Political theater as reality show

What makes a good electorate? Education, civic engagement, a sense of history, an understanding of how the system works and how it is supposed to work.

Editors at the Yakima Herald make the case that it’s up to you, voter, to sort through the election smears and emerge a well-informed patriot reporting for civic duty.

There are just a few problems with this. The biggest problem is that outside of the few of you reading this, most people don’t care. It’s often cited that more people vote for American Idol than for the American president. On its face, this is not a good thing. Then when we look at who wins American Idol, we realize that maybe the system works after all.

Or maybe the system is trying to make it interesting, and is seeking to attract that Idolatrous demographic by turning politics into more of a reality show. Just like every good reality show, it’s scripted, staged, and shot to emphasize the sensational.

Barack Obama is a muslim. Chris Gregoire controls traffic. Dino Rossi is trustworthy. John McCain is older than the Golden Gate Bridge. Oh wait, that last one is true.

This is political theater, and any voter who does not already know the truth will probably not bother to find out. The middle, the elusive undecided voter who might be swayed one way or the other, is far more likely to be swayed by emotional appeals and sensational exaggerations than by logical truths. So we watch YouTube videos, forward emails with exclamation points, read press releases with ridiculous headlines and hope for the best.

We pick our favorite contestant for local or national elected leader based on what they are wearing and maybe one or two offhand comments, just like we would for Rock of Love, The Amazing Race or Project Runway. We look for their faults, attach ourselves to whatever we already agree with. We revere bombast from our own side, and delight in heaping humiliation on our opponents. We emphasize in ourselves the traits the we least like to see in others: self-righteous, judgmental, condescending and full of scorn.

One of the original American Idols, James Madison, warned that “enlightened statesmen will not always be a the helm.” We wonder if they will ever be again.