Monday, Jul. 21, 2003 - 6:30 p.m.

Sleazeball

Dennis Kucinich was just like Chris Rock in the movie, “Head of State” but even less funny.

He had his black hair trimmed short on the sides and back and long on the top, combed from one side of his head straight over to the other side. Half the time he spoke, he was shouting loudly into the microphone. Give that shrimp (he probably has “short man’s disease”) a uniform and a moustache, and he would look just like Hitler.

He dished out the same old sleazy politician bullshit, and the crowd ate it up. No tie and the sleeves of his collared shirt rolled up to look simultaneously professional, and down-to-earth, man-of-action, man-of-the-people. After the fifth vague platitude he uttered, my eyes glazed over.

He said, “it’s not about me, it’s about us. My campaign isn’t just about electing me President, it’s a movement.” No comment necessary, I hope.

He also tried to inspire. “We need to recognize the power inside each one of us,” he said not including the implied, “and then give that power over to me.”

But his most profound statement was:

“American history is the story of the unfolding of the promise of democracy.”

Never has one sentence so neatly encapsulated the Americanist apologetics that Botanologia rails against.

Thomas Jefferson initially made the promise, but we couldn’t live up to it, because Jefferson’s ideals were ahead of his time. Chattel slavery? Indian massacres? If you can’t fix it, feature it! The atrocities of the past become signposts indicating how much we’ve improved (Deutschland would do well to imitate this spin control tactic.) It’s cause for celebration. You can even look at the movie “Gangs of New York” from that perspective. Look how far we’ve come! You can no longer walk into a pub and get a beer for an ear! This is the lie of progressivism: you take some facts about how some things are better than they used to be. You ignore facts about how some other things are now worse than they used to be. You ignore histories of yet other things getting worse, then better, and then worse again, perhaps cyclically. You selectively connect the dots, constructing a tale of continuous progress toward betterment. Where the dots don’t connect, add wishful thinking. Encourage extrapolation into an infinitely better future. This is how you get frustrated people who want change to buy into the status quo. You say to the oppressed and hopeless, “sure, things were simply horrible way back when. And I freely admit things still kind of suck now. But if you get on board we can work together for a bright new tomorrow.” Then you tie it back into the Enlightenment rhetoric of the Founding Fathers through your myth of the “unfolding promise”. Swear that if we just work real hard, we’ll achieve the full unfolding real soon. It’s just around the corner…

You won’t hear a progressive saying something like, “this country got off on the wrong foot on day one, and has been going in the wrong direction ever since. We need to sweep aside all, or at least most, of the old order and start afresh.” That’s the talk of a revolutionary, or at least of a somewhat radical reformer. That’s no way to get votes in a country where everyone is taught in public schools to buy into the system, our best of all possible systems.

Kucinich related an empowering fable, the yarn about Alice in Wonderland facing off against the Queen’s minions. He crouched down for dramatic effect as he told the story. Alice then grew to her full size and declared, “you’re nothing but a pack of playing cards!” Kucinich sprang to his feet and resumed shouting and gesticulating. Alice then brushed all the cards aside with one sweep of her arm. Yes, indeed. If I could talk to Kucinich right now, I would tell him, “you’re just an overeducated short, skinny white dude, like me. And your Presidential campaign, the office of President, the Executive branch, the Constitution, and the rest of officaldom in Washington D.C. are all no more substantial than a pack of playing cards!”

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