Athena Was A Goddess Of Wisdom And Strategy. Just Saying.

Athenae (to whom I'm linking through Atrios because I can not for the life of me figure out how to link to a specific post at FirstDraft) is an amazing writer and, in the piece she's written today, manages to do a better job than I have of expressing something that I've been trying to write about for some time.

Writing about the politicians, pundits, and bloggers who would rather swear that the emperor is SO wearing clothes than admit that they were had by the Bush junta, Athena says, inter alia:

And people do want to be part of something, that's the tragic part of it. An awful lot of people, good people, nice people, people living what you'd call normal lives, are just sort of ambling around trying to figure out what the fuck they're doing here. They have jobs they hate and families that drive them nuts and leisure time that feels more like work than work does, what with travel indignities and the rush and bustle of theme parks. They're miserable in a low-level kind of way, quiet desperation and all, and church isn't doing it for them, and drugs are too destructive, and most of them aren't living the lives they wanted to live. Not at all.

A lot of them feel, and rightly, not that their lives ask too much of them but too little. They feel, and rightly, that this country's a little too easy, that you don't have to work or scrimp or save or worry for your citizenship anymore, than you just sit back in your recliner and you're done for the day. They feel, and rightly, a need to be called to something greater, but there is no unifying voice issuing that kind of call anymore, no Kennedy, no King. They wait for that kind of leadership, and even when they seem to have found it they say, maybe next time, when the time is right, when I'm ready, when the world is ready, when something so horrific I can't ignore it any more jolts me out of this Barcalounger and onto my feet, then I'll follow. Then I'll act.

And so, when George W. Bush came along and made a good speech (it was a good speech, read it so you don't have to hear or see him say it and you'll realize it was a good speech and given sincerely might have been great), they jumped on the bandwagon because really, any bandwagon would have done. It had nothing to do with George Bush and nothing really to do with Sept. 11. It had everything to do with a hunger in suburbia for the kind of purpose their parents had as young people in the 1960s, the kind of purpose America had when it was led by real men and not hucksters and thieves. The kind of purpose World War II necessitated (just look at the commenters over at BlackFive the other day, on and on about the clash of civilizations) and the civil rights movement engendered, back when the people writing editorials today sincerely believed they could change the world.

In their minds, it was a lack of conviction and purpose that lost the Vietnam War. It wasn't shitty military strategy and lousy leadership, it was that we just didn't feel it enough.

. . .

The real trouble was, it was bullshit from the start. If this truly had been a great cause, Bush would have called for enlistments and conservation, not spending and travel. If this truly had been the transformation of our country, Bush would have called for charity to alleviate the desperation and poverty that makes hatred of America seem like a solution. If Sept. 11 had been the wakeup call that everybody said it was, five years ago, we'd have rededicated ourselves to making this country, truly, the richest and most prosperous and free nation on earth, so that if somebody wanted to hate us for our freedoms, at least we'd deserve it.

If Sept. 11 had been the making of us, we'd be painting schools in Afghanistan, not in Iraq. And Osama would be swinging from a tall tree.

Instead, it was "go shopping" and "don't change a thing" and "loose lips sink ships" and "Islamofascism," and it was bewildering to those people Atrios cites who thought this was their moment and got completely and utterly hosed.

Once you've jumped on a bandwagon, you can't just get off. You've publicly declared that this is now a new day, that we are a new country, that you are a New Man Made Of Moonbeams or something, and you've dedicated yourself to a president you thought was providing leadership. Leadership of the sort you've craved since you were a kid hearing your parents' stories about FDR and Kennedy. Leadership of the sort you got into media and politics to provide, and now look at you, falling for the first snake oil salesman who comes along promising national greatness in an amber apothecary vial.

It takes a big bag of stones to climb out of the pool after you've gotten yourself into that deep end. And if our politicians and the leadership of our press had those stones they'd have recognized Bush's insincerity the moment he started to talk about Iraq. They'd never have bought destroying a country to make it free, they'd never have listened to talk about weapons of mass destruction, they'd have laughed Condi Rice off the set of Tweety's show. But this wasn't about the facts anymore.

This was about the story they were telling themselves in their heads. And it couldn't end with an apology.

Athenae's right that people long for meaning in their lives and that many people in middle-class and the upper lower-class portions of American just can't find it. TV tells them that if they'd just take this pill, drink this beer, drive this SUV, dance to this iPod, they'd be happy and that's bullshit. Their fire and brimstone preacher tells them that if they just give all their money to him, hate the gays, and never look at porn, they'll be saved, if not happy, and that's bullshit. So, as Athenae notes when an event occurs that the media completely overhypes (and she is soooo spot on about Americans now believing that feeling something = participating in something. Why wouldn't they? How many weepy times does Diane Sawyer have to look right into their eyes and invite them to "Be there with us as we talk to these brave [insert whatever interview she's scored this week]"????) and that they "feel a part of" and then Bush comes along with some jingoism and propaganda and stands in front of a stageset and acts macho, yeah, between that the the delicious thrill of fear that people get imagining that IT COULD HAPPEN TO ME!, lots of folks fall for it. Fell for it. Continue to fall for it. And they're not going to give it up for cold, hard, logic any sooner than any addict gives up the thing that makes him or her feel ok for at least a part of every day.

That's why the Democrats need more than policy wonks, need more than John Kerry's cool-reasoned, multi-prepositioned, logical sentences. Americans knew when they watched the debates that Kerry was smart and that Bush was a moron. But Kerry was the smart guy who was going to take away the thing that they're addicted to and Bush was the idiot dealer. ("And the dealer wants you thinking that it's either black or white. Thank God it's not that simple, in my secret life. " Cohen). And they did what addicts do. They voted for their dumb dealer.

The Democrats have to touch people's emotions. They need to show people a way to find meaning in their life that revolves around saving the planet or healing the sick or taking care of old people or any of the hundreds of other things that need to be done, rather than around "defeating the Islamofascists."