I Like My Televised Combat With ACTUAL Pretend Violence
It is a sad confession perhaps, but I am a pretty serious fan of professional wrestling. Perhaps not at a geek-level, following all the websites and tweets. But a regular viewer and occasional student of the art, indeed. The comparison of the debates this cycle with professional wrestling has become almost cliche. From the cheesy openings to the introduction of the debaters to the moderators practically begging the candidates to take personal shots at one another, there is an aptness to the analogy. I am expecting pyro and intro music any day now.
Snark aside, last night was a little too close for comfort. The opening cheap shot with Gingrich’s accompanying slap at the media is just a little too close to a wrestling story line where the ref becomes the issue. But that is not where I took my deep exception – it was the crowd, clearly prompted by King and whoever CNN had working it, to be loud and boisterous.
Everybody knows professional wrestling is fake, but that does not mean it is not competitive – it is highly competitive, just not in the sense they pretend it is. Yes, they know the outcome of the match when they enter the ring, but who is going to win the match is determined by those behind the scenes based on which performer is getting the best crowd response and reaction. They have to work together to pull off the moves they do, but who gets more TV time, who gets booked at more house events, who makes more money, who gets the best story lines, and who gets to feud with the guy next higher on the ladder is based on who is wining over the crowd, and in this day and age, the “universe” of fans in the chat rooms and twitter feeds.
This all causes the guys in the ring to do things specifically to play to the crowd. While the outcome of matches is known going in, they are not scripted. The wrestlers make it up as they go along, following a defined dramatic arc in how they develop the match and calling moves from step to step based on crowd reaction, and a desire to show off. Sometimes it gets very real when the performers cannot agree on executing specific moves while in the ring.
Last night’s debate really had that feel to me. With the rousing cheers from the crowd and the debaters sometimes appealing to the crowd directly, the analogy to pro wrestling took a giant leap forward. I will admit I only caught bits of it – I just could not bear it – It felt like the dignity of the office itself was at stake. You see, the stakes in the election are real and deeply consequential – to play the game with the rules of misdirection involved in something like wrestling only contributes to the dissatisfaction the nation is feeling with “the process.” The public does not want to be manipulated to a response, they want to be informed and make a choice. That means the competition should be about the issues the competition appears to be about, not the crowd reactions and applause meters.
Yes, those in elected office, or seeking elected office, are supposed to be responsive to the electorate, but being responsive to on matters of policy and playing to like a wrestler seeking applause lines are two different things. Yes, the candidate should use any communication tool at their disposal to get their message across, but at some ill-defined point, such can cross over from communication to deception. It has long been, and will long continue to be debated whether wrestling is deceptive or not, since they really are competing, just not in the fashion nor for the stakes that they say they are. But it is clear that in the last three decades the “fakeness” of professional wrestling has gone from something they denied to something they embraced. It is now an open secret, and as such it is even that much more entertaining. The fans want to know where the real competition is and what the real stakes are. They now participate in the process with more gusto and more zeal than ever before.
Things in this cycle are reaching the breaking point wrestling reached in the late 80′s and early 90′s where the “secrets’ moved out into the open. The explosive growth wrestling enjoyed with the advent of cable TV was severely at risk if they kept insisting it was “real.” The reality of politics is at risk if they keep doing it like it is more about ratings than it is the serious issues that face this nation.
The most egregious actors on the stage, excluding the moderator since that just flat out speaks for itself, were Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich. Ron Paul is well, Ron Paul. But Gingrich proclaiming towards the end that he was a “big ideas” guy while he had spent the debate trash talking the target of convenience of the moment, ala Rowdy Roddy Piper, was too much to swallow. Santorum and Romney tried to maintain their dignity, but it was truly difficult in that environment, and they too failed from time-to-time.
Something has got to give here. This is playing to the lowest common denominator – that’s great for TV ratings, but American governance is a far more serious matter that should appeal to the best, not the worst, in us. It is time to break the control of the media over these things so that they can return to substance and not style. And when such control is broken the new controllers, hopefully the party apparatus and the candidates themselves, have got to set some rules to eliminate, or seriously curtail, the effect of vanity candidates and buffoons like Ron Paul. The game has to be changed so that it is less about attracting attention (and applause) and more about discussing the serious issues facing the nation – at reasonable length, not sound bite length. Lower ratings in all probability, but far more representative of what the nation is facing and of the dignity befitting the office of chief executive of the most powerful nation on the planet.
I am fairly certain the man that defined the dignity, and humility, of the office, George Washington, were he not already in his grave would have dug it and dove in had he witnessed last night.
Posted in News Media Bias | 9 Comments » | 
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JLF9999 on 20 Jan 2012 at 8:00 am #
I see Newt paid 31% income taxes. Maybe he ought to get with Mitt. He only pays 15%. By the way Romney campaign people, did you not know this and could you not have prepped Mitt with an offer to help Mitt by having such a snappy comeback?
Can I ask a quesiton here? WHO THE *?*&@ IS RUNNIG MITT’s CAMPAIGN? Maybe Mitt ought to throw the towel in now, save a lot of money and just go home. Is ther no one in that group who could not see that Newt was going to get another softball over middle of the plate and would knock it out of the park AGAIN? JHow about prepping Mitt with a comeback like, “John, have you been hired by Newt’s campaign too? You serve these things up like you get a bonus for the good ones.”
One more – Romney campaign people – whose side are you on anyway?
JLF9999 on 20 Jan 2012 at 8:07 am #
I am still fired up. Maybe the Republican party really is on the path to self destrucitng before our eyes. Certainly Mitt has proven to be less than attractive in the last few debates but to let Newt Gingrich get back into the game when he was all but out must have required some serious advanced planning by the Romney campaign.
Phil T. on 20 Jan 2012 at 9:28 am #
A letter I wrote to the local newspaper follows and it touches on your topic.
Media bias
The new “presstitute media” has been reporting the resumes of each presidential candidate. President Obama’s stable of “presstitutes” runs stories that won’t create problems for their nominee similar to 2008.
“Fortunately, we have help from the media,” Mrs. Obama told CNN on June 24, 2011.
The New Hampshire Republican presidential debates (Jan. 7-Jan.
ignored Republican debate rules in favor of “presstitute media” rule 1, ask no questions about the economy and about fiscal and foreign policy that would educate the American public and cause problems for President Obama. And rule 2, ask questions to maximize Republican candidate differences, focus on highlighting each Republican candidate’s negatives and make the Republican Party look wacky.
One day, the government printing office will replace the “presstitute media” beginning with a story that starts —- “The government’s sting operation nabbed 15 “presstitutes” and their PIMPed political editor as they left a Propaganda Is My Politics (PIMP) conference” —- thus ending their proverbial deal with the devil that made “presstitutes” such “useful idiots.”
Last November, the Department of Homeland Security announced it can collect personal information from news anchors, journalists, reporters or anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed” (http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/privacy/privacy_privcomrev_ops_monitoring_initiative.pdf).
Sound foreboding?
Phil T.
P.S. The strange thing about the letter was that the newspaper inserted the DHS link – as if the new DHS policy was something they thought its readers should be concerned about. Phil T.
coltakashi on 20 Jan 2012 at 10:05 am #
I guess the thing that is confusing about the South Carolina primary campaign is the claim that voters there are dominated by people who take Christianity seriously, but there is no evident concern in the audiences or statements from the state’s opinion leaders about actual moral probity. A candidate’s personal integrity is not important compared to the question of whether the candidate is part of your tribe. Claims to be concerned about the genuineness of a candidate’s positions against abortion and same sex marriage ring hollow when the candidate’s own sexual misconduct and hypocrisy are not relevant to weighing his sincerity.
If Newt Gingrich does win the plurality in South Carolina, the rest of the nation will be justified in seeing it as a manifestation of hypocrisy in both the Republican Party and American Christianity.
Lowell Brown on 20 Jan 2012 at 10:05 am #
JLF, I am surprised that the Romney campaign was not more prepared for the financial “issues.”. I’m more surprised that he attacks on those grounds came from Republicans. Maybe Mitt was too. Krauthammer is spot-on, I think:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-legitimize-obamas-reelection-rhetoric/2012/01/19/gIQA5pB5BQ_story.html
JLF9999 on 20 Jan 2012 at 1:14 pm #
Lowell
You and I know most LDS people are reluctant to talk about the specifics of their wealth, if they have much. They will acknowledge it but talking about it in public focuses attention on them and that makes them uncomfortable. I can say that because I know a few. They prefer to focus on other people or the Church or the Gospel or something that does not send the message that wordly things are more important than eternal things. Mitt must say these things openly and without being embarrassed about it.
Currenlty, Mitt is in a differnt position than that of a church leader and role model. He has to justify his wealth. He got started last night but didn’t go far enough. In justifying his accomplsihments he has to be specific about what he has done with his wealth. He has to tell people his money is back at work in the real economy and not gathering dust in a vault somewhere. He must say his money is invested in other people’s dreams. He has to say without other people being successful he can’t be successful and that he is willing to take the risk that comes with helping others. He has to tell us he has not invested in $500,000 necklaces for his wife and does not have a million dollar line of credit at an expensive jewelry store. Nor does have he have chauffer driven limosines or a fleet of airplanes and dozens of people waiting on him hand and foot.
Mitt has to say his four residences are large because they are family homes and he has a large family with lots of grandchildren who come to visit. He has to say he worked hard for the privialge of providing nice things for his family and that he will not applogize for doing so and that he wants to help make it possible for other people to improve thier lives so they too can provide better lives for their families. He must say these things and do so like he is talking with his sweetheart because in a way, we too have to be sweet in his life.
JLF9999 on 20 Jan 2012 at 1:49 pm #
Mitt must tell people wealth creation, accomplishment and capitalism are about people helping people live better. Balance sheets, returns on investment and tax rates are just the tools of the trade and are meaningless unless peope’s lives get better. No one gets wealthy alone. In this case, it really does take a villiage or more accurately, a team. Wealth creation in his business has been with the aid of people willing to take a risk on other people. Quite often the risk was great. Because he was skilleld, properly trained and lucky, more lives were improved than suffered loss.
PeterP on 20 Jan 2012 at 2:25 pm #
John King said after the debate that he had told Newt he was going to ask him that very question, and Newt was happy for it.
All these debates are merely theater for the networks to make money, sort of like bowl games or reality TV.
The media (whether traditional or conservative) needs the primary season to continue for as long as possible in order to make more money.
In a rational world, a serial adulterer like Newt, who was run out of the Speakership of the House for ethics violations, who became an enabler for crony capitalism for the worst kind following his departure from the House, etc. would never be given the time of day of a rational Republican Party. It is truly a sign of the horrible state of our nation.
Who Won the Final South Carolina CNN Debate? | Mitt Romney Central on 20 Jan 2012 at 5:38 pm #
[...] Here’s an interesting take on the overall debate, and I like this take as well. [...]