Wow. Download this week's episode of This American Life while you can: This Party Sucks.
It was broadcast a couple days before the election, but completely nails a phenomenon that I think explains the election, why we have a two-party system and why we desperately need
EDD.
It's all about
Cognitive Dissonance, and it's something we all struggle with but which I believe people on the right are more readily able to resolve by re-writing their inner self-narrative on the fly. I think folks on the left struggle more, because they have a broader grasp of the issues, of all the subtle and complex ways in which political ideals conflict with each other and with reality.
Anyway listen to it first before you read any further. It's two parts: In part 1, Ben Calhoun interviews a bunch of Tea-Partiers on their struggle between "Principle over Party" and giving in to staying relevant and supporting the GOP. And in part 2, Jack Hitt interviews Democrat strategist Paul Begala on why the Democrats don't have as efficient a "Talking Points machine" as the Republicans.
If you've listened to it, what blows my mind in part 1 begins around 31 minutes in, when Glen Wilson fires his campaign manager Rich Carlson primarily over differences in their ideas of how independent and true to the Tea Party vision the campaign should be. Interviewer Ben is right on the scene and captures Rich's immediate and really admirable and principled reaction: that he's been let go, but that he still believes in the vision and he still supports the candidate. But a little while later, Rich gets a call from the Republican candidate's people, offering to spin the news the other direction: not that Rich had been fired, but that he had voluntarily left on differences in allegiance to the Tea Party vision. And so right at 35:44, after receiving this call, Ben asks him what happened, how can he still believe in the vision, but also now side with the Republican's spin that Wilson was just a spoiler.
And right at 36:30 - and I'm not doing it justice - you really have to listen to it for yourself - but the pronouns start subtly changing. One moment he's saying
I was let go, but
I believe in the vision. But now it's "
We've reached a decision that I'm no longer with the campaign..." Ben presses and you can hear the storms of inner conflict brewing - his voice stays calm - he gets a little defensive and suggests turning off the mic - but he goes on and the storms settle and bam! - he's got a new narrative. Ben comments that what he's just heard may be the most cynical thing he's ever witnessed. Rich responds "well, that's reality."
Anyway it just gave me goose-bumps, because, I don't know many Republicans, but those I do know consistently do this all the time in discussing the issues: "Obama's bankrupting the country!" "But the deficit has actually shrunk 3%." "Boloney, show me where - that's not trustworthy - well that's just... well ok. ...but he's still taxing and spending too much." You know the drill. Explanatory narratives are juggled and the one more consistent not with the present facts, but which conflicts the least with the existing broader worldview is selected - what Stephen Colbert calls "truthiness" I guess. "Reality has a well-known liberal bias" and all that.
In part 2, we get the flip side: the Dems are never on message because, according to this theory, they don't as easily settle on one narrative or another, because they suffer, autistically, from an overwhelming appreciation of the facts. They're too cognizant of the breadth and complexity of society to be able to act decisively, to type up every morning the day's talking points and then go out and robotically parrot them to the media, to create the broader illusion that their message is what everyone's talking about.
I guess we all knew this. I was just so moved by how well TAL captured the phenomenon in action on tape. Really good show. Makes me think the solution for the Dems is not to try to have their own Fox News, but to give up striving for a single message, to give up trying to have a message at all - to embrace the noise and crowd-source the message through
EDD.
