Mother Jones on the Power of Narrative

Normally I could not agree less with the writers at Mother Jones, however, in their commentary section this week they have an interesting story on the power of the narrative in the Bush presidency.

The article starts with the usual venom:

George W. Bush has stationed 135,000 troops in harm’s way for a cause that seems increasingly hopeless and he’s presided over one of the worst economies of the century. He ran promising to be a centrist, lost the popular vote, and went on to govern from the radical right. He used a terrorist attack he might have stopped to justify a war that he already wanted to start.

But the author makes a surprising point by lamenting the fact that despite these obviously evil actions, John Kerry is running, at best, neck and neck with the President. His conclusion: Bush, like Reagan, JFK, and George Washington, knows how to use the power of the narrative.

The right wing has an elemental and appealing narrative--the ideological equivalent of a Jerry Bruckheimer film or a Tom Clancy novel, the sort that’s hard to turn away from, even if you suspect you’re being suckered. Stories operate on our primitive, reptilian brains. “We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” Joan Didion wrote. This isn’t just a pretty line but an artful statement of neuropsychological reality.

According to Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, & Co., the president of the United States of America is a great gentle warrior, the scion of a noble line: He’s a Texas cowboy descended from George Washington descended from the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. He’s a man of God and family. Truly, the story goes, he’s a simple man--wanting only to care for his own, tend to his plot of land, and go to church on Sunday.

But this man is besieged--on all sides--by the rabid armies of the Godless and the cowardly. By terrorists and evil-doers. By bureaucrats who want to run his life. By liberals who want to tax him. By drug dealers, welfare mothers, and atheists.

What is he to do? He would dearly love not to fight. But his enemies are climbing the walls of his castle. The killer has got a knife to his little girl’s throat. Not fight? Fight he must.

It’s plain why this story works as well as it does. It presents a classic hero and a journey that reaches down through the brain into the gut. And Republicans can translate it into simple, clear lines of action: Wage war and don’t stop. Cut taxes. Put bad guys in jail, or to death.

The writer has a point. The Bush narrative is compelling. Even more insightful, however, is his later criticisim of the overly critical left.

But, by definition, critics are at the margins. However loud they shout from the sidelines, they’ll never get in the game. The game is for those who can tell a story.

Rush Limbaugh knows this. He’s no critic. Sure, he rips into Democrats and liberals, but his point is always to describe the enemy — cowardly and pessimistic — in order clarify the attributes of his hero — courageous and optimistic. Every anecdote, every opinion, feeds into his story. That’s why he convinces so many people and that’s why he makes so much money. And that’s why he has helped engineer a profound change in the culture of the country’s government.

On the other hand, the advent of “Air America” illustrates the left’s deluded love affair with criticism. The debut ad campaign features photographs of right-wing bugaboos, with smart-ass lines plastered over their faces (“We Pump Irony” over Schwarzenegger and “All the Caffeine and None of the Oxycontin” over Limbaugh). These are clever, but 100% content-free. The most revealing of the ads is a picture of Ralph Nader. “Mocking the Far Right and When We’re Tired of that The Far Left.”

The network is all criticism, all the time. Franken’s show is hilarious and brilliant. But it’s one thing to convince me that the right is full of big fat idiot liars. It’s quite another task to articulate the character of a movement, which can show itself in times of opposition, and in times of leadership.

Really, sift through the venom and this is a thoroughly insightful article; however, I would raise one point of contention. What if, even in the haze of our "Reptilian brains" we are picking up on the truth of a situation through narrative. I am almost pessimistic enough to believe that everything in politics is a lie and a play (as the writer so obviously does) but the only reason the Bush narrative remains so effective (other than basic hatred of the left by many on the right and vice versa) is that it seems so real. Perhaps, in contrast to what the writer believes, it is real.

George Washington so effectively used the narrative because the narrative really was a part of him. He had soul. He had class. He had passion. Meanwhile, John Kerry, who has ineffectively used his Vietnam narrative on a number of occassions, comes off as dishonest next to a figure like (his possible running mate) John McCain. Perhaps the narrative is based in truth, This is something our subtle friend from Mother Jones never considers. Many Americans are still foolish enough to believe that men of character still exist and that they can reach the pinnacle of power without succombing to the slime of politics (Mr. McCain or MR Lieberman might be good, if occassionally boring, examples), and maybe, just maybe, narratives are not always lies.

It has been four years, and I still support the President in this election. Maybe I have succombed to the power of the narrative. I would like to think, however, that the reasons for the failure of the left to effectively employ the narrative are more systemic. Perhaps there is something in the snide and critical attitude of Al Franken itself that is necessarily correlated with snide and critical policy (insert left-based War-on-terror-criticism-with-no-solution-based example here). Perhaps the reason the right can employ an optimistic and constructive narrative is a deeper mentality of optimism that chooses action over fear. Fifty years ago, the left, marching with Dr. King and fighting for women's rights, had the same ethos. It is a shame that neither party takes the narrative as seriously as our heroes back then.