivering those sly deceptions which are known as politicians' speeches. Bush is said to be a nice, quiet family man. ever loyal to his country, his party, his president (“I’m for Mr Reagan — blindly") has never found any inconsistency between being devoted to his family and taking decisions which will have appallingly destructive consequences for human beings — for other families. If he wins the election, he will sit easily, guiltlessly, in the hot seat in the White House.
The style and flavour of the campaign could be sampled from some of the convention speeches:
— keep America strong, make America better, red and yellow, brown black and white.everyone is precious in god's sight;— we're going to win because we are the party that believes in the American dream;— I believe that god put this land between the two great oceans to be found by special people from every comer of the world who had an extra love for freedom;—we're on a new journey into a new country . . .
Those were the words of (although since they are basically the same kind of interchangeable rubbish the identity of the speaker does not matter) Jackson, Dukakis. Reagan and Bush in that order. We can gauge the relevance of those speeches by the case of Reagan, who has cheerfully accepted his reputation as a president with a sharply restricted understanding of what is going on around him but who has survived and prospered through his talents as a communicator — or, to be more accurate, an actor. He spoke his lines perfectly in a speech fashioned on the well-tested theory that in organisations like the Republican party delusions are more comfortable than reality. Reagan provoked roars of laughter, swells of emotion and geysers of tears, yet what he said meant exactly nothing.
On one issue both parties were agreed: their candidates would be extremely rich. The ethnic roots of which Dukakis said he is so proud (in politics it always seems to mean a lot if your ancestors were poor — unless, that is, they were rich which also seems to mean a lot) have sprouted a multi-million dollar fortune; his running-mate. Lloyd Bentsen, comes from a family who amassed considerable wealth through farming and land deals. George Bush's father made it big on Wall Street as an investment banker and let George have enough of the proceeds to enable him to make his millions in the oil business (no wonder he loves his family); his vice-presidential candidate. Dan Quayle, was cushioned from the sort of rigours of life which workers know only too well — not just being in the firing line in Vietnam — by his family's investments in the newspaper business (before this unfortunate matter of his joining the Indiana National Guard was brought up. Quayle rejoiced in a reputation as a hawk — someone who is keen about other people going to war). Bush has a cousin who is a psychoanalyst, who has asked:
Does anyone from the family understand what it is to be poor? No. And the bigger question is: Do they understand their own ignorance?
Bush might respond that a rich president is not something unknown in America: consider Roosevelt, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Johnson, Reagan . . He might also (although he probably won't) go on to point to the many examples of leaders who have come from a background of extreme poverty and that there is no evidence that they have run capitalism any differently from those who come to power with their mouths crammed with silver cutlery. The capitalist class — people like Reagan. Bush and Bentsen — hold political power because the majority — the working class — allows them to and from that standpoint we can approach the real issues of the American election and the actual consequences of it for the American workers.
For a while, the bitter struggle within the parties has subsided into a spurious unity behind their chosen candidates. Robert Dole has forgotten how he called George Bush a liar, the Democrats are forgetting the hatchet jobs done on the likes of Gary Hart and Joe Biden. Both presidential candidates have chosen running-mates whose ideas they are in theory opposed to; when votes are at stake political principles are of little importance. Conservative Lloyd Bentsen is on the Democratic ticket of "liberal" Michael Dukakis because it is hoped that he will ensure the electoral college votes of his home state of Texas (no Democrat has ever won without Texas' votes) as well, perhaps, as Oklahoma. Louisiana and even part of the Old South. where it is no longer true that they would vote for a lamp post provided it wore a Democratic label. Bush chose Quayle for similar reasons, he seems to have overlooked or ignored the many inconvenient aspects of Quayle's past which provided such a sumptuous feat for the media vultures The 1988 vice presidential candidates were chosen, then, for the customary cynical reasons — to cobble up a "balanced" ticket, which means one which will encourage people who are opposed to the presidential candidate nevertheless to vote for him because they support his running-mate. This is known as political democracy in a free country.
Since they have been in government for the past eight years, the Republicans have to assert that these were great times, when Reagan wrought a miraculous recovery from Jimmy Carter's undermining of all that is best in America. But Bush, apparently, is not satisfied; he has spoken about his "dreams" for America's future. Every self-respecting politician must modestly confess to dreaming dreams about a glorious future which, by a strange coincidence, can be assured by voting them into power. It is another way of glossing over the endless, and endlessly futile, efforts to do something with this social system so that it makes sense in terms of human interests. The Democrats' case is summarised in the title of their — unusually hesitant — manifesto — The Restoration of Competence and the Revival of Hope. They must argue that Reagan was an incompetent president, who bungled the American economy into chaos and who condoned scandals like Irangate. It is commonplace for political parties to accuse their opponents of causing economic chaos and to assert that they have a simple remedy which will restore order. This often proves an appealing propaganda line among voters who have forgotten, or who don't care, that the party making the accusation has itself presided over a fair amount of chaos in its time. This is known as the cut-and-thrust of open political debate.
Whoever wins, their election will be greeted as one of the most significant events in human history and we shall hear, in numerous speeches, about the dawn of a new era when the problems of the past and the present will be no more. Plenty of people, especially those who voted for the winner and who are reluctant to think that they have been duped or have wasted their vote, will believe in these golden prospects. But history is not on their side, for there have been numerous examples of presidents who have come to power on just such a surge of enthusiasm and who began their term of office with high hopes and promises but who have been exposed and discredited by the inexorable nature of capitalism as an uncontrollable, problem-producing social system.
The most recent example of this was Lyndon Johnson. In 1964 the Democrats were carried along to victory by. among other things, a popular surge of emotion originating in the myths nurtured by the assassination of John Kennedy. As Kennedy's vice president. Johnson, could claim to have had experience of the top job at an unusually difficult time while also associating himself with the more attractive bits of the Kennedy mythology. Johnson had. over many years, honed his skills as a political fixer to a razor edge (which had not. however, prevented him misjudging the situation badly when he was contesting the nomination with Kennedy). And, as if all that were not enough the Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater. whose ideas were so out of tune with the times (although this would not be true were he to be a candidate today) that the mere mention of his name would provoke contemptuous laughter. Goldwater campaigned like a political dinosaur and all over America the votes poured in for the man they liked to call Elbeejay. Johnson received a record total of over 43 million [votes] and his electoral college votes — 485 — were the highest since the sweep of his idol Roosevelt. Only the South, where his switch from a supporter of segregation to an opponent was not forgotten by the racist whites, held out against the tide. “It seems to me tonight". said Johnson on election eve. waiting for this triumph to be formally acknowledged, "that 1 have spent my whole life getting ready for this moment".
Following on Kennedy's clutch of reforms which went under the grandiose name of the New Frontier, Johnson launched his programme. with the even more confident title of the Great Society. Conditions in the early sixties were such as to allow politicians to base their appeal on the false argument that comprehensive schemes of social welfare could be financed through a big surge in productivity. In this country. Harold Wilson was thriving on more or less the same propaganda. Those who read the omens for Johnson, considering all the advantages which he apparently had, could foresee only unbroken, unqualified success for him followed by a grateful nation triumphantly reelecting him with an even bigger majority.
Well of course it did not turn out that way, for Johnson was exposed and, as opinion turned against him, it was focused in particular on the increasingly cruel and senseless bloodshed in Vietnam. It was said by those who knew him well that Johnson, in spite of his overbearing manners, desperately wanted to be loved by the American people — if possible all 200-odd million of them. In November 1964 he could expect that this would happen but by 1968. when it was time to consider his re-nomination, millions of American workers hated him. At the end of the White House lawn the demonstrators persistently chanted "Hey, hey, LBJ. how many kids have you killed today?" in protest at the ruthless, indiscriminate bombing and other attacks on the North Vietnamese people. Johnson confided to one of his aides:
I felt that I was being chased on all sides by a giant stampede coming at me from all directions. On one side, the American people were stampeding me to do something about Vietnam. On another side, the inflationary economy was booming out of control. Up ahead were dozens of danger signs pointing to another summit of riots in the cities. (Doris Kearns. Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream)
It did not seem to occur to Johnson that he was complaining about people expecting him to solve problems which he had claimed to be able to solve — and that, therefore, it was not unreasonable of them to "stampede'' when he was exposed as a failure. A mental wreck, he was unable to face another election and the end came when his successor was nominated and outside the convention the demonstrators were being dispersed with terrible violence by the Chicago police.
Unsurprisingly, the Democrats did not win the next election. Richard Nixon came back from the electorally dead to such effect that his re-election in 1972 was greeted with ecstatic chants of “Four More Years" but of course he disappointed his supporters by failing to last that long. Then came Jimmy Carter, the religious peanut farmer from the South, who marked his first Christmas as president by inviting a lot of people to a reception at which neither food nor drink was provided and where neither the president nor his wife put in an appearance. This was a foretaste of the administrative chaos for which the Carter presidency became notorious — which gave the commentators the excuse to blame his impotence in face of some typical capitalist crises on to the way he ran the White House office. Proving that time heals everything. Nixon and Carter are now respected elder statesmen, handing down to their parties advice and analyses, as if neither of them is thoroughly discredited.
The institution of the American president then, does not inspire or deserve any respect or admiration. The entire edifice is kept in place, not through any merit but by a massive scaffolding of working-class self-delusion. For example. Reagan hands over the White House after being re-elected in 1984 with a crushing majority and in the glow of a successful president who claims to have personally ensured that America is a better, more secure country. What that really means has recently been spelled out by some American doctors, who see Reagan's country through the health of its people. The Physician Task Force on Hunger in America found in a recent study that, using the official definition, 14 per cent of the population are classifiable as poor. In the golden state of California — homeland of Nixon and Reagan — there are 3.6 million who come into that category, half of them children, one out of ten rely on monthly food hand-outs from charities. For the first time in 20 years infant morality in California is on the increase, which is probably not unconnected with the fact that hundreds of thousands of people are too poor to see a doctor when they are ill. Apart from the doctors, the US Census Bureau reported in early September that "overall" poverty is experienced by 32.4 million Americans and — as another indicator of how blissful it is to be alive in that country now — in Los Angeles the murder rate has gone up some 40 per cent over last year.
That kind of bitter reality is not confined to America. It is found all over the world, regardless of who is in power or of any superficial differences in their methods of running capitalism. Any rational view of what is about to happen in America must reach the conclusion that whichever party wins it will make no real difference to the lives of the majority of people there. So what is it all about? Why all the hype, the ballyhoo, the razzmataz? Well a Republican strategist blurted out at their convention, when he was discussing campaign tactics. “Beside, we like being in power" and for the American workers the implications of that bald statement should be a good place to begin their understanding.
Ivan
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