The election is all about narratives and I want to contrast two I watched tonight.
I was recommended two YouTube clips by CNN tonight. I think the two clips speak pretty broadly about the differences between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, the candidates competitive tonight. With Bloomberg continuing to represent the ghost of oligarchy instead of democracy - ghostly until Tuesday at least.
Now here is the funny thing about the CNN clips. I generally expect some amount of bias to be thrown around by a recommended YouTube clip, whether that bias aligns with mine or is just a 15 second ad. Instead it's just two speeches given by Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. Joe Biden gives a victory speech and a deserved one. Bernie gives the opposite tonight. There are loads of sayings about understanding a person in victory or defeat - to the point that I'm not even sure which is the original idiom. One CNN clip is drastically different than the other. The first is titled Watch Bernie Sander's reaction to Biden's Win and the second "Biden takes shot at Sanders in victory speech".
I'm not going to pretend to understand or predict how people voted or will vote in past or future elections. Instead I want to highlight the forms of the two videos and speeches which have been algorithmically paired.
Joe Biden's speech puts very explicitly forward the narrative of a comeback. It is beautiful, it is inspiring. But it also is only crumbs for a media narrative. It isn't really pointing towards any sort of vision for the country. Instead it is the narrative of Joe who has suffered so much, standing tonight in victory. I didn't particularly notice the promised dig at Sanders. I was too captivated by the narrative of the long maligned underdog finally breaching through to glory. Except that doesn't sound exactly right. The NYT recently reported that Biden has hardly campaigned throughout the country. His policies largely don't reflect a platform based on reform - something to be expected from a narrative underdog. Instead they are largely an amalgamation of set the ship right there is no iceberg and MAGA but only 4 years back this time. A strange hero indeed, but the image he is creating with his words, deserved or not deserves analyzing. Can this hero save us?
I'm not going to criticize Biden on his record and votes - outside of his obviously absurd Iraq vote. I just haven't researched them and deeply believe that our current politics is a hostage politics, where any concession towards building government is buried in morass of special interests and private-governmental growth. --
All the same, Joe Biden has a soaring speech, but what does it leave you with other than his own story: the vanquisher finally. This hero is an aberration of our moment in politics and integral to how Donald Trump *happened*.
Following is Bernie Sander's response to a Biden win. Except it isn't much of a response to a Biden win. Curiously the hero is absent. Where is Joe Biden, who has been "knocked down, counted out, and left behind"?
Instead of the a story of victory we have an extended list of visions for the country. This is unexpected if we are following the MSM narrative of who Bernie Sander is.
Instead of the a story of victory we have an extended list of visions for the country. This is unexpected if we are following the MSM narrative of who Bernie Sander is.
Bernie has been recently maligned for his support of Superdelegates in 2016, showing surely that he is a sore loser - someone who is scrapping for power. However his position (0:15) was simply that superdelegates from states a candidate won should go to the candidate who won the state.
This is remarkably just a mirror to the thing he is advocating today - the delegates represented by votes in the country should go to their elected representative and they should not be traded before or after the fact. This speech does not seem like one given from a position of one clinging to power after defeat. As a speech it is less soaring than Biden's - but that's important. Because it is largely just a message to the people that support Bernie rather than a conjuration of a the hero who can save us from evil.
This is remarkably just a mirror to the thing he is advocating today - the delegates represented by votes in the country should go to their elected representative and they should not be traded before or after the fact. This speech does not seem like one given from a position of one clinging to power after defeat. As a speech it is less soaring than Biden's - but that's important. Because it is largely just a message to the people that support Bernie rather than a conjuration of a the hero who can save us from evil.
Included is a message to young Americans (4:07) - the people who truly are expressing their voice for the first time in politics. Overall the speech is a recognition of not only the people who support Bernie but the people entirely. It is a recognition of people that have been cheated.
A response to this message recently has been the idea that literacy programs are inherently communist and anti-democratic. It's hard to imagine something more populist than literacy programs. I'm not going to defend the Castro administration or anything - its just inherently anti-democratic to attack literacy programs.
Education is inherently biased, but in terms of reading and writing - decent and progress are impossible without the ability to understand the propaganda and stories of an oppressor. It's the basic history of the progression away from the divine right of kings.The realization of the hero in history. Reading and writing are critical to understanding the political hero and subverting him.This is all to contrast with a false populism, a false populism which has been very effectively realized by the call to follow the "hero" of Donald Trump.
Education is inherently biased, but in terms of reading and writing - decent and progress are impossible without the ability to understand the propaganda and stories of an oppressor. It's the basic history of the progression away from the divine right of kings.The realization of the hero in history. Reading and writing are critical to understanding the political hero and subverting him.This is all to contrast with a false populism, a false populism which has been very effectively realized by the call to follow the "hero" of Donald Trump.
Bernie's speech truly is reaching out to people, addressing the genuine conflicts the country faces, not creating a cult of personality and heroic journey as Joe Biden is, nor is it presenting the twisted mirror of populism that Trump or Bloomberg represent through overt fascism. Bernie goes through his usual stump speech - although I think it is inherently different here. It is not a moment on the debate stage where he defends or pushes an idea. Instead largely, the speech reaches outward, pushing for common sense reforms to benefit absolutely everyone in America. His section on climate change is especially representative of the importance of the difference in
his approach to narrative. In it, contrary to the approaches of all of his contenders for office and especially trump, the hero who can vanquish climate change is absent. Instead it is an honest admission (19:48) - the predictions were wrong because climate change is not cumulative but exponential. Every climate prediction will be wrong and Bernie doesn't ask to build windmills, recycle plastics, or invest in the right stocks. Instead he recognizes the stakes for humanity rather than creating the image of a hero who will reverse a process that has already spiraled out of control.
his approach to narrative. In it, contrary to the approaches of all of his contenders for office and especially trump, the hero who can vanquish climate change is absent. Instead it is an honest admission (19:48) - the predictions were wrong because climate change is not cumulative but exponential. Every climate prediction will be wrong and Bernie doesn't ask to build windmills, recycle plastics, or invest in the right stocks. Instead he recognizes the stakes for humanity rather than creating the image of a hero who will reverse a process that has already spiraled out of control.
All of this is to highlight the importance of narrative. I'm a deep believer in the power of stories and the way that they are told. I think that they have a direct effect on the process and memory of human history. I think that the story being told by Joe Biden tonight, and largely by his competitors as well, is insufficient. That it is simply to say that, shouldering the guilt or saying it's all good man - I can fix this is insufficient. There's no herculean task that gets us out of our economic or environmental crises. The story of the hero at this point in American politics is a lie. Bernie is often maligned as self involved. This is because his entire strength is based around the concept of a politics without a hero.
Bernie standing against heroes seems paradoxical of course because by another narrative he has become the hero pf change. I think, however, that Bernie's language truly does not create the hero Bernie Sanders. He deliberately ignores it. The story of Bernie Sanders rising from the ashes to save America and stop the existential future is never one he tells. Instead he points towards the machines of the dread and says - look there they are, the things which are tearing us apart.
Bernie finishes the speech by interrupting a chant of his name. (28:43). In his interruption he lands on the heart of his campaign and his motto, saying "Well, let me interrupt you, and suggest that it is not Bernie. It is us, all of us." He is not conjuring a hero at this point in American politics. We have been confronted fully with multiple images of the fascist hero, whether it is Trump and his second rate Mussolini impression, Bloomberg's specter of a meek totalitarianism, or Biden's false hero. In this it is critical that Bernie is not asking us to build a false prophet. He actively moves away from the fascist narrative of Atlas. I think this is critically important.
Comments
Post a Comment