Faith-based election
Ron Susskind made a strong case in the New York Times that we had (and now have again) a faith-based presidency. This is clear enough when white housers talk disdainfully of the "reality-based community," and the leader of the free world operates on unsupported hunches (I tell my students that this is doxa. Maybe that's why he made Cs even as a legacy student). It also seems like Karl Rove was right, and it was the Christian right that really turned out on Tuesday. At least that is what we might gather from the poll info that "moral values" were of primary importance.
But this election was faith-based in a far more general way. We took a collective leap of faith about what goes on inside the voting machines. With the out-sourcing of the ballot, transparency has been trumped by intellectual property. The republic is over-- now our leaders will be ordained by a for-profit oracle. We have no way of questioning their authority.
The faith in the machines is an example that I needed recently in a discussion with my parents about whether the country is divided or not. I was arguing that there was a deeper political consensus than division (which, considering what I think the consensus is, is not a good thing), and grasping for examples. The deepest consensus among the public class on election day seemed to be this uncritical faith in technology and business as a neutral public sphere in which to weigh the will of the electorate. All the pundits on television were proclaiming the "real story" to be about the failure of exit polls, which in some places were overwhelmingly for Kerry.
Where did these polls go so wrong? they asked. Far be it from me to defend polls, but it should still be an open question WHETHER they actually were wrong, or whether the "official count" was off. In places where voting machines and ballot scanners were used, there is no way of checking. Once we start tracing the republican connections of the voting machine people, this election (as NAACP chair Julian Bond recently said about another issue) "doesn't pass the smell test."
Hand-counted, ink-marked ballots are the appropriate technology for elections in a republic. Without a paper trail, we accept the results of a vote on faith alone.
But this election was faith-based in a far more general way. We took a collective leap of faith about what goes on inside the voting machines. With the out-sourcing of the ballot, transparency has been trumped by intellectual property. The republic is over-- now our leaders will be ordained by a for-profit oracle. We have no way of questioning their authority.
The faith in the machines is an example that I needed recently in a discussion with my parents about whether the country is divided or not. I was arguing that there was a deeper political consensus than division (which, considering what I think the consensus is, is not a good thing), and grasping for examples. The deepest consensus among the public class on election day seemed to be this uncritical faith in technology and business as a neutral public sphere in which to weigh the will of the electorate. All the pundits on television were proclaiming the "real story" to be about the failure of exit polls, which in some places were overwhelmingly for Kerry.
Where did these polls go so wrong? they asked. Far be it from me to defend polls, but it should still be an open question WHETHER they actually were wrong, or whether the "official count" was off. In places where voting machines and ballot scanners were used, there is no way of checking. Once we start tracing the republican connections of the voting machine people, this election (as NAACP chair Julian Bond recently said about another issue) "doesn't pass the smell test."
Hand-counted, ink-marked ballots are the appropriate technology for elections in a republic. Without a paper trail, we accept the results of a vote on faith alone.
posted by cultcrit at 12:57 PM
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