While the US media diverts itself with the subplots of its increasingly operatic election, the gap between the pseudo-politics of lipstick on pigs, or sex education for children, and the very real politics of the impending collapse of the American economy could not be greater. Nor could the contrast between the strident tones and million-dollar attack ads of America’s political circus and the low-key, almost boring campaigns currently underway in Canada. While McCain and Obama surrogates jostle for the moral high-ground of bringing “hope” and “change” to Washington, Canada’s politicians are caught up in debates on such humdrum matters as the tax consequences of a ‘green shift’ in environmental policy or the practicalities of continued funding for a controversial drug facility in Vancouver. In Canada there is certainly no shortage of pointed criticism and accusations of ineptitude, but so much of the debate is freighted with budget details and policy quibbles that it never rises to the fever pitch of American politics.
The polls tell a similar story. A recent survey by the Toronto Star found that four out of five Canadians felt that health care policy would be a major issue in determining which party they would choose in the next election. That finding seems to come from a different culture to last week’s Associated Press headline that “Racial views steer some white Dems away from Obama.” According to the AP story, a poll conducted by AP-Yahoo and Stanford University found that “one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them ‘lazy,’ ‘violent,’ [and] responsible for their own troubles.” The report went on to note that more than one in ten white Americans – regardless of political affiliation – also found Blacks “boastful” and “complaining.”
It hardly needs to be said that democracy comes in many guises – one need only consider recent elections in such different places as Angola, Pakistan and Zimbabwe – but there still seems to be an underlying complacency in the developed world that the exercise of free elections somehow defuses the passion that democratic politics routinely excites. Successful democracy, whatever else it may be, is very often premised on the counter-intuitive idea that a society is best served by handing over political control peacefully to people you dislike, or even in some cases distrust, simply because they managed to win more votes than your party. In close-run elections, tribalism seems a far more human response – however destructive and self-defeating – than the civilised transfer of political power. Only when elections become relatively dull affairs do the temptations to tribalism decrease.
In recent years, half of America has chosen a president that the other half cannot abide. Often this choice has been settled by a cynical focus on divisive social issues like a woman’s right to an abortion, or whether homosexuals should be allowed to marry. The obsessive partisan energy these subjects evoke has largely sidelined more complex issues like the government’s role in overseeing the financial sector, or regulating health insurance. As a result, the world’s noisiest and most consequential democracy (India is the largest) is in many ways one of its most dysfunctional. Distracted by a hundred little quarrels, too many Americans seem unaware of what happens beyond their borders, or even beyond their states. Outside of Washington, especially in the Bush years, there seems to be very little knowledge of the impact that post 9/11 US foreign policy has had on America’s moral stature in the wider world. And so, with two ongoing wars, multiple economic crises, outdated schools, health care, and social security, most Americans seem content to vote on the basis of distastefully ad-hominem campaigns rather than an informed knowledge of either candidate’s proposed policies.
Less interesting democracies (Britain, Canada, Germany) reserve more passion for the issues and tend to produce politicians that are easily forgotten (would anyone ever accuse Gordon Brown, Stephen Harper or Angela Merkel of having too much charisma?) − but this lack of political excitement also fosters societies and economies that seem far more equipped to deal with the challenges of a globalized world. Perhaps we can learn from some of this. In the West Indies we have always had a surplus of memorable politicians and, arguably, a corresponding deficit of intelligent and effective politics. Passionate ethnic and cultural differences certainly have their place in political life, but less glamorous matters – agricultural policy, tax codes, legal reform – ought to have theirs too. Political maturity is a relatively boring affair next to the high drama of partisan politics, but the stability and development that attend that boredom should never be dismissed too lightly.
