The American Public

I have been reading a piece in the Sunday (June 24) NY Times about how the British press tears its politicians apart. The article specifically talks about Tony Blair and how both the press and public have turned against him. It points out that politicians have the tendency, and Blair fell into this tendency, to blame the press for how the public has come to dislike him of late, as he leaves office. One of the points made in this article is that the various factions of the press actually just reflect the prejudices of their readers, and they deviate from these prejudices at their own peril. In other words, don't blame the press, blame the groups of people who read and buy into the stuff they publish to sell their papers in the first place.

This started me thinking about how American politicians all have a tendency to speak about the "American public" as if this were a national behemoth without difference among the people who make up this public. Further, one politician or another has a tendency to tear down his or her opponent as not representing the "will of the American public."

To take it yet a step further, we blame this war in Iraq on George Bush and Dick Cheney, among others, while, like the British press and the readers it represents, it may be more realistic to blame it on the "majority" of people who were responsible for their election. Still, politicians, who want to win, have to curry favor from voters, even those who voted for Bush, and thus are shy about criticizing the judgment these people showed in voting for a particular candidate, regardless of the honesty of such criticism.

So instead they blame the person they are running against and claim to better represent the will and the best interests of the American public. I can't tell you how many times I have thought about yelling back at the TV when a politician of some stripe makes a claim about the American public and what it wants. I long to tell this person, "I think I'm part of that public, and you aren't talking about how I feel about some issue—not even close." In other words, he or she is not talking about me.

M0st often these days it is the Republicans who raise my ire. Also in the Times today, we read about how the Republicans have sought to undermine the energy bill working its way through Congress, gutting any mandatory goals for generating energy from wind and solar or improving gas mileage standards. For the life of me, I can' t understand why they do this and what group of people they represent. I can assure you it is not any member of the public I know.

What I'd like to see is politicians refrain from the use of the term "the American public" and instead honestly state in whose real interests they are spouting one position or another. That would be refreshing but highly unlikely. Like the press in Britain whose prejudices reflect those of their readers, so that seems to be true of the party currently in power. In America, we elect the people who misunderstand the issues closest to the way a majority of the electorate misunderstands them. Sadly over the past 6 years or so, that misunderstanding has been profound, and thus we are in the fix we now find ourselves in with regard to climate change, health care, a needless war in Iraq, culture wars, immigration, you name it.

Perhaps it requires numerous crises of this nature to awaken us from our current prejudices (note the standing of Bush in the polls). Then next time maybe we will elect someone who reflects a slightly more enlightened view of things. Though that view may be distorted as well, perhaps it will be less toxic and even aimed at making things better for both the fortunate and less fortunate among us than what we have endured since 2001. I certainly hope so.

—John Woods, June 24, 2007