A Demagogue by Any Other Name
21 July 2006If you’ve read my profile you know I was a political science major in college. I took intro to poli-sci as a freshman and in that class we had a discussion about the different types of politicians. One of the types we discussed was the demagogue. As part of our homework assignment we had to give examples of each type of politician and I listed people like Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt as demagogues. The professor took issue with my assessment but I stood firm. I felt, and still feel that both Daschle and Gephardt were demagogues, as is much of the Democrat party.
A demagogue is defined as: 1. A leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace. In other words, the facts matter less than the desired result.
Can there be any doubt that many of today’s politicians are demagogues? The word gets thrown around so much that, for many people it has little meaning. I suspect that many viewers of the network news shows don’t know what it means anyway, they just know it is used in a pejorative sense so it must be some sort of insult. But demagoguery and politics seem inseparable in today’s political climate.
While Democrats are notorious for it, Republicans are by no means immune to its use. McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform would never have become law without the strident use of demagoguery on the part of John McCain and others. You may recall that the country had little to no interest in the subject until it was demagogued to death. People just didn’t care about the issue. Demagoguery made it a national issue, resulting in a full frontal assault on the Constitution.
As we enter election season demagoguery will increase exponentially. What many people think of as negative campaigning is merely demagoguery. Charges and accusations get thrown around with little concern for truth. What matters is whether voters will buy into the accusation. Many times simply repeating an accusation often enough makes it true in the minds of many in the public.
The reason all this works is a singular lack of critical thinking today. A talking head on CNN repeats what a Congressman or Senator says and it is simply accepted at face value, particularly if it is YOUR Congressman or Senator. The wildest claims can be made and many people will simply accept them in wonder. It never occurs to many to ask whether or not the claim is true, even when it is virtually unbelievable!
I remember when Major Owens (D, NY) went on the floor of the House a few years back and made fantastic claims about the number of captured Africans thrown overboard from slave ships during slavery. He claimed that so many were thrown overboard that to this day the sharks frequented the slave routes in search of food.
The charge was silly on its face. Of everyone in the press and in the public, only Rush Limbaugh called Owen on the charge. Rush demonstrated how utterly absurd the claim was. Owen ended up going back on the House floor and lowering his number by a factor of 10 and yet it was still a ridiculous number. You see, Owen really didn’t care what the true number were or even if anything about his little story was true. He had a point to make and that was all that mattered. His was a classic case of demagoguery and the public response was a classic case of the lack of critical thinking. The charge was ridiculous yet no one but Rush questioned it. Everyone else was simply amazed that such a thing was true.
Out here in the blogosphere there is a bit more critical thinking than in the population at large. Whether that’s because we are more technically savvy or just better educated, I don’t know. But I do know that unless we help others to learn how to think critically, this country will continue down the path to self destruction. Without critical thinking the people will accept any lie that makes them feel better about themselves or promises to give them something for free. It is up to people like us to change that.
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