One of my rituals when I take a plane is going to the news stand and pick up Newsweek and if I'm in for a long flight the Economist. On my latest flight I dug into a Newsweek report on the Obama - Hillary battle that included a ten page collection of articles written by women on who they supported and why. It was interesting reading, some of the accounts being very personal tales of overcoming the same obstacles that both candidates have faced on their way to the forefront of the democrat party elections. When I finished reading I sat back and realised that not one of the articles had mentioned what the political programs of either of the candidates were. It was all about race, sex and experience. I started looking at other reports from the campaign and the trend was the same.
So why does this trouble me?
I understand that this election represents a breakthrough in womens possibilities as states"men" and that a minority candidate generates hope for the many in the minority communities. But I think that this categorisation of people and being for an against them because of their sex or race is at the heart of the problem.
The fixation on who the people are, instead of what their policies will be, reduces the electoral process to the election of caricatures.
If anybody thinks that this is a very American tendency, I can tell you that having followed the preseidential elections in Paris the trend was much the same between mr. Sarkozy and mme. Royale.
I wonder why journalists are satisfied to reduce their articles and stories to these caricatures. Is it easier to write about, are we the public so none discriminative or is it because the politicians have so little to say these days, that the only meat on the story are these caricatures?
Opslag
