Stupid, American Style

The price of gasoline is pretty high in the United States right now. Not in international comparison, where it's still ludicrously cheap, but in comparison to what Americans -- who've let a completely car-dependent culture arise around them despite repeated oil shocks -- think they should be paying.

This fact, unfortunately, could have world-historical importance. American voters, ignorant and fickle creatures that they are, might well vote for any Republican to punish Obama for 'not doing enough' about U.S. gasoline prices, which of course are largely beyond his control. As Dave Weigel puts it:

Speaker of the House John Boehner made a prediction Monday about Barack Obama's re-election bid. "If gas prices are $5 or $6, he certainly isn't going to win." It might be the least disputable thing a politician has ever said. Well, yes: If people have to keep paying more and more to fill their cars up, the president could lose re-election—even to one of the current batch of Republicans. There's evidence, circumstantial but graphically compelling, that the president's current poll numbers are a function of the price of gas.

Now, most mainstream American journalists, like most Americans, have grown up in a political culture where the smarts of the 'common man' are universally assumed. The 22nd-tiredest political cliche in the United States is 'my opponent is underestimating the intelligence of the American people, who will see right through his craven pandering/blatant scare-mongering...' So Weigel calmly assesses the chance that gasoline prices alone will drive the next American election without ever once stopping to say to himself, or his readers: "Many of my countrymen are such fools that they will change control of the White House to a party with a different foreign policy and different spending priorities and different social values based solely on the price of one consumer good whose price the President cannot even control. God, how depressing. I should drop whatever I'm doing right now and dedicate my life to trying to improve the political judgment of my fellow Americans."

But that's clearly not the mission the American press corps has given itself. Here's a remarkable press statement from Obama yesterday (h/t Ed Philp) , in which he expains his decision to release his own birth certificate to defuse the moronic, years-long non-controversy over whether he was born in the United States:

Even Obama, who never flies off the handle, can't resist several digs at the press corps for giving 'birthers', as the morons are known, two long, pointless, wasted years of attention.

The truth is that the American journalistic lanscape -- especially when it comes to TV, the only source of news for most Americans -- is dominated by carnival barkers. Most of the news providers are for-profit companies, competing against one another for ratings. They will broadcast whatever attracts eyeballs, not whatever edifies -- yes, edifies* -- viewers. And that means stories that feature exciting controversies about emotionally-laden themes. As a result, the political judgment of those lost souls who get their news from TV becomes ever more adolescent. They're trained to focus on meaningless personality traits, ginned-up pseudo-conflicts, or vacuous horse-race bullshitting about who's got the better 'ground game'. Whatever ability they may have had to carefully balance competing policy priorities shrivels up and blows away.

And so, for the past few years, there have been thousands of U.S. television hours spent on the question of whether Obama was born in the U.S., usually in the form of idiots pontificating about the issue in ignorance, or 'debates' in which people yell at each other. These hours could have been devoted to America's two, ongoing, pointless, expensive wars, or strategies for containing health care costs, or analyses of the Arab uprisings, or even a good old-fashioned doughty, earnest documentary about water rights. But all those things would have cost a lot more money than inviting a couple of blowhards into the television studio and/or would have required finding people who actually knew what they were talking about. So they weren't done. Instead, the completely irrelevant non-controversy of Obama's 'real' place of birth was kept alive.

Since the press wouldn't police itself, Obama finally had to take action, and his frustration is visible. But even if this pointless distractions is largely put to rest, another one will surely follow, and the press corps will surely give it attention as long as it boosts ratings. As James Fallows said, "This is not a great day for the press."

* Sure, edify has all sorts of tea-cozy, church-basement-lecture overtones of stuffy didactic earnestness, but we elitists need to proudly reclaim it. I'm so old that I remember when there were some American intellectuals and officials who, quaintly enough, actually thought television might actually one day help improve people's judgment, and were disgusted at what it was doing instead:

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it.

That was back in 1961.

Comments

[pulltogetherofpullapart]

Never mind Democrats and Republicans. Can you say geopolitics. Time for a change ala FDR: unemployed masses seeking employment aging bridges and roads seeking repair? who can put these two together? In a country of 300 million can't we consruct a political party with even 1 smart person? Maybe bring back the poll tax for every;one. Plus a surcarge of $2 to express an opinion anywhere in public. $5 for stupid. opinions:pay out $5 for correct ideas: money to go towards American infrastructure repair.
'Here's an idea: open source government. Sort of like democracy but everybody through the internet gets to write the source code for American Foreign and Domestic policy. Kind of like Linux for government.
One thing's for sure: geopolitics is killing us. Checkout Webster Tarpley.net for scholarly geopolitical dialectic agree or no you will learn something about how the pieces fit together, and they; fit badly.
Vote for Obama or Tea Part;y? I'd rather slide down a mile long razor blade.

[Alex (the other one)]

@Trotzkopf: You are exaggerating a bit. 2.46$ x 3.78541178 =~ 9.30$

Still very much, but high energy prices result in a tremendous pressure for innovation, and therefore Germany is, IIRC, world leader in energy efficient production methods.

[Argaman]

Thanks, Junger. I did go look at his website which didn't reveal any particular anti-Jewish tendencies, but I find his language offensive and his explanation for it incomprehensible.

[Junger Gott]

I actually have to chuckle mildly about our good friend M. Moeling of all people being accused of anti-Jewish tendencies.
But I guess that's par for the course if you can't write a straight sentence without trying to fill it up with oh-so-witty twists and double entendre. Result: the readers don't know any more what your talking about and are likely to take it the wrong way. *Persuasion fail*

[Argaman]

Have you ever actually met any Jews, or do we just exist as some strange projection in your mind? "Jewboys" is a slur - an insulting term - in English, which is the language we're currently conversing in.

[M. Möhling]

> Jewboys? Is that supposed to be funny?

Why yes, Argaman. I take it you don't read German, so context and sarcasm might be lost on you. Here's the NYT on that issue the taz relates. It's about only some Jewboys being suspiciously smart--so not necessarily you.

As for that card of yours, I concur. According to the EU commission's "Eurobarometer" of 2003 60% of my fellow Teutons feel Israel to be the greatest danger to worldwide peace--and 69% of our Austrian cousins, who traditionally have a knack at assessing what those judenbengels are up to. As for the rest, many of those feel the US to be #1, and little Satan only #2, so not that much better. Better? At least 60% of my compatriots (and sweet 69% of the schnürschuh brigade) won't see that worldwide peace issue as an antisemitic projection, so maybe it's just me.

[Trotzkopf]

Oh, gas prices of $5 or $6. That would be heaven! Currently, a liter costs 1.66 Euros at the nearby petrol station. That means we currently pay 2.46$ per liter. So per gallon we pay 11.18$. What are we, complete idiots?

[Argaman]

Jewboys? Is that supposed to be funny? I'm Jewish, and I'm pulling out the antisemitism card here - particularly revolting since the anti-Jewish slur comes from a German who should know better.

[M. Möhling]

> some Jewboys being smarter than though

Smarter than me, too, it would seem.

[M. Möhling]

> American voters, ignorant and fickle creatures that they are ...

Methinks the air grows denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
swung by tenured Seraphim of the legal persuasion. Yes, the plot thickens and we're ganz bei uns (GWW?). Let's give ourselves a hug. Or two. Must de-americanise America-Pinkbots activate!

Sorry, but I had to. Listening to irgradio.org right now, bouncy, bad mf'ing rare grooves that make me gleefully kick arses or whatever comes along.

[M. Möhling]

Concur, reps are at an all time intellectual low. Goes for dems too, though, if you radio on my wavelength. You don't? Oh. Remarkable anyway that we get to watch Idiocracy as illustration. The lower half reproducing too much, the rest too little. Makes for grimly entertaining misery--as experienced one mustachioed former Bundesbanker painting that exact same picture. But he ain't Mike Judge of Beavis and Butt-head fame, so he doesn't get the benefit of dubious hilariousness.

Speaking of intellectual ebbs and tides, I wonder if our gentle readers got the gist of that movie's social Darwinist plot. Hey y'all; did you? Reminds me of the taz's Mr Misik, who wrote back in 2006 about some Jewboys being smarter than though. Bundesbanker he wasn't, so he didn't get hanged, drawn, and quartered, as that wouldn't have advanced progressive causes.

[LemmusLemmus]

I suggest everyone who complains about gas prices being too high be branded a socialist. That ought to stop the whining.

[rob owen]

I am always gratified to see Newton Minow's "vast wasteland" quote recycled. His daughter taught me (perhaps "tried to teach me" would be fairer to her) Civil Procedure!

[Jerry]

After all, nothing that new in here. There are a couple of things, that can't really be influenced by government but are loved to be used as electional topics. "Family values" come to mind, outsourcing and moving abroad of entreprises as well, and maybe olympic medals. Compared to those, gas prises seem even more accessible, by subsidies perhaps. This, of course, would make the tea party movement even more angry.
What do you expect? This president was rather elected for creating a vision, condensed in two handy catchphrases, than for actual politics. So, after four years, he is measured by the question if "we" indeed "can". High mobility costs seem to contradict this in a country, where such matters a lot.
Trying to get some positive publicity by presenting a birth certificate is a logical step from there, just maybe a bit too early. That's not done for convincing the conspirators (to them, he'll remain the same "communist nazi-muslim"), but for the headlines.

Honestly, show me a thing about that, we haven't seen hundreds of times before, in the US, in Germany, anywhere. I'm anything but rooting for a Republican to win, but things would have been the same with McCain, as far as it concerns the topics pointed out in your article.

[Michael]

There is actually one thing Obama (or Bush by the way) could do (have done) to lower gas prices - at least in a few year: increase oil production.

The USA has one of the worlds largest oil reserves (http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=a567799b-802a-23ad-4d44-648c714d48c1). Obama could not only do something to bring down gas prices in the future. He could even blame Republicans for the high gas prices because of their inaction when they were in power.