It has finally made its way to America. After leaving England, fending of the Nazis, trying to bring peace to the Middle East, the wild beast we have dreaded has found its steps on our free land. This beast goes by many names, but I call him “The Politics of the Surface”. Now don’t be alarmed, this is just the term I use to describe how the 2008 presidential election campaigns will be fought based on surface appearances such race, religion, and gender. But wait don’t turn off the alarm bells just yet, America could be on the proverbial slippery slope once again. Why?
The practice of wedge politics is known everywhere. It is the idea of creating very defined policies or campaigning for various issues that will divide the people into two groups creating a “yes” and “no” group. Politicians have used such wedge politics for things like abortion (i.e. are you pro-life? or pro-choice?) and on whether or not to go to war. Using wedge politics in this way is no problem because it helps differentiate what candidates think of certain issues. It does, however, become a problem when politicians use wedge politics based on religion, race, and gender.
This is simply because such surface issues can only divide people because these are all non-issues, which means you cannot debate them. Mike Huckabee is a white Christian, Barack Obama is a half White, half Black Christian and Hilary Clinton is a white woman. We cannot argue these things (though people are trying to make the case Obama is Muslim). More importantly these non-issues have nothing to do with a person’s stance on real policies that will affect real Americans and ultimately the world. This is not politics, but rather a popularity contest. And the sad part is everyone is doing it. Obama has already locked down the Black vote and is looking to capitalize of his Asian half-sister for the Asian vote. Clinton is going for the women and feminist vote. Huckabee is taking plays from Bush’s playbook marketing himself as the Alpha-Christian, proclaiming “If you do not vote for me you are not Christian”. All these candidates are playing with fire. But why do they do it? Why try to drum up cheap support resting on these surface issues? Because exactly half of Americans are morons.
Like many countries where politics really is a blood bath, meaning it does get violent, politicians have successfully divided the people based on surface issues particularly race and religion. In countries such as Trinidad, Guyana, Sri Lanka, India, Somalia, Uganda, South Africa, Sudan, any place where there is a mix of races and religions politicians have sought to divide the people based on these superficial identities and have done so with grave consequences to their countries social landscape. Such pandering leads to not only validating racial and religious stereotypes but also further cements racist ideology and religious intolerance throughout society. People figure if the smart guys are arguing about this stuff, it must be true. This disgust me.
There are already a billion natural things that divide us, such as race and gender. Religion, which as far as I’m concerned is man made, only further divides humans into groups that can never agree. What ever happened to the separation of Church and State? By considering a candidates religion as a factor in voting for that person is the dumbest thing you can do and I would suggest to educate yourself on the issues or else America may end up like the countries I mentioned earlier, (which you should also educate yourself on). Avoid the beast, get educated.
