The Pakistani Spectator

I couldn’t resist a few remarks on my impressions of the recent American nominating convention for the Republican Party, nominating John McCain for their candidate. I’ll be relatively brief, for a change. American presidential nominating conventions have changed over my lifetime. In the 1960s and earlier, these conventions were news-making, business-like affairs, where important party business was conducted, including the vital business of choosing a presidential candidate for the party. Since then, the candidate is almost invariably decided (by votes in primaries, mainly) long before the conventions, and, in the age of television, the parties have figured out that the most important function, for them, of the convention is to serve as a very long, free political advertisement for their already-chosen candidate. With very high-priced, carefully-selected experts working hard behind the scenes, virtually every moment of these conventions is now centrally scripted in advance to convey precisely the ideas that the experts have calculated will maximize votes for their candidate. The most interesting thing to see at these conventions, therefore, is what ideas these experts are trying to feed us. (Knowing that these ideas are being fed to us is vital; if we are conscious of what is going on, we can consciously decide whether the ideas are true or false, and how much they should influence our votes, rather than just reacting emotionally to these ideas, and casting our votes emotionally, which is surely what the weaker candidate would prefer!)

So, I watched the Republican convention with careful attention to the emotional message being so carefully conveyed. Overwhelmingly, the result was a sense of déjà vu – a sense that I had experienced something similar, before. The scene the convention reminded me of, again and again, was from early childhood, an argument between 4-year-olds, each shouting, “My daddy can beat up your daddy!” As a father of a 6-year-old son, and an 11-year-old daughter, I’m still reminded regularly of what I imagine is a universal need of young children, an emotional need to feel physically safe, and I am often reminded by events that it is commonly the father’s role to help his children feel safe in his shadow. I don’t need to beat up anyone else’s daddy to fill this role, but I am conscious that it clearly pleases my 6-year-old son that I am taller than most, and that he enjoys imagining that I am in better physical shape than I really am, ready to win a fight in his defense, if he was threatened.

Sadly, pathetically, even, it seems that the big brains behind the McCain presidential campaign have decided that deep down most American voters are still like young children, still very much in need of a “big daddy” with a big shadow they can feel safe beneath. The consistent emotional message that I sensed at the forefront of almost every minute of the Republican convention was that Americans live in a scary world, a world full of bad, scary men (terrorists) who want to hurt them, and John McCain is exactly the tough, warrior daddy we need, who loves us and who will protect us at any cost, including, if necessary, costs that might not be so nice for innocent people who don’t happen to be American.

In most of the world, I realize, the extended family has high importance, and older members of the extended family carry traditional authority even over adults. In the American culture, on the other hand, adults are expected to be autonomous; as adults, we love our extended family, parents, aunts, uncles, older brothers, et cetera, but our culture encourages us to live independently of them as adults, not under their authority or protection. I have no problem with traditional extended families, though – each culture undoubtedly has its advantages and strengths, so I don’t have an argument, there. Instead, I want to focus only on political father figures, and whether grown adults should seek fatherly protection from a political leader, and whether that protection ought to look like a “big daddy” who can “beat up your daddy.”

My first problem with the Republican argument is that the terrorist threat is not nearly so dangerous (to Americans) as the Republicans would apparently like us to believe! Even if there was a 9/11-scale attack every year, far more Americans would die yearly in automobile accidents than in terrorist attacks, and the deaths to terrorism would never begin to approach losses we’ve endured in many past wars. Now of course I don’t want more 9/11-scale attacks – those would be tragic, indeed – my point is that we have endured far worse, and we don’t have to let fear rule our lives and distort our ability to make rational decisions, or our will to hold to our principles. The very name “terrorists” clearly shows that the entire goal of terrorists is to terrify those they hate, so the Republican message of cowering fear is precisely playing into the terrorists’ hands!

My second problem with the Republican argument is that there are very real dangers that are far worse than the terrorist threat, but these dangers are being largely ignored by the Republicans, largely owing to misguided focus on the terrorist danger. Lack of adequate health care annually kills vastly more Americans than violence does or probably ever will. By every measure, Americans outspend the rest of the world on health care, yet the same measures clearly show we live shorter, less healthy lives than the rest of the developed world, getting less for our money. In the longer term, climate change and environmental degradation, with its enormous, unpredictable potential effects, may kill millions, may even threaten our extinction. This threat, though, the Republicans claim, calls only for “more study,” and “voluntary measures” for the foreseeable future (more on this in a future article). Apparently, unless we have actual proof that inaction on climate change will cause vast death, we mustn’t do anything yet that might actually hurt the economy. Perhaps by the time proof is possible, it will be too late to undo the damage, but, well, at least we didn’t hurt the economy (in the short run) unnecessarily! (Of course, in the long run, climate change can (and likely will) hurt the economy (never mind the deaths) vastly more than timely action would have hurt it!)

My third problem with the Republican argument is with the idea that those terrorist dangers, even assuming they are as great and important as the Republicans claim, require safety under a presidential “big daddy” shadow. For the sake of argument, let’s go ahead and assume that the world really is as dangerous as they say, and the big dangers really are from those nasty terrorists. Does it follow that we need a big, tough daddy in the president’s office to give us protection? Even in families, are big, tough daddies a child’s best and only source of protection? Well, a child’s instincts might say so, but in today’s world, little but wise daddies (and mommies, for that matter!) can offer just as much safety, or more, than tough daddies offer! A wise parent uses his or her head to keep children out of danger in the first place, making the need for a physical defense much less likely. Even in the most dangerous times, safety from a presidential “daddy” is no different – there is far more safety in a president that will use his or her head than one who is just the biggest tough guy! The waste of military resources in Iraq makes us weaker against real threats current and future elsewhere! Give me a leader (not a daddy) who leads with his head! Give me a leader more interested in avoiding an unnecessary fight than in provoking more fights! Give me a leader with enough subtlety to avoid responding to any attack with counter-attack, without regard even to whether the counter-attack is against the right people, or whether the counterattack makes us any safer! Give me President Barack Obama!

Last 5 posts by Dan Tow

• Just Taxation - October 31st, 2008
• New American Voters; Guilty Until Proven Innocent? - October 22nd, 2008
• Coping with Limits to Control in Politics, Life, and Bridge - August 26th, 2008
• The Right to Remain Silent - June 18th, 2008
• Living with Free Speech - June 6th, 2008