SPANKING THE MONKEY: DISPATCHES FROM THE DUMB SEASON | Matt Taibbi (New Press)
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Starting with the gross media undercounts of the massive antiwar demonstrations of January 2003–the largest since Vietnam–Taibbi suggests the press corps hasn’t just been asleep at the wheel but actively complicit in the dumb show that’s got us in the fix we’re in today. Speechwriter, reporter, political operative, and op-ed hack all speak the same empty language, within a rarefied bubble of plane, hotel, and campaign HQ. Dark horses like Dean are set up to fall; darker ones like Kucinich are so dangerous they must be ridiculed from the get-go. While all the “drama” of the campaign trail may not be scripted, its goal most certainly is: eventually the prize must–and will–go to another stuffed shirt.
For all his chemically enhanced shenanigans–shrooming at a debate in New Hampshire, tripping in full Viking regalia amid the Kerry press pool–Taibbi’s deconstruction of the mechanics of the campaign trail is masterful and lucid, and his scorn for the sad attempts of the Democrats to counter Republican vituperation with their “cheap imitation of viciousness” is palpable. But analytical chops aside, Taibbi’s great strength remains his role-playing routines–feverish fusions of outrage, cynicism, and pitch-black wisecrack that take him past Uncle Gonzo and into the company of high satirists like Swift and Burroughs. Whether fantasizing about ruling a backwater in the future American empire or pitching a reality TV show called “Extreme Fascist Makeover,” he portrays the right-wing other with all the diabolical glee of Dr. Benway adding two inches to a four-inch incision. Unlike many a handwringer, Taibbi’s willing to engage the opposition on a level deeper than condescension, bafflement, or pity. And on a couple occasions, when he joins his analytic and satiric powers together–as when tranny-baiting Bush volunteers while undercover in Florida–the results are dumbfounding. –Brian Nemtusak
Miller argues that these tactics exemplify a new Republican strategy, a push for an electoral process with no paper trail plus nickel-and-dime disenfranchisement tactics that add up to fraud. “So how will America vote in 2008?” Miller asks in his conclusion. It’s a loaded question, sure, and like certain of our elder statesmen (Jimmy Carter, say) Miller suggests nationwide standardization of both voting machinery and electoral procedure as goals worth pursuing. But in the near term, he argues, overtures toward reform are insufficient. Without a politically engaged citizenry issuing a forceful cry for change, and a press that does more than parrot White House PR, Fooled Again may well describe the endgame that leads to single-party dominance through the next generation. –Todd Dills
The confirmed theft of 1876 plays large: then, the Republican Party manipulated totals in Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina (where federal troops were still on the ground and Republican “carpetbagging” state governments in power) to eke out a win for Rutherford B. Hayes. (Gumbel is always quick to point out that theft happens on both sides: during that campaign, South Carolina Democrats were also out in force, intimidating and even murdering blacks and generally making a nasty historical legacy for themselves.) Afterward, confidence in the system’s fairness, already at low ebb, was obliterated. And almost a century later Lyndon Johnson was reported to have said, “If you do everything, you’ll win.”
