Notes on Political Cant

You know how if you repeat a word long and often enough it begins to become a different word: the sounds break off from each other and thin out and you achieve some sort of altered state in which you can't even reclaim the original sound of the word or its meaning. (If you don't know what I'm taking about, try it. Use, say, ketchup.)

That's more or less what it's like to watch a political convention.

I started this post in reaction to last night's convention speeches at the GOP, shocked by what Joe Klein called the lack of "even the slightest wisp of substance." But to be fair, the Democratic convention was only marginally better. Part of the problem here is sheer mathematics. There is an inverse relationship between the specificity of a statement and the number of people who will agree with it. Millions of people will agree with the statement, "I like music!", far fewer with the statement "I like Lil Wayne!" and far, far, far fewer with the statement "Mrs. Officer is by far the best track on Tha Carter III!"

So the rhetorical trick that convention speechwriters try to pull off is to have just enough substance within a statement that it seems to carry some semantic force, but remains nearly impossible to disagree with. The result? cant. "Families that work hard and play by the rules" Cant. "We honor his service." Cant. "The choice is clear." Cant. "This election isn't about the past it's about the future." Cant, cant, cant.

Even Obama's quite successful speech, which was widely praised, was shot through with just this sort of thing ("The Americanness of America is that its uniquely, Americanly American") That said, the Democratic convention and Obama's speech also had, at the very least, a lot of content within the cant: providing healthcare to all Americans, reversing climate change, and responsibly bringing our troops home from Iraq. Even "tax cuts for middle class families," has enough semantic substance to perfectly straddle the line between cant and content

What was remarkable last night was how completely absent anything remotely that specific was from the podium. I mean, you had people coming on stage talking about starting an organization to help struggling family farmers, or battling a life-threatening illness and there was zero political content whatsoever. I kept waiting for the moral of the story, but it never came. The moral, I suppose, was: people helping other people is good. People overcoming personal obstacles is good. Ok, sure. What the hell does this have to do with who should be president? The closest you ever got all night was Fred Thompson warning that Barack Obama's plan to tax businesses would end up hurting employees. "Finally!" I thought, "an honest-to-God political proposition that one can agree or disagree with. "

The point, I'm trying to make is that there are relative degrees of cant, and there's a direct relationship between the strength of a political coalition and how specific it can be. The weaker you are the more anodyne, the less popular you are, the more cant. Think of a set of concentric circles: on the outer most ring, for, say, the Democratic party is a stipulation about mandates being the best policy mechanism to deliver universal healthcare. This is controversial, so it didn't appear during the four days in Denver. But retreat one circle back towards the center and you have the proposition "All Americans should have access to quality affordable healthacare." This is both a consensus within the party, and very popular among voters, so Democrats said it again and again from the podium,

But Republicans can't say that because they don't believe it. So they have to move yet another layer in, to something like "It's better to be healthy than sick." This is a party that is so ideologically exhausted and discredited, that it has to retreat into the tiny, little core at the center of its worldview where words like "service", "honor" and "country" have some kind of totemic force, in order to be able to say anything at all. But the question is: What do you plan to do with the country when you run it?

Tonight, when Sarah Palin speaks, you're going to get a lot of appealing personal anecdotes, and more invocations of these same themes, "reform," chief among them. But she won't spend much time answering that question. Because she can't.

Comments (23)

1. As HAPP discusses the opposition...more than his OWN side, your point is made, Mr Hayes.

   The Right IS ideologically exhausted. What can they offer that wasn't given to us (or "done to us") under Bush?

   More tax cuts?....not without spending cuts and McCain can't give ANY figures on how he cuts 300-FIVE HUNDRED billion in "wasteful spending" to off-set the deficit AND the tax cuts.

   More wars?....no, notice McCain dropping that as the public "refuses to see how we've 'won' in Iraq".

   Social issues are not popular and if McCain tries to push PALIN's agenda (outside of St. Paul's convention)...he KNOWS he'll lose support rapidly.

   So what do they have left to offer...except the stuff that gave their President a 28% approval rating?!??!?

   Posted by Maskdelta at 09/03/2008 @ 4:27pm

2. cant...duckspeak...mantra...claptrap...

   well, you just can't ignore the marching morons and in that redstateland is on the bottom 50% of average IQ, one would expect more from the republican convention than the dem...

   but in order to stand a chance of getting elected the dems must also appeal to the marching morons too...

   little words...easily remembered catch phrases...crap the idiocracy can remember and parrot...

   nothing new here, actually...just proof positive that we will never leave no child behind...

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 09/03/2008 @ 4:31pm

3. Posted by 2HAPPY at 09/03/2008 @ 4:38pm

   Again, HAPP...making the point.

   Obama has at the least put out a PLAN to deal with health care (which polls show Americans are concerned about)...not what the progressives want, but that's probably good.

   What can McCain put out EXCEPT "more of the same"?

   Anything else and YOU guys will get pissed at him. "Cut wasteful spending"?...didn't Bush promise that too? "Cut taxes more"?...you KNOW that's not going to happen with a Dem Congress. "Defend us against terr'urrists" (Little Dubya impression)....how? The military has been burned through and NOBODY (except you 28%'ers) would support a new war.

   "strict Constructionalist judges"?....Possibly, though FRANKGRITS may be right on that one, and either the Dems will block such judges or McCain will pick a lot of "Souters" (Hell, where can the social cons go...especially if he's not running in '12?)

   The rest of the agenda....McCain opposed. YOU KNOW he'll flip back on "amnesty"....you know he'll flip back on drilling ("suddenly" agreeing to conservation and alternatives)....you know he ISN'T going to flip on support for the idea of man-made global warming.

   In fact the ONLY thing "new" McCain can offer is ...being LESS strident and right-wing than Bush. And let Miss Congeniality go out and try to calm the waters when he does.

   Maybe you and LVLIB will be so busy looking at her breasts (as McCain did when he announced her in Dayton)...you won't notice?

   Posted by Maskdelta at 09/03/2008 @ 4:44pm

4. BTW, even Sarah may not be as "pure" as you hope...

   she DID raise windfall profits taxes on Big Oil in Alaska.

   If she defends that, she'll be asked "Why not do it nationally, Governor?"...and she might "waiver" in her "rock-ribbed Republicanism"!!!!

   Posted by Maskdelta at 09/03/2008 @ 4:51pm

5. 1. Palin and her husband flirts with succession from the United States.

   2. Palin attempts to ban library books she doesn't like and fire the city librarian if she doesn't go along.

   3. Palin fires police chief of Wassila because he wants the bars to close at 2am rather than 5am and this upset Palin's bar owner campaign contributors.

   4. Palin fires her chief public safety officer, the former police chief of Anchorage, because he doesn't want to be used in her family feud in firing the ex-husband of her sister.

   5. Palin skipped out of paying her taxes and fees on her car wash that she owned, and failed to file required financial statements.

   6. Palin's pastor of 30 years thinks political opponents of Bush won't go to heaven and that Jesus is some kind of war general that kills people that don't believe in him.

   7. Palin voted to strip funds from a group that helps teen moms, LIKE HER DAUGHTER, get skills and lead productive lives after pregnancy.

   8. Palin hired an Abramoff lobbyist to get earmarks that even McCain objected to

   9. Palin inflates her foreign policy experience by claiming a refueling stop as a "visit to Ireland".

   Posted by Metteyya at 09/03/2008 @ 5:29pm

6. Posted by RedRiver_. at 09/03/2008 @ 4:42pm

   Posted by 2HAPPY at 09/03/2008 @ 4:38pm

   It's funny because both of you are proving Chris Hayes right. Both of your are demonstrating PERFECTLY what he is talking about. You are attacking Obama and the left instead of building yourselves up. You don't have anything to offer so instead you attack because you know your ideas AREN'T popular. That's what Republican's are about. Not offering ideas but attacking the opposition. McCain has nothing to offer so instead he is spending all of his time attacking Obama. Red and Happy have nothing to say to defend their party, to build up their party as the party of new fresh ideas so instead they attack.

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/03/2008 @ 6:22pm

7. Posted by 2HAPPY at 09/03/2008 @ 6:51pm

   That's the case with everyone here. I can guess what everyone has to say before they say it. Generally the only people I read fully are Thrawn, SRJ and maybe one or two others.

   "Actually, I wasn't attacking your Messiah"

   This line for instance even after I have stated repeatedly that he is not generally tips me off to what you are going to say. You need to deflate your ego a bit Happy. Time to reign that back into orbit.

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/03/2008 @ 7:00pm

8. Why do you think I always quote you wrong? Most of what you, LVL, Jom, Sjcherm and to a lesser degree ponti and red river sound the exact same. It's like hearing a broken record or the same talking points. But you guys are the ones worth talking to because hell I can't debate anything with Mask or SRJ. I can debate with john lowell but he's crazy. I can debate with Frank but he's also crazy. I can debate with the far far left but that's no fun because they are also crazy. Instead I debate with the righties.

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/03/2008 @ 7:12pm

9. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY'S OWN PEGGY NOONAN SAYS "ITS OVER"

   Who is Peggy Noonan? She is one of a handful of the nationally known conservative pundits who has brain, brawn experience, stature and respect.

   She is an author of seven books on politics, religion and culture, a weekly columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and was a primary speech writer and Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan. She is considered a political conservative.

   Five of Noonan's books have been New York Times bestsellers. Noonan is a Trustee of the Manhattan Institute. She has been awarded honorary doctorates from Miami University, St. John Fisher College, her alma mater Fairleigh Dickinson University, Adelphi College, and Saint Francis College. She was nominated for Emmy Awards for her work on The West Wing and America: A Tribute to Heroes.

   Anyway, she was on an NBC segment with Mike Todd today, and after she was finished speaking, her microphone remained "hot" and she continued to speak with the other guest, Republican consultant Mike Murphy. As some of you may know, satellite feeds remain live, and since the microphone remained on, and was apparently recorded by someone, you can clearly hear the continued conversation. She trashes both McCain and Palin. Calls it "political bullsh*it." and laments that "its over." Very telling, as it is a very candid and intellectually honest, and it comes from a well respected conservative. The fact that it is her private thoughts, and not public spin makes it even more credible.

   Here is the link to the Yahoo story which contains a video of the broadcast and Noonan's after-broadcast comments. INCREDIBLE. PRICELESS You have to hear and see it to believe it.

   http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/200809 ... tico/20576

   So, to you conservative po

   Posted by bobforer at 09/03/2008 @ 7:13pm

10. Why do you think I always quote you wrong? Most of what you, LVL, Jom, Sjcherm and to a lesser degree ponti and red river sound the exact same. It's like hearing a broken record or the same talking points....

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/03/2008 @ 7:12pm

    That's because they get their information by huffing the hot gas Rush Limbaugh spews out of his clogged colon... It's the same shit, different toilet everytime they post a comment on an article.

    Posted by ADHD at 09/03/2008 @ 8:09pm

11. So tell us registared INDEPENDENTS all about Obamanations Presidential credentials including his great accomplishments! This should be funny as no one else can reference anything he has really accomplished in life that qualifies him to be President! Posted by RedRiver_. at 09/03/2008 @ 8:10pm

    Because in my eyes NOTHING qualifies you to be President. The job is unique unto itself. Running a company or being a pilot in the military or a Senator for 30 years does not qualify you. What qualifies a person is their personality. They need to have a personality to lead. Lincoln had barely any "qualifications" to lead this country but he is one of the greatest Presidents ever. JFK is the same. The fact that there HAVE been leaders in the past who were not "qualified" yet are held to such high regard is more than enough proof that this talk of "qualification" is just something cooked up as a talking point. There is nothing you can do to qualify yourself to be a leader. Some of the greatest leaders in the world were not "qualified" to do the job but they stepped up to it and did it. I don't believe that there is anything you can do to qualify you to run a country especially one as influential as America. I judge a candidate based on personality and judgement. McCain has shown a lack of judgment and intelligence. A failure is a failure. Just because you have a lot of experience being a failure doesn't mean you are any more qualified at doing the job your repeatedly fail at.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/03/2008 @ 8:28pm

12. Hilarious youtube video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mThW5FdQO…

    Posted by bobforer at 09/03/2008 @ 8:34pm

13. Posted by lvliberty1 at 09/03/2008 @ 8:47pm

    Sounds like a LOT of "hope", LVLIB.

    I thought hope was a bad thing?!?!?!?

    LOL

    BTW, did you think George HW would appoint Souter???

    Posted by Maskdelta at 09/03/2008 @ 9:19pm

14. BTW, for all HAPP's talk of "Messiahs"...

    doesn't that sound EXACTLY like what the Right is saying about Palin?!??!??!

    Posted by Maskdelta at 09/03/2008 @ 9:20pm

15. Posted by RedRiver_. at 09/03/2008 @ 8:35pm

    You aren't very smart are you? Did you get C's in school?

    Let me address this question more in depth.

    Is a CEO qualified to deal with the economy of a country. No because the economy of a country is nothing like a company. Is a General prepared to deal with the politics of a miltary decision? No because generals take orders from someone else. There is NOTHING that qualifies to be President because the qualifications of a Presidency are not quantifiable. They are not things you can show on a Resume because in the end no one is qualified to decide the path of a nation. We need a great LEADER and that is something that no resume can give because there is nothing like leading a country. Everyone else takes orders from someone a President shouldn't be taking orders from anyone. He does what is best for the country, sometimes that is unpopular. (I know the Repubs here will use that as some sort of bait about Bush I am prepared for that. )

    Great leaders are not made, they are born. There are qualities that a human being must possess that are immeasurable and can come from the most unlikely of places. There is no job that can qualify you to lead a country. I think most of the leaders who have had second terms weren't even qualified for their second term. I think rarely are we graced with truly great leaders like Lincoln, Washington and a few others. Why? Because we are so concerned about electing leaders we can have a beer with. I don't personally want a leader I can have a beer with. I want someone who is better than me.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/03/2008 @ 10:30pm

16. It seems the standard for either political party in making speeches to be just as you described. They try to subtlety tell the people who are smart enough to catch on what they actually stand for, while painting in broad enough strokes so that they have a chance of pulling a few idiot moderates with simple phrasing and general sentiments that they can latch on to. "America is great! God is great! Vote for us!"

    Posted by GrouchoMarxist at 09/03/2008 @ 11:17pm

17. A psychologist buddy of mine describes something similar to "cant" as the plastic fantastic. up ones own anus at ever increasing speed in ever decreasing circles. I listened to dear 9/11 Rudi tonight and sweet I'm a mommy Sarah. They gave the same speech, only, one was in a skirt. Why does spending all that time in a Viet Nam prison qualify any one to be president. I don't like Sarah, not because she is a women, because I don't like her politics. All she seems to have are a bunch of shallow trite platitudes. She seems too shallow to be any where near the nuclear trigger, and old John doesn't seem stable enough to be any where near the big bang button. What in god's name is all this crap about executive experience. Little shrub had all kinds of executive experiences and look at what that got us. My Hewlett Packard stock is in the tank.

    Posted by lachatte at 09/03/2008 @ 11:56pm

18. It was pretty funny tonight listening to Palin's anti-tax comments, and all that bs about the self-sufficient Alaskans. The fact is that Alaska gets almost all its revenue by leasing land to oil companies and collecting windfall profits taxes from them. It's like Saudi Arabia, where the government pays you for living there! And why does that money go back into the pockets of every man woman and child in Alaska, while at the same time the federal government is being hit up by Alaskan politicians for money to build its bridges?

    The simple fact is that Republicans don't want to pay taxes to support "welfare queens" and other dark-skinned unworthies. But they are more than happy to take whatever handouts come the way of good honest hard-working folks like us (ie white folks.)

    Posted by EvelynU at 09/04/2008 @ 12:18am

19. Lachatte is dead on. The Republicans are inflating the word "executive" in their usual manipulative, Orwellian fashion, and the dittoheads are repeating it like mad.

    Ccomfor1 is right too; leadership qualities like those that Obama possesses are innate, like athletic gifts, although both improve with practice. Remarkable people come around rarely.

    As someone else remarked, Palin is too shallow, narrow-minded, and, I would add, provincial to hold national office. She'd probably fail the GREs in history and many other subjects.

    The Republican Party has, in the last few decades, worked for the rich while publically celebrating mediocrities & novices, elevating them to high office on a whim--Quayle, Clarence Thomas, George W. Bush, and now Palin.

    My friends and I were speculating the other night that all this hostility to Obama, and the constant denial of his gifts--gifts evident in his books, which are nuanced, highly thoughtful, and extremely intelligent--arise from an unwillingness to tolerate a black leader. Entertainers okay, athletes okay, but the President of the United States?

    And since Republicans can't use sheer prejudice as an argument--they can't object to him publicly on the basis of his skin color--they resort to all these other attacks. But what really bothers them, the real reason they call him the Messiah or the One, or--as Brookhiser has done at the National Review--"the Numinous Negro" is that they don't want a black family in the White House. They don't want to see black people in a position or place superior to their own. So "elite" may be a misleading codeword for their prejudice (misleading because they feel racially superior, that they belong to the elite).

    Posted by redemma at 09/04/2008 @ 12:37am

20. P.S. I forgot to include Harriet Miers, another mediocrity/novice who was nominated for high office. And I should have said that the author is quite right about cant in political speeches.

    The Republicans do have some intellectuals, like Brookhiser and various neocons. Why don't these people find the spectacle of their party convention, and their predictable, angry, resentful cant, as offputting as Democrats do?

    Once respectable, the Republican Party has been highjacked by rubes, by people who think that Jesus and the Virgin Mary manifest themselves on paint stains and badly washed windows, people who prefer mawkish country music to jazz and classical, people who can't spell, won't travel, and don't read books.

    Are their lucrative tax dividends and deductions worth keep that sort of company? And worth making their country the laughing-stock of what used to be known as Western civilization?

    I'd rather live frugally and talk with people who read books and travel than live high on the hog and hang out with people who think Jesus will be back any second and they'll all sing "God Bless America" for eternity while playing the harp and watching the rest of us burn eternally in hell?

    Posted by redemma at 09/04/2008 @ 12:50am

21. 2HAPPY,

    At one point this entire country was as underdeveloped and seemed as remote as the little Alaskan island you mention. So, according to your own argument, the government should never have put schools, libraries and public transit anywhere. And, you know, I'm a realist. While it would be nice to think the government could give me a quality television set, I highly doubt that will ever happen.

    You Republicans...you make me scratch my head. You come out so strongly against "big government" and yet after 8 years of your little man in the White House, government has grown larger and more bloated and invasive than ever before! All we Democrats are saying is: Ok, let's not expand government into that particular direction (meaning torture, spying on citizens or banning toothpaste from airplanes). Let's expand it in the other direction: schools, health care, libraries, public transit, clean air. These things are GOOD. Good for me, good for you, good for your family. You love your kids? Well, let's step into my time machine to a world thirty years from now when your children are forced to walk around with gas masks while toiling in forced labor camps for expressing dissident political views and resources (like water) are owned by a small ruling elite. Nice world, huh?

    It's really very simple. You want good things for your children? Then you will have to pay for them and make sacrifices. Taxes...are...not...evil. You will have to pay them for the rest of your life whether you like it or not. Why not demand that they come back to work for you and not against you? Republicans don't want to work for you. They want to eat your babies. So if you love your babies the way you say you do, then help them by voting for Barack Obama and the Democrats this Fall. Simple, right?

    Posted by dortmunder at 09/04/2008 @ 01:30am

22. Posted by dortmunder at 09/04/2008 @ 01:30am

    dort, don't forget...Palin RAISED taxes. Created a windfall profits tax on Big Oil in Alaska....I'm sure HAPPY supports that.

    Posted by Maskdelta at 09/04/2008 @ 08:57am

23. But you guys are the ones worth talking to because hell I can't debate anything with Mask or SRJ. I can debate with john lowell but he's crazy. I can debate with Frank but he's also crazy. I can debate with the far far left but that's no fun because they are also crazy. Instead I debate with the righties.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/03/2008 @ 7:12pm

    Not surprisingly, I take exception to your characterization of everyone on the "far far left" as crazy, not to mention childish. Or were you just speaking of the very few of us who actually post here on a semi-regular basis? I think if I can have a reasoned debate with Darin about social security, you can lower yourself to our level, too.

    Posted by cka2nd at 09/04/2008 @ 10:25am