I gave a quick explanation as to why I don’t watch debates, but I wanted to give a slightly longer one. I also wanted to explain my disappointment in how progressives are responding to the debates.
A very old criticism of American media is that it evades coverage of policies qua policies—instead, the media uses the “horse race” schema. So, when a candidate announces a budget, the media coverage consists of quotes from various people (on “both” sides) as to how this budget figures into the race between the major parties. An announcement of a policy is framed as a play by a football team.
The media doesn’t get experts who say whether the policy has been tried before, whether it worked, how it differs from things that have been tried. There are various explanations as to why the media does that, but I’m persuaded by the explanation that the “horse race” schema looks more balanced, and fits popular (and wrong) notions of objectivity. So, coverage that gave experts saying a policy is ineffective (even if “balanced” by people saying it is effective) is more likely to have people threaten to cancel the subscription or change the channel than the horse race schema.
But, a public sphere in which people do not debate policies is disastrous for a community.
I study history, especially instances when nation-states decided to adopt a bad policy (“bad” in the sense that it didn’t or couldn’t achieve the goals they said they had as a community, violated what they said their basic ethics were, undermined their ability to do what the community said was important, and/or actually destroyed the community). And a consistent feature of these incidents is that the community didn’t debate the policies qua policies, especially not the feasibility and solvency of the policies.
Instead, they framed the political sphere as an arena in which two parties engaged in combat for power. Party politics was seen as an expression of ingroup loyalty, so debating a policy qua a policy (because it necessarily requires listening to the opposition, and may involve conceding some points) was seen as weakness.
In other words, in those instances, the public sphere is a place in which one demonstrates one’s loyalty to one’s group, and not one in which one argues about policies.
The basic function of the “debates,” as they currently stand, is to enable and broadcast such performances.
The basic notion is that voters watch these performances, and decide who best performs loyalty to, and embodiment of, their group. This model is based on two absolutely false assumptions about politics and identity.
- First, it assumes that “character” matters—that what makes a person a good candidate is that s/he is the sort of person who makes good decisions.
- Second, it assumes that we can infer that “character” by watching something like a debate.
The desire that people generally have is to reduce uncertainty, and this is often done through increasing ingroup identification. If people are already prone to authoritarianism (that is, uncomfortable with uncertainty), they will be more extremely drawn to more extreme groups because such groups reduce uncertainty. They aren’t “extreme” groups in the sense of being “far from center,” but in other ways:
Extremist groups have closed and carefully guarded boundaries, uniform attitudes, values, and membership, and inflexible customs. They are rigidly and hierarchically structured with a clearly delineated chain of authority, and substantial intolerance of internal dissent and criticism. Such groups are often ethnocentric, inward looking, and suspicious and disparaging of outsiders. They engage in relatively asocial and overtly assertive actions that resemble collective narcissism […]—grandiosity, self-importance, envy, arrogance, haughtiness, entitlement, exploitativeneness, excessive admiration, lack of empathy, fantasies of unlimited success, and feelings of special/unique/high status. (Hogg, 25, “Self-Uncertainty…” in Hogg and Blaylock, Extremism and the Psychology of Uncertainty).Down that road lies fascism.
More important, perhaps, or not unrelated, down that road lies the complete failure to debate policies qua policies.
The preference for “decisiveness” signifies a desire for closure, an escape from uncertainty (an “escape from freedom” Fromm famously called it). Ariel Kruglanski and others did a study of fictional presidential candidates, one of which was “stable and consistent, capable of making quick decisions, and one who holds firm beliefs” and the other was “flexible and adaptive, capable of seeing multiple perspectives, and one who believes in challenging ideas.” The need for closure (that is, the more that a person desired to escape uncertainty) correlated to preferring the “decisive” candidate.
One of many problems with that response to uncertainty is that taking action—any action—quickly is presumed to be better than “sitting” (that’s always in the description) and thinking. And, of course, that’s patently false. Taking a bad action is worse than doing nothing.
Another problem is that decisiveness is assumed to be marked by how self-assured and dogmatic the candidate is. So, for instance, anyone paying attention should mark Romeny as incredibly low in terms of “decisiveness.” His continual advocacy of opposing policies, his reversing himself and reversing himself again, either signify indecisiveness or profound dishonesty. Either way, he does not have a good “character.”
Romney refuses to accept responsibility for his previous actions; he simply disowns them. His campaign has framed (and the media, with its horse race orientation, has helped him to do so) his previous actions and statements as Governor, as head of Bain, even as a candidate last spring as off-topic, and irrelevant to his future actions. His campaign has even (successfully, again with the collusion of the media) managed to keep the “details” of his budget off of the table for discussion—“details,” by the way, meaning “numbers that would make this even remotely plausible.”
But, people who value “character,” and look to the debates to enable them to judge character, don’t mean consistency, accuracy, responsibility, or even honesty. They mean performance of ingroup identify. They don’t mean honesty; they mean sincerity (and assume those are the same). They don’t mean consistency, they mean “certainty.” And by “certainty,” they don’t mean “accurate;” they mean “dogmatic” and “simple.” A person who is certain of him/herself, who says the situation is simple, and who dismisses deliberation and complexity, is a very reassuring kind of person to people who are uncomfortable with uncertainty.
Thus, that is what Romney conveyed, and Obama failed to convey, in the debates. To see the media praise Romney for shifting the stasis from policy to “looking like he feels certain” is disheartening, but to be expected. It’s what the American media does. But to see progressives lose faith in Obama because he failed to go along with that shift is tremendously frustrating and saddening.
That many progressives are disappointed in Obama for his policies is not surprising, and can lead to an interesting discussion about policies and voting. But, really, progressives shouldn’t be condemning Obama for his failure to perform ingroup identification with “certainty” and “decisiveness.” Progressives should be rejected that whole debate as a red herring. Because it is.
Policies matter. Public debates should be about policy. They should not be opportunities for candidates to signify unwavering (for the time being) commitment to their membership in the ingroup. Of course, not everyone agrees with me. There have been those who have argued that disputing policies (“doctrines” in this translation) is a sign of dithering, and all we need is a great and decisive leader:
A nation inclines to doctrines only when it is poor in personalities. But when a man of historic greatness stands at its head, one who not only wants to lead but is able to do so, the people will follow him with its whole heart, giving him its willing and obedient allegiance. Even more, it will put all of its love and their blind confidence behind him and his work.
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