Voting as an Exorcism

When I went to vote in our local school there was an old lady using a walker. I was sitting down. I offered her my seat. She asked,”how old are you?” I told her 93. She said,”your older than me you stay there.” I thanked her and met her again as we were leaving the school. “How’d it go I asked.” “Oh it was just fine as now we’ll get those scoundrels out and get the country humming again.” “Do you always feel that way after you have voted?” “Oh of course" she replied.” “So you always feel uplifted once you have voted?” “Yes indeed. Isn’t it the American way?”

It dawned on me that people get a heightened sense that the act of voting has somehow cleansed there felt sense that “by God I have actually done something for my country.” She just seemed to be one happy AARP member. If for some the election is an exorcism then for others it has become a sporting event. Think of it as the baseball pennant race. That’s the primaries and the election the world series. The result is the same. Just an opportunity to be a fan for your team. God forbid there be any serious thought given to the issues.

All my life I have tried to understand what the voting means to the individual voter. As a soap boxer way back in the thirties I often told my audience that the whole system of Tweedledum and tweedldee was setup by the capitalist system to create the illusion that you are voting for change. When in fact we were just voting for the same script with just a change of players. Having said that I still tried to convince my audience that F.D.R. was better than his opponent. “So if you have to vote go with FDR as he is indeed better than Alf Landon." Yes, it was the lessor of the two evils. We had lots of explanations for that notion as Europe was going fascist and we felt that FDR was our best bet against that rising tide.

Now with capitalism in one of its regular crisis the Democrats became the fall guys for 8 years of Bush. It was Carl Rove’s idea to raise that enormous debt in order to a “starve the beast” policy. Translated it meant raise the debt to make sure there is no money left for social programs. That’s is exactly where we are now. The Republicans who created the debt crisis are now going to solve it on the backs of those who can least afford it. And yes they will champion all those Bush tax cuts mostly the ones for the very rich.

What went wrong for Obama? A couple of things at work here. I believe the fact that we have the first Black President is what got the Tea Party folks bonkers. That’s what, “Give us our country back” was about. It just sat there right under the skin of so many white people who just couldn’t abide with the new Black face of our leader. It expresses itself in the “Where’s his birth certificate?” “Yeah we know he’s a Muslim just waiting to take over the country." And to boot a socialist and on and on.

Obama really never had an organized base. To the pickup truck, beer drinking old buddies of mine Obama is not a good communicator. He reminds me of another to smart politician Adley Stevenson. He also had trouble putting his thoughts into very simple little slogans that the average Joe can understand. (Just think about the Obama Health Care campaign.) Talking of the essential need for an organized base I am reminded of a meeting between A.Philip Randolf President of the Sleeping Car Porters Union and FDR. Randolph at the time was the lone Black in the leadership of an A F of L union. The Sleeping Car Porters was the largest black union in the country. Randolph was complaining to FDR about the lack of jobs for his members. He was pressing Roosevelt to do more about job creation. FDR is reported to have said. “Philip I agree with everything you are saying now you go out there and make me do it.”

That is precisely what Obama simply doesn't have a mass movement to make him do it. It was great to see all those young folks out there being excited about their new President. Problem was the day after his inauguration the youngens went back to text messaging and forgot about politics.

There simply never was an organized movement in support of what Obama wanted to do. Yes there were some nice slogans like, we can” and “Change.” That last word “Change” seems to have all kinds of magical connotation for the citizens. Yet there is no definition of what “change” means. Just changing the actors doesn’t mean a hill of beans. If there is no change in the system we are doomed to endlessly play the game of treedledum and tweedlldee.

I am glad that a little old lady helped me to understand the excitement that comes over people as they go to the polls. I never thought of it as an exorcism a cleansing of the political pallet. A sense of relief. A feeling that “by God I really changed things today. because I voted.” So there.