Why Politics is Bullshit (or, Who Do You Believe When Everybody Looks Professional in Those Neat Boxes on Television?)

Recently my wife and I went to see Robin Williams' new movie "Man of the Year". Williams throws out many insightful observations about politics in the U.S., but the best bit of the evening is delivered by co-star Lewis Black. (I don't have a script here, so I will have to muddle through from memory as best I can.) Black said that he has a love/hate relationship with television as far as politics is concerned. He said that television makes everyone seem credible by putting every opinion-holder in the same lights, makeup and neat little box next to another person who is asserting the opposite view. We can't trust our own bullshit detectors. Everyone seems credible, which results in no one being credible.

An extreme example of the veracity of this is "The Yes Men", a group of political tricksters who impersonate representatives of organizations such as the WTO, Halliburton, HUD and Dow Chemical (links go to YouTube). They manage to get themselves interviewed on television news programs espousing ridiculous ideas and views in an effort to lampoon and undermine the organizations they oppose. Their entire "hijinks" agenda is based on the credibility issues that Lewis Black talked about. People believe them because they are on the news.

The fact is, you can manufacture credibility. All you have to do is construct the appearance of something that is credible. And news organizations play into the myth-spreading all the time. They put up impressive sets, run flashy intros, shoot their programs with other office workers running around in the background to give the illusion of a newsroom hard at work, green-screen in backgrounds to mock up locations, run tickers across the bottom of the screen, etc. Is any of this wrong? No. It's show business. But it does have the undesirable effect of lending credence to views that are not fact-based or even are entirely fraudulent. Everyone *looks* credible. And, as a result, no one *is* credible. As a result, people trust the news less and less. The electorate is uneducated and it feels duped.

Another facter to this is outlined in the book "Why Americans Hate Politics" by Washington Post writer E.J. Dionne. The upshot of the book is that Americans are asked by political parties and candidates to make ridiculous choices. We are presented with these choices in A/B pairs that do not necessarily reflect how Americans believe. We may choose answer A (thus, party or candidate A) some of the time, but answer B some of the time. Yet, we are expected to be okay with these "options" and to understand that we can never have it exactly how we want it.

Add to these the fact that many Americans believe that Congress operates for the benefit of corporations and special interests, that they are never told the whole story in any dispute, that their vote does not count (or will not be re-counted), that their President is an idiot and his opponents are wimps and that they simply do not have the time to personally sort through everyone's bullshit to figure out who/what to believe...

Is it any wonder American's stay away from the polls in droves? Is it any wonder that they list "politics" as one of the most undesirable and divisive topics for conversation ever? Is there a way that decent politicians can reassure voters and help educate them as to the real facts of their government? Are there any such "decent politicians"? Or would all of them be beter off giving us the mushroom treatment? Does the responsibility for education lie solely with each citizen, then? And where do you turn for reasonably accurate information with which to make decisions?

Increasingly, Americans are getting their news from comedians like Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert and Dennis Miller. They figure if they're gonna be dazzled with flash and thin rhetoric they may as well get a laugh out of it.