Democratic elections in eras gone by were episodic events. Political elites were retired or retained by the electorate and thereafter left to govern until it was time to be awakened to come out of political hibernation to reissue a new license to govern or extend an old one in the case of an incumbent. In that era, government was a top down affair that was left to elected elites who did what they had to do in the ’national interest’ without having to genuflect too much to pressure from parties outside parliament and interest groups.
Today the buzz word is no longer ’good government’ but ’good governance.’ In pursuit of the latter, citizens are encouraged to participate in a continuous way in the political process. No longer is it satisfactory for a government to argue that results are what matter and that the people should trust them to do what is right for the country. Process was now as important as product. Government is seen to be too important a commodity to be left solely to politicians. All over the world, and not only in Trinidad and Tobago, people distrust politicians who are generally believed to be concerned primarily with their own personal or group interest. ’Trust’ and ’politicians’ are oxymorons.
The new role assigned to citizens has forced politicians and political parties to campaign on a continuous basis. The term, ’permanent campaign’ was used to define what governing elites believed they had to do to get their programmes enacted into law and also to maintain their ratings. In the new political paradigm, politics becomes a media war between prosecutory ’gotcha’ journalists and executive flacks, an event in which the laws of political gravity have to be reversed or neutralised. In this environment, the line between news and propaganda becomes blurred and the media function more like opinionated pressure groups than conveyor belts along which ’information’ flows. News has to be laundered, sanitised, and packaged, and spun before it is made available for public consumption. Pundits have to be engaged, coddled and entertained to ensure their overall loyally to the brand.
A recent book on the subject by Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann describe the ’permanent campaign’ as a ’nonstop process seeking to manipulate sources of public approval to engage in the art of governing itself.’ Campaigning and governing are now seen to be indistinguishable.
The former is indispensable to the latter. Assent has to be mobilised. Dissent had to be neutralised. In a more recent book, (What Happened) Scott McClellan, President Bush’s Press Secretary, explained that ’in the age of the permanent campaign, government becomes an offshoot of campaigning, rather than the other way around’. At times, in what is called ’gesture politics,’ policies are formulated and announced simply to boost one’s party or candidacy or to embarrass the opposition or rival candidate. Governance becomes a subset of campaigning. Stagecraft becomes more important than or substitutes for statecraft.
The belief that campaigning now has to take place 24/7, has had implications for parties, political elites, and the media gaggle, especially the ubiquitous talk shows. Those who welcome the new politics believe that it is right, proper, and absolutely imperative for the people in their NGO’s to be consulted before policies are implemented since governments do not seem to ’get it’ very well. The media are seen to be an essential vehicle in the activist formula which challenges the view that only those who win elections have a legitimate mandate and are entitled to Those who oppose the new development complain that the permanent campaign means that many partisan ’one issue’ become part of the cast and polarise political debate which makes good government difficult or impossible. Many of these groups are said to be ill informed and unwilling to take the long or the broad view .’Gesture politics’and corruption scandals also become the norm. In many parts of the world, this leads to governmental instability and street coups such as we have recently witnessed in Thailand.
Permanent campaigns are also waged via television, which is an expensive medium. Since fund raising is no longer limited to the election timetable,there is need to raise funds an activity that provides excuses for corrupt and questionable activities. Groups which want access and influence know or assume that they have to ’pay to play’. Campaigning thus becomes a full time grubby industry which employs pollsters, consultants, spin doctors, speech writers, all of whom have to be paid for. These advisers become full time employees of the state. In the US, for example, Karl Rove had an office in the White House. The same applies to Westminister where political managers like Peter Mandelson had office space in No.10 and more direct access and influence with Tony Blair than cabinet ministers.
Given the importance attributed to being in the political ascendancy, one can well understand why governments regard it as beingimportant that the media is ’on side’ and under influence if not control. Politics is seen as the functional equivalent to war.
What Scott McClellan saysin his book about the role of the media in the age of the permanent campaign in the United States is worth repeating since to some it mirrors to some extent what is beginning to obtain here. ’The national media became complicit enablers, as the twenty-four-hour news networks jumped on every scandal and conflict, no matter how trivial, to fill airtime, stir the pot of controversy, and attract viewers.
Political news came to resemble sports coverage, with its entertaining ’plays of the week’, instant analysis, constant anointing of winners, losers, heroes, and goats. Many ’pundits’ did not dedicate themselves to dispassionate analysis but cheered one side and shouted down the other.’
’When partisan warfare breaks out on such a large scale, the results are terribly destructive and do lasting damage to our national political discourse. Vicious, negative attacks, distortions, spin, unsubstantiated innuendo and misinformation become the norm.
The headlines and sound bites that receive the greatest emphasis in the media too often are grounded in such unsavoriness. Caveats are deemphasized. Contradictory information is downplayed, dismissed, or simply disregarded. Complex issues are too often oversimplified in the context of winners and losers, and portrayed in stark black-and-white terms. The side that most effectively manipulates the narrative often prevails, and is lifted up as being on the offensive-at times regardless of any nuances and the larger underlying truth. Deception nudges truth to the side . Washington, as a result, has become a breeding ground for deception and is a killing field for truth’.
One waits to see whether Obama’s plea for a cessation of the ’culture wars’will be heeded, and whether he himself will use the vast internet based communication network which he used to get into the White House as a governance tool to do end runs around Congress and the established media.
