I have been thinking for a while about how often politics tends to get framed as black and white choices. What really made me think about this was working on the citizen badge with my scouts. As part of the requirements for the badge they are required to know the name of the president and the vice president (as well as the governor of their state – Incidentally they all knew President Bush and could recognize a picture of him, but none of them could recognize Vice President Cheney or Governor Jodi Rell or knew their names – they can now). I decided that since it was an election year that I would also show pictures of the presidental candidates as well. They all knew all three of them (at the time). But what I thought was really interesting were the comments that they made, including: “President Bush is horrible”, “Hillary is a witch”, Barack Obama is really cool”. These are ten year old boys and they clearly have a very black and white view of the candidates. Now I am sure that part of this is that at that age they are not very sensitive to nuances, but they must have picked up these ideas somewhere.
I want to emphasize at this point that I am not trying to make a commentary or judgement on my boys or on their families or other associates (I think they are great). I simply bring this up because it has really made me think about how often the campaigns, the press, and ordinary citizens start to portray political issues and candidates in black and white. If you really stop and think about it I think that most people could find aspects of every candidates position that they could agree with or at least respect. But it isn’t usually portrayed that way. That is why we end up with statements that anyone who votes against Hillary is betraying women or that a vote for anyone but Barack Obama is racist.
I don’t know how prevalent this really is. It may be (I hope) a minority and that these ideas get repeated in the media because they are controversial. It seems healthy to me to at least periodically remind myself of the good side of every candidate.
Good points. It’s a little daunting and scary to think of the influences that can affect perception and how that shapes important items… such as presidential elections.
If I have to hear one more person tell me that their reason for voting for Obama is “because he’s charismatic, motivational, change…” yada yada yada I’m going to become sick. Sweet! What has he actually accomplished that makes you want to vote for him? Records usually tell a whole lot of the story.
That’s why I check out your blog, you study things out… not saying I always agree but I know I’ll get a well studied and thought out answer. –
What are your thoughts on McCain? Obama has been so much in the spotlight seems like we know a lot more about him for good and bad.