I was listening to one of George Bush’s little tetes-a-tete with the red state citizenry the other day. He is taking his hyped-up case for revamping Social Security “to the people” and woe to the congressman, he announced, who crosses him after he has played Pied Piper and made his case whatever the truth of it may be. He calls up people from the audience and there is this little cutesy interchange designed to make you feel he is just this down home boy who really cares about you more than the corporate interests he coddles. Sometimes the hubris sneaks out, as when he had three generations of one family on stage and reminded the kid that it will probably be the “greatest day” of his life to be on stage with the POTUS.
The whole thing is not so much scripted as “staged.” As is typical of Bush his colloquia are only with the faithful. Like his press conferences where he recognizes questions only from the “chosen,” like his campaign appearances, like the time he appeared in front of boxes marked “made in the USA” that turned out to have been made in China, like the carefully missing incriminating materials from this “military service” record, like all of his campaign appearances, or his deception-filled case for the Iraq war, this event is “staged,” conducted in front of carefully selected audiences made to appear to be “us” Americans. But these are frauds, part of a Potemkin’s village of deceptions, that cynically, and knowingly, hides the truth in service of – and I apologize for repeating this point that has appeared in several other essays in these pages – the end justifying the means.
In the past this Goebbelesque methodology has obviously played well, or well enough, for the dimwits out in the red states, Limbaugh “dittoheads,” and for the Fox News viewers. They can be fooled into thinking that gay marriage will ruin their holy wedlock, that giving Big Pharm a sweetheart deal is really in their own interests, that no child is being left behind, that tax cuts for the wealthy will really reduce the record deficits, that weapons of mass destruction will yet be found in Iraq, that legislation severely limiting class action lawsuits and bankruptcy are really in the little guy’s interests and not the banks and corporations. The can be made to believe that the staged interchange for the audience and the cameras is really an impromptu interchange between the president and the people.
It has worked well enough so far, but that well-enough has been marginal, as we know from the electoral results. The lurking question is whether Bush will reach to far, come to believe his own hype and in the “reality” of his carefully crafted Potemkin’s village. Will this latest phony foray into his village expose the underlying truth? Mind you, this is a man who has never had to, and never will, rely on Social Security check to pay the rent, or to file bankruptcy because medical bills wiped him out, or join a class action suit to be recompensed for a wrong done to him, and certainly not to fight in a war he supports or starts. You know, he’s the type of guy who gets off easy on a few DUIs, gets into the best schools on family name, and gets bailed out of serial business failures. Now he is messing with a system that has worked very well, does need to address the stresses that will be put upon it by demographics, but that he sees as a bonanza for his friends who are stock brokers and fund managers. Is he reaching too far this time? And, if so, will this gust of wind, blow some reality dust down the streets of his Potemkin’s village?
There is another lurking question: How many of those who support Bush and his policies are truly deceived by these practices; or how many see through the Potemkin village, but arewilling to let themselves be deceived ? It is a crucial question, maybe the most crucial question with regard to the fate of our nation. If it is the former, then, following the dictum that you can “fool some of the people some of the time,” there is yet hope that this arrogant dunce in the Oval Office will bring himself down, or weaken his party sufficiently, before he brings the country to ruin. If it is the latter, then this much-touted American Empire will go early on the heap with all the others.
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©2005, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 4.19.2005)