While laying paving bricks for a garden path this afternoon, my mind wandered to the mystery of the American electorate. I'm befuddled, frankly, and have been for years.
How can my conservative brethren be so boneheadedly stupid as to vote for GWB twice?
How can they swallow such whoppers provided they are repeated enough times with enough confidence?
One hypothesis I've entertained over the years is that it's all about the culture wars. When the divide began seems unclear to me, but it was fully in place 40 years ago. The counterculture-psychedelic-antiwar bloc allied with the civil rights movement and an academic-intellectual contingent on one side. Opposed to them was an alliance of absolutists, nationalists, militarists, and traditionalists. It's been us-versus-them since at least then. There's a bit of flux, as the older generations die off, some people become liberal when they go off to college, and some others become conservative when they have children. There's a fairly small number of people straddling the divide, and they can shift back and forth as the tides change.
The other main hypothesis I've considered, although I've never really put either of these views into words before, is that people are stupid. The average IQ is 100, and that is not very bright. And half the population is below that. The old H. L. Mencken adage, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public," would seem to apply to the political world, too. Nobody ever lost an election underestimating the intelligence of the American electorate. G. W. Bush found that out in his first run for office. He came off as a la-de-da Yalie smartypants, and he vowed never to let that happen again.
I still put some stock into both of those hypotheses. A lot of stock, in fact. But a new understanding came to me this afternoon while sweating away in the garden. It is related to the people-are-stupid argument, but not identical with it.
I think I understand why Sarah Palin has caught the imagination of enough Americans to swing the polls away from Barack Obama. She repeats the same blatantly untrue and offensive phrases verbatim at every public appearance, and the crowds eat it up. Why? Because it is exactly the same as that lowest-common-denominator of humor, the tagline in television comedy and situation comedies.
"Well, kiss my grits!"
"Dy-no-mite!"
"Eyyyyyyy!"
"One of these days, Alice! Boom! To the moon!"
"What you talkin' about, Willis?"
The audience waits for it. They expect it. When it's spoken, they smile or laugh in appreciation or repeat it themselves. It's familiar. It's like "amen" at the end of a prayer.
I admit that I am somewhat contemptuous about the tagline phenomenon. I'm an elitist and judgmental. So sue me.
I hate taglines, but they seem to constitute a technology -- or at least a cultural norm -- that Hollywood has harnessed for decades, and the Republicans are employing to great effect, too.
I hate even to think this, but perhaps the Obama campaign needs to get in on this game. My reaction to Barack's speeches for months has been that he is wondrously articulate and moving and persuasive, but he uses a vocabulary that many of our countrymates don't share and don't like. I have gotten the impression that his language has gotten simpler recently, and that's good. While I would love to believe that "being himself" would have the effect of elevating America to a more thoughtful and intellectual level, that's not change I can believe in. Not in the short term, anyway. Maybe he needs to have a handful of catchy punchlines that the crowds can howl at, showing some spunk and giving those of modest intellect something to hold onto.
I know, I know, that's exactly the sort of divisive adversarial partisanship he's preaching against. He's right about that, and I agree. But look at the polls, folks. If we can't enlist our dumber brothers and sisters to the progressive cause, we're sunk. We'll never have the chance to bring out the best in them.
So anybody have any good ideas for taglines? They need to be snappy, pointed, pithy without being too clever, and preferably noble as opposed to hostile.
Well?