The U.S. President

Blog #2 by
Kasim Ercan Ekenler


During the 2008 presidential campaign, "change" was the buzz word. Barack Obama and the democrats used this word to embody their presidential platform as well their goals for domestic policy. John McCain then used the word to first attack Barack Obama, and then to support his own separation from George W. Bush's term, which during the course of 2008 took a heavy beating. Separating change from the common conceptions of the two major political parties, I wonder about change for America. Do we need it? Who should decide and develop the course of "change"? Who is truly empowered to make that change?

I will make an assumption and answer positively that America does need change. With economic turmoil that points to systemic problems, healthcare at the center of heated discussion, a fragile ecosystem, rising global temperatures, and international instability in the Middle East, our current path does not lead to forseeable solutions. These are my assumptions, my reasons for seeking change in this country's path. It is each man's right and responsibility as a citizen to hold such opinions and to verify their validity with study and research. But it is not the citizen's responsibility to affect changes in domestic or international policy. Politicians and legislators are ideally informed and skilled enough to craft such policy. It is the citizen's responsibility to choose politicians that support his or her ideas about change.

In "The Presidency and Political Leadership", Mary Stuckey claims that "presidential candidates, through the vehicles of the political parties, are powerful forces uniting the mass public - powerful voices determining national identity." In the democratic political system, I do not affect change, I vote for someone to affect the change I desire. Politicians are responsible for developing a political course toward affecting change, and properly communicating their platform for change. The problem in modern political times, though, is that issues are becoming less relevant to the political process. The ways in which presidents are uniting the mass public is through their character, their personal stories, and the public's emotional responses to contentious issues. Despite the ability of modern mass media to make political platforms available, and bring issues to the center of the political process, it has acted in the opposite direction, shifting the focus away from issues. If the substance of presidential communication has changed, how can citizens know when they vote what type of "change" they are choosing? And if politicians are moving away from the issues, is this because they are powerless to affect changes on the "issues"?

In "Rhetorical Challenges to the Presidency", Robert Denton Jr. discusses the distinction between the "modern" and "classic" public spheres, as postulated by Jurgen Habermas. He explores how democracy of large masses leads to a loss of discursive coherence between members of society as many less educated citizens become involved in political opinion. Communcating and discussing ideas becomes increasingly frustrating as people become less informed. The mass media outlets are at the forefront of this modern development; the media is responsible for involving far more people in democracy. While this is not inherently problematic, the shift of mass media toward smaller and smaller target audiences has made "narrowcasting," as opposed to broadcasting, the norm. (Denton 446) The response of presidential communication has been to "spend more and more time attempting to influence public opinion concerning their policies" than actually promoting the policies themselves. (Denton 447) It has become more important to spin policies through the media than to adopt changes to policies that informed social discourse has demanded.

In the presidential election of 2008, we saw excessive examples of the candidates attempting to personalize themselves for the American public. Just after becoming the presumptive democratic nominee, Barack Obama aired "biographical" commercials in 18 states emphasizing his patriotism and service to the country. (http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2007/08/new-obama-bio-a.html) It was focused specifically on building public opinion of his character, not his policies. John McCain matched this approach by airing a 60 second spot emphaisizing his own patriotism and strength as a leader. (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/28/mccain.ad/index.html) The commercial asks about the candidate "what does he think?", but fails to answer the question. The viewers are expected to create their own response based on the images and sound clips provided by the commercials.

By appealing to personal character and avoiding issues, presidential candidates avoid alienating the increasing number of voter coalitions. No longer can candidates count on a small number of voter groups, or coalitions, to gain them the presidency. Mary Stuckey contemplates how universal suffrage - the ability of all woman andminorities to vote - has provided an incredible diversity of cultural, ethnic, economic, and regional "coalitions" of voters. It is difficult to take a hard stand on any issue without alienating large numbers of potential voters. It seems to me that instead of crafting policies more carefully, politicians have chosen to remove policies and issues from their own campaigns, as much as possible. Further, we see the media, as well as the candidates, utilize the diversity of our citizens against one another. Because media outlets have already created micro-markets by "narrowcasting", it is very easy to distribute attack ads to voting coalitions who will be effected by the negative messages. The results of this situation are frightening, as both John McCain and Barack Obama aired more than 75,000 negative ads between June 3 and September 7 of 2008. (http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/10/mccain_obama_ne_1.html) These numbers represent the most negative presidential campaigns in history. (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081031102057.htm)

The most unfortunate result of a move away from policies, though, is that no one may be empowered to affect change. Denton declared that "it is not likely we will see the development of large-scale policy initiatives" because of the political landscape and the nature of modern presidential political communication. Barack Obama's largest policy initiative as president, the health care reform, is experiencing this same realization. The response to his initiative has been one of attack, marginalization, and emotion. Conservative media outlets attacked Obama, claiming his plan will bankrupt the country, without addressing his concern that our future economic viability depends on an overhaul of ths system. (http://mediamatters.org/research/200903310040) It is not helpful to continue attacking ideas and arguments unless we consider the negatives along with the positives. How do we change a broken system, if the system has created a feedback loop to prevent educated discourse on change by attacking anything new? Do we need to accept change as incremental and slow? Can we afford that type of change, based on our present situation?

Conscientious media outlets do exist, and objective discourse is being attempted, but people are watching Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN. Following President Obama's speech to the AMA, the foremost medical body in the U.S., multiple media outlets provided opportunities for doctors, journalists, and professors to answer questions about the feasibility of health care reform. (http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/06/obamas-health-care-push ; http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105481744) This is the type of discourse that leads to answers based on facts and logic, not emotion and fear of media attack.

For presidents to be willing to communicate clearly their stand on issues, more people need to engage in discourse that is willing to hear and share both sides of the issue. We need to continue to provide venues that encourage a diversity of ideas. If everyone were disgusted with modern, gut-reaction, one-sided media presentations of political issues, they wouldn't be aired. If our discursive coherence has been lost because of a large, un-informed public, we have two choices. Together we can find NEW ways to educate and inform the public, or we can decrease the size of the "mass public." Can we come together as diverse communities to discuss the issues in ways that we move toward meaningful answers? I hope so, it might be our only chance for change.

References:

Denton, Robert Jr. "Rhetorical Challenges to the Presidency." Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Vol. 3, No. 3, 2000. 445-51.

Stuckey, Mary. "Presidential and political Leadership." Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Vol. 3, No. 3, 2000. 452-454.