The Presidential Anointment Process

Edward Bernays, the father of modern advertising and public relations, in his 1928 book “Propaganda”, said

No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the people expresses any divine or specially wise and lofty idea. The voice of the people expresses the mind of the people, and that mind is made up for it by group leaders in who it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and clichés and verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders.

American politics today (and perhaps always) is largely a game of manipulation of public opinion. The candidates are many, but only a few are anointed “front runners” (one even undeclared). The rest are shunted to the side. Front runners have a few things in common – one, they are usually aristocrats, millionaires, or the darlings of such. And, they are backed by corporate wealth. There’s not much made secret about that anymore. Newspapers routinely report on how well the candidates are doing in the real contest, the battle for corporate money. It’s treated as normal. (I even read yesterday of how well the candidates are doing among baseball owners. There’s an important constituency.)

Now and then, a real grassroots phenomenon comes along. Howard Dean broke new ground in 2004 by doing an end-run around corporate money, and raising huge campaign funds in driplets by means of the internet.

But Dean was not favored – perhaps he was even feared by the corporations who run our campaigns. His campaign ended with what is now known as the “I Have A Scream” speech. It wasn’t a big deal, and could have passed without notice. He was merely exhorting his followers. But the snippet was magnified throughout the media and on the cable networks, and Dean soon had to withdraw.

That tends to reinforce what Bernays told us – that our opinions are molded by our leaders. Before deciding that Dean had blundered, we had to look around, check the Internet, read the papers and listen to Jay Leno. Then we decided he was toast.

Does anyone seriously believe that our media, if it so desired, could not make trash of the feeble-minded king of malapropism, George W. Bush?

We have maybe twenty candidates for president. Long before any formally announced, we were already told who the “front runners” were. That was decided for us. Media attention is devoted to this select group, and other candidates are set aside. They never really had a chance. So long before the first vote will be cast, we know that the Democrat will be Hillary or Obama, two DLC right-leaning “centrists”. The Republican will be one of three hard right wingers, Rudy or Mitt or John oops! Fred Thompson, who hasn’t even declared.

Other candidates are surprisingly intelligent, insightful, even funny. Ron Paul probably won the first Republican debate, but gets no ink. Dennis Kucinich continues to wow ‘em at Democratic debates – he represents majority opinion on health care and the war. But he’s rarely mentioned in the major news outlets. He’s lucky even to be mentioned now and then.

I’ve been waiting for the annointed one to emerge from the Republican field. McCain looked good for a long while. But he openly supports the war, and that’s not acceptable right now. All of the “front runners” likely support the war, but they’ve got to be cagey about it.

It looks like Romney right now. Yesterday he won a minor victory in a silly straw poll in a no-count place in Iowa, wildly outspending his opponents, most of whom didn’t even show up. Yet the New York Times and Washington Post are gushing over him. He sounds like a front runner.

Come 2008, we’ll have a choice, all right. It’ll be corporate anointee A versus corporate anointee B, both given credibility by our corporate-owned media and both guaranteed to carry forth the same agenda as in place right now. They’ll put a new face on the same old policies. That’s all Bill Clinton ever did. I don’t expect anything better from Hillary.

Says Bernays,

The important thing for the statesman of our age is not so much to know how to please the public, but how to sway the public. In theory, this education might be done by means of learned pamphlets explaining the intricacies of public question. In actual fact, it can be done only by meeting the conditions of the public mind, by creating circumstances which set up trains of thought, by dramatizing personalities, by establishing contact with the group leaders who control the opinions of their public.

From a corporate standpoint, the ideal situation would be to have a corporate president wildly supported by the public as he/she carries out a corporate agenda. We’re pretty close to that. We have two parties that get their funding from essentially the same people, who carry out essentially the same policies once elected. Non or anti-corporate candidates are marginalized, or trashed.

It is as if we don’t make up our own minds or think for ourselves. This was Bernays’ pronouncement about us. He seems prescient.

That doesn’t speak well of us.