Storytelling at the RNC
There are plenty of interesting things to note about the speeches at the Republican National Convention so far. I could write several essays full of reactions and responses to Thompson, Lieberman, Romney, Huckabee, and of course Palin. But I don’t really want to go speech-by-speech with this post. I’d rather take the time to discuss the framing techniques being employed by the Republican party via the convention. They’re carefully telling a story that adjusts and refines reality to fit their agenda.
Let me first say that I don’t think Republicans are the only people doing this. I bristled every time during the Democratic convention that I heard populist rhetoric about keeping jobs from going overseas or needing to buy American-made goods. Even though most of the speakers, or at least the speech writers and strategists, probably understand that free trade is essential for long-term economic success, the general public can’t tolerate hearing that, and rather than explain to them the difficult truth they chose to tell the easier story. Rhetorical flourish steps in for intellectual honesty. At the RNC, though, this sort of occurrence is much more frequent. (Mitt Romney called China “Adam Smith on steroids” — so, what, it’s now a problem that they’re adopting capitalism? What was he talking about? It sure made China seem scary, though, huh.)
One notable frame depicts John McCain as the women’s candidate. It looked like this was about disaffected Clinton supporters at first, but it appears to be a broader message. Tonight’s program, ultimately leading up to Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech, opened with Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina. Setting aside the unresolved issues about exactly how chummy McCain wants to appear to be with CEOs of huge businesses, I found it very interesting to note how Whitman and Fiorina kept talking about how McCain recognizes the contributions women have made to the economy. Was… was that really something controversial? Is that supposed to imply that Obama does not think women have any effect on the economy? Over and over they used phrases like, “As a woman, I support John McCain because….” This, juxtaposed with the choice of a female VP, does a good job of making an inattentive viewer feel like a vote for McCain is a vote for women’s lib. Maybe this is an attempt to mitigate the history-making factor working for Obama, or it could just be a really over-the-top attempt at the Hillary voters, but either way, it’s a misrepresentation.
First of all, I’m insulted by the idea that there are “women’s issues” as distinct from issues that are generally important to society. I acknowledge abortion as a women’s issue only insofar as women are the ones with the wombs, but I think that whether abortions are legal should be and is a concern to men as well. Ditto for the availability of contraception, or maternity/parental leave, or sex education in school. Nevertheless, this is what people mean when they talk about “women’s issues” and this is what we’re pretending McCain will excel at when someone claims to support him “as a woman.” Listen carefully, though — you’ll never hear him actually take the women-friendly stances on these issues. McCain isn’t even in favor of equal pay for female employees. How’s that for recognizing their contributions to the economy?
Also, I’m floored by the contradictory framing of government assistance programs. Many speakers have admonished those who depend on the government for financial support. Mitt Romney blurred the truth about Obama’s tax plan when he said that it would “raise taxes to put more people on Medicaid” and “grow the ranks of those who pay no taxes at all.” It sounds like everyone’s going to pay higher taxes — oh no! — unless you’re listening and realize that some taxes would be raised in order to allow people who can’t afford to pay taxes to pay less or none. Most of you booing in the convention hall would actually pay less in taxes as a result of Obama’s plan. Nevertheless, Romney spun it so that lower taxes for the not-super-wealthy meant barnacle-like dependency on federal programs. Thus the Republicans, advocates of tax cuts, managed to pull off “Higher taxes: bad! Lower taxes: also bad!” That’s odd enough on its own, but then we heard Palin promise parents of children with special needs that they would have an advocate in the White House to make sure they get the assistance they deserve. I’m confused. When are government handouts something to cheer for, and when do they spell “death to initiative, risk-taking and opportunity” exactly?
The other major area of storytelling has to do with “small towns” versus “eastern elites.” Never mind that the latter term was tossed out by a multi-millionaire, former governor of Massachusetts. This is the biggest, weirdest frame of all, and it’s one that’s crept into nearly all the campaign coverage. People from small towns are regular folks, just like you, even though about 80% of the US population lives in an urban area. Then, the story goes, regular folks just like you, or like a guy you’d want to have a beer with, are best equipped to run the country. Now, let’s play a game. Think about the person sitting next to you the last time you were in a bar. Would you trust that person with the US nuclear arsenal, or even with a legislative veto? Come to think of it, would you trust yourself? The reality is, a president needs to have a rock-solid legal and political education and needs to have some experience with government. These are not qualities possessed by the average American, so don’t use your averageness to prove that you’ll make a good politician. I want to vote for the above-average candidate (as far above average as possible!), and I don’t think that makes me elitist — it just makes me rational.
That’s really the bottom line of all of this. Politicians tell these dodgy stories to make their policies more palatable to the American public, and at the end of the day we’re left with little more than lies and distortions. There are plenty of perfectly rational reasons to side with either party, or to land somewhere in between (or off in some entirely different direction), but we don’t seem to be hearing those reasons. In all fairness, I’m sure both McCain and Obama understand these reasons and would love to talk about them. However, those of us who think of politics as an intellectual rather than emotional exercise are far in the minority, and appealing to us isn’t the way to win an election. Until intellectual discourse becomes cool, I guess we’ll have to supply the rationality ourselves.