Janet Daley, a prominent opinion and leader writer for The Telegraph, in a recent article wrote that something has gone seriously wrong with our politics as “we seem to be entering a new historical phase: the Era of Stupid.” She also asked why voters became so credulous.
Although she writes about the United Kingdom and America, what she writes is relevant to the local situation, and her arguments, particularly about voters, find echoes in many an opinion piece penned over here. But things are more complex than Daley and some local correspondents make them to be. Simplistic assessments of complex situations only make matters worse.
Daley’s main targets were US presidential Republican candidate Donald Trump and the leader of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, while Owen Smith, Corbyn’s leadership rival, got a cameo mention.
Let us take what Daley says about Trump. She lambasts him for saying that President Barack Obama is the founder of Isis, and “crooked Hilary Clinton” is co-founder. She believes that he is so stupid that he does not even know the meaning of the word ‘founder’. Her reference to the “absurd illiteracy of his [Trump’s] language” is in line with the criticism that others also levelled at him . Some described Trump’s speeches as a “word salad” or, worse, a sign of “early Alzheimer’s”.
But others say that Trump’s spasmodic, self-interrupting sentence structure and run-on sentences is far from being a sign of stupidity or Alzheimer’s. Cognitive scientist and linguist George Lakoff, for example, says that “his [Trump’s] words and his use of grammar are carefully chosen, and put together artfully, automatically, and quickly”. Trump is an effective, not a stupid, communicator. Just google Lakoff’s blog for insightful articles on this subject.
Daley’s comments about Trump’s “absurd illiteracy” and Corbyn’s “outlandish gibberish” are strong statements that make a piece highly readable but not necessarily correct, as Lakoff’s comments on Trump demonstrate. But for the sake of argument, let us say that her analysis is correct. Does that really mean that politics has entered the era of the stupid which she says is a new era? Really? Napoléon Bonaparte, more than a few decades back in time, used to say that “in politics, stupidity is not a handicap”. Nothing really new. Analysing and attacking a politicians as stupid does not demolish him or his arguments.
The government’s tack is to hint that since both parties are corrupt, voters cannot vote for the moral high ground as it does not exist
The same thing can be said about Daley’s (and many local correspondents’) dubbing of voters as the flipside of the stupidity coin. Her indignation is expressed in strong terms.
“After generations of free, compulsory schooling, the political literacy and sense of civic responsibility of two advanced democracies seems to have gone backwards to a level that would have shocked my parents’, let alone my grandparents’ generation.”
I bet that you have on more than one occasion read similar stuff in local media. The result of the last election has been wrongly analysed in the simplistic way by many.
Undoubtedly there are stupid voters as there are stupid patients, doctors, journalists – everything – but tarring all voters that vote for an opposing side with the brush of stupidity does not wash for me. Calling voters stupid is a cop-out. It is just an elitist alternative to a reasoned and intelligent assessment of the situation. It is the losers’ attempt to excuse their ineptitude or incompetence. If people are stupid, then one is not to blame for his or her mistakes which alienated people and drove them to the other side. It is then the stupidity of the voters that is to blame for things turning out the way they turned out.
When people vote for one’s side they are deemed to be intelligent, and when they vote for an opposing side, they, all of a sudden, become stupid! Funny isn’t it how intelligent people can reason in such a stupid way.
Analysing situations in this way leads only to worse results. Reaching a decision on how to vote sometimes involves a simple calculation of which side will give one most. Consequently, several just auction their vote, giving it to the highest bidder. That can be described as morally reprehensible but not necessarily as stupid. Such voters vary from the mega-moneyed bullies who are reaping millions of euros, to common folk who got a job they do not deserve.
But the voting decision can be an emotional process, particularly for those who would have come to a conclusion that they should change the way they had voted for a long time. One of the tactics used to entice them to make the move consists of stealing the other side’s language.
In pursuit of this tactic, the Labour Party used the colour blue, the slogan “Is-sewwa jirbaħ żgur” (Truth will prevail), and praised former Nationalist leaders. Disgruntled Nationalists and people who ‘feared’ Labour were thus nudged to change their vote in the belief that Joseph Muscat’s so-called movement was nearer to their beliefs and convictions. People wanted an excuse or justification to change their vote, and such tactics amply provided it.
Another insidious tactic is being used today. Faced by the constant string of scandals – one worse than the other – that are continually being revealed, the government counters irrefutable evidence about their scandals by spinning real or imaginary scandals committed by the Nationalists. This confuses the issue, and hopefully diffuses it. It also spreads the mantra that there is no difference between both sides and both are equally corrupt.
Many a ‘learned’ correspondent has swallowed the bait and consequently pushes the government’s agenda of ‘plague on both their houses’. The government’s tack is then to hint that since both parties are corrupt, voters cannot vote for the moral high ground as it does not exist. Then it becomes legitimate to vote for those who give most material benefits.
More than saying that we are in the age of the stupid voter, I think we are in the age of Orwellian communicators who have turned spinning into a science more than a craft.
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt