The debate and national mythology

I have been reading all sorts of opinions on the debate, but this article "Presidential Fiction: The Story Behind the Debate," by Ira Chernus presents the debate in an interesing historical context. (The article is posted at Tomdispatch; scroll down the page for the article.) The author talks about how Kerry and Bush are telling two different stories of American history and how voters like to situate themselves within our national mythology. An extended excerpt:

In the United States, where we have no religious myths that we all share, the history of the nation has become our most powerful shared myth. Like all religious stories, the most popular versions of American history are a mixture of fact, fantasy, and wish-fulfillment. Judging from the first debate, it's not clear that Kerry and his campaign strategists understand the power of this potent brew. The Bush campaign understands it all too well.

Throughout the debate, Bush stuck doggedly to his script, re-telling the most popular American myths. Millions of us, watching his performance, were not sure whether to laugh or cry. But millions more undoubtedly took him absolutely seriously and cheered. For many, he has become the hero and the very embodiment of the meaning of America.

Issues fall by the wayside whenever Bush's heroic character takes center stage – which is just what the Republicans want. Former Clinton White House aide Sidney Blumenthal, writing in the British Guardian, sees Bush presenting himself as the Lone Ranger, "the rescuer and avenger, an isolate caught in a moral landscape between civilization and wilderness… an unassuming natural man, in touch with the primitive, who has lived among them, putting him beyond the rigid hierarchies of the town. Because of his intimate knowledge he can use the methods of the savages against them."

This is the Republicans' new version of old-fashioned isolationism. A real Western hero needs no allies. He doesn't ask permission from the UN, or a bunch of Europeans, or anyone else. Like the Lone Ranger, he knows evil when he sees it, and whenever he sees it he destroys it -- all by himself, and by any means necessary.

The frontier myth is all about saving the innocent. Bush is most adept at playing both the innocent one and the savior of the innocent, tapping into that ancient image of America as a place of pure innocence, a Garden of Eden, where everyone is Adam or Eve.

Any hint that we may have done anything to provoke anyone's hatred is met with howls of outrage. They hate us because they are so wholly evil and we are so wholly good. We must eradicate them because we have a God-given duty to save the innocent from the ravages of evil. End of story.

In post-9/11 America, it's easy to believe that evil just springs up on its own, like the spawn of the devil. It's just as easy to believe that the threat of evil will remain an inescapable fact of life. You don't have to be Christian to believe in a secular version of original sin. You just have to accept the common view that today's "terrorists" are but the latest in an endless line of evildoers, stretching back to the Communists, the Nazis, and beyond. We are doomed, it seems, to have the enemy always at the gates, intent on destroying our innocent land.

In the shadow of that fear, it may feel good to hear a Texan who walks with a swagger assure us he will gun down the evildoers. The desperation with which people cling to Bush's now threadbare and twice-told tale only betrays increasingly deep-seated American doubts that evildoers will ever be vanquished.

To help still those doubts, the story must be about more than just saving our own lives and fortunes. It must reassure us that we are not selfish in doing so, that our fight is motivated by nobler motives. Overlaid upon that myth of a savage west and a cowboy savior, we need another myth that fits better our global desires. We must believe that whatever we do abroad is all about protecting good people everywhere, protecting civilization itself.

In the American story, the essence of civilization is individual freedom. The hero kills the bad guys, not merely to preserve the freedom the innocent already have, but to push back the frontier -- to bring liberty to people who have never tasted its delicious fruits.

This is the story that Bush tells so successfully. Like all great stories, it is built on an utterly simple plot: Americans, propelled by fate into mortal conflict, are willing to endure every hardship to secure the inevitable triumph of the highest ideals. Innocent Americans, through no choice of their own, are regularly forced to go to war against savage enemies who would take away human liberty.

Kerry used the debate to keep hammering away at the immense disconnect between Iraqi fact and Bush fiction. But it may not be enough to turn the race around. Bush's storytelling succeeds so well precisely because he, his writers, and his campaign staff find it so easy to ignore that disconnect. They seem to be perfectly comfortable in a realm of pure fiction – which only makes their fiction all the more convincing, especially to the millions who are victimized by Bush-style policies but may vote for him nevertheless.

This is Kerry's dilemma. He must reach those millions and convince them to put their own practical interests ahead of the appeal of the great American story. But their practical interests have been betrayed so consistently, for so long, by so many politicians, that they have no reason to believe in the promise of middle-class comfort and security Kerry offers.