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1.TheContest E versincetheinventionofthetwo-partysysteminJacksonianAmerica, America’sprimariesandelectionshavealternatedbetweencontestsandspectacles .Althoughthetwohavemuchincommon—notablytheactsofwatchingand being watched—there are important differences between them. A contest is a trial or struggle for victory involving roughly equal individuals; a spectacle is an event or scene that rivets the attention. Rules, procedures and the equality of all participants arecrucialtoacontest;therearenorulesorprocedurestoaspectacle.Acontesthasaclearend point; spectacles drag on until the last onlooker leaves. Contests produce heroes; spectacles produce celebrities. Contests make onlookers feel exalted, as the contestants push beyond whattheycouldnothaveaccomplishedwithoutcompetition;spectaclesoftenleaveonlookers feeling degraded, as they sense they are somehow experiencing the lesser and not the nobler human capacities. Given the nature of the two-party system, it is no surprise that the DemocraticPrimaryprocess ,whichopenedintheformofacontest,hasturnedintoaspectacle.Let usseehowandwhythisoccurred. Thefirstthingthatmakesacontestisaprize.Inthiscase,theprizewastheleadershipofthe DemocraticParty.ThatprizewasespeciallyvaluablebecausetheDemocraticPartyhadrevolutionary and charismatic roots—in the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian uprisings against the elitism of the “founding fathers.” Historically the party of the white outsiders, of “rum, Romanism and rebellion,” that is of saloon-keepers, immigrants and white Southerners, the party was transformed during the New Deal into something like the American analogue to a European-style worker’s party. Its chief defect during the 1930s, its compromises with the white South in such matters as the Agricultural Adjustment Act (which excluded sharecroppers ), was remedied in the 1960s by its commitment to civil rights. To its first great universal entitlementprogram,SocialSecurity,thepartyaddedasecond,Medicare.Togaintheleadership of the Democratic Party, then, was to gain control of a great legacy; it was very different fromgainingtheleadershipoftheRepublicanParty,whichbeganasthepartyofaheroic,antislavery -mindedmiddleclassbutbecamethepartyoftherich. A long struggle for control of that legacy preceded the contest for the 2008 Democratic nomination. Beginning in the 1970s, it had become clear that the party had to transcend its roots in the industrial epoch. One response, epitomized in the slogan “the era of big government is over,” was to embrace neo-liberal globalization in an uncritical manner. Taking a leaf fromthepartyofBigBusiness,someDemocratsincludingtheDemocraticLeadershipCouncil , and such reformers as Gary Hart, Michael Dukakis and Bill Clinton, denounced “class struggle,”aslongasitarosefromworkers,blacksandimmigrants.Corruption,thedestruction of pension and health plans, the turning over of the great industries to financial speculators, thetransformationofcitiesintothemeparks,theprivatizationofeducation,thesubordination ofscientificresearchtocommerce,thedebasementofthepublicsphere:Democratsnotonly allowedthislethaltsunamiofprivatizationtooccur,theyactivelypromoteditundertherubric of“thethirdway.” Ofcourse,theDemocratsdidthisbecausetheywerepursuingtheprofessionalclasses,the soccer moms, and the educated, suburban elites who were relatively uncritical of neo-liberal globalization.Inplaceofclasspolitics,theDemocraticPartysupportedthetwo-earnerfamily, multiculturalism and the politics of recognition, the new, middle-class consumerist spiritofpost-FordistcapitalismspawnedbytheSixties.Theproblemwasthatthisstrategyleft 18 T I K K U N W W W. T I K K U N . O R G J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 0 8 TheContest and the Spectacle by Eli Zaretsky politics_2.qxd:Politics 6/11/08 12:34 PM Page 18 J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 0 8 W W W. T I K K U N . O R G T I K K U N 19 out the older working class base of the Democratic Party. WhileDemocratscalledforanon-ideologicalliberalism,one thatmight“cutthrough”asupposedlysterileLeft/Rightdistinction ,theRightfailedtogetthemessage.Runningagainst the cultural Left, America witnessed, as Thomas Frank observed , “a French Revolution in reverse—one in which the sans-culottespourdownthestreetsdemandingmorepower forthearistocracy.”Theatrocitiesthatfollowedincludedthe impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998, the stealing of the 2000electionandtheinvasionofIraq. These atrocities precipitated the struggle for the Democratic legacy. At first, supporters of the Clinton administration and their current opponents were joined in opposition to the Right. For example, Moveon.org was created to fight theClintonimpeachment.However,intheearlytwenty-first century a divide opened. The Internet especially provided a pathway for Democratic insurgentswhobegantoblamethevacillationsandcompromisesoftheClintonadministrationfor openingthewayfortheRepublicans.ThesupportofroughlyhalfoftheDemocrats,including HillaryClinton,forBush’s2002authorizationtouseforceinIraq,provedaturningpoint.Pathetically ,bycavinginto“waronterror”intimidation,theDemocratsinCongresssquandered the moral force required to tell the American people that, for the most part, their sons and daughtershaddiedfornothinginIraq,thattheirtreasurehadbeensquandered,theirfuture heldhostage,andthecarefullynurturedreputationoftheUnitedStatesthoughtlesslytrashed. By2004HowardDean’scandidacy,basedonanewgenerationofyoungpeople,ontheInternetandonaprincipledoppositiontothewar ,wasdirectedasmuchagainsttheClintonlegacyasagainsttheRepublicans . Ultimately, Barack Obama won the contest for the Democratic Presidential nomination becausehespoketothisconflictmostdirectly.BycontrastHillaryClinton,aDemocraticParty insiderwhowasherselfalreadyatargetoftheDeaninsurgency,beganhercampaignbyidentifying with the “third way” revolution in the Democratic Party, including its uncritical embraceofthemarketandcasualmanipulationofsymbolsofidentity (itselfbasedonmarketing techniques).JohnEdwards,ontheotherhand,resurrectedtheolderparadigmoftheDemocraticParty ,whichchargedthegovernment,andespeciallythepresident,withadvocatingfor the disadvantaged, and serving as a counterweight to big business. Obama, however, tried to articulateathirdpossibility,whichseemedtoechoRousseau’sideaofthe“generalwill,”asdistinguished from the “will of all.” The will of all is an aggregate, which composes a democratic majority by putting together the many particular interests that comprise a society; the general will is the common...

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