I called it ten years ago…

My doctoral dissertation was going to be the definitive exploration of how the methods and styles of Southern politics were becoming nationalized. Ten years on, I find it tough to see how the process isn’t complete.

Both party primaries – and the primary derby has started WAY WAY WAY too early, by the way – are, at root, indistinguishable from the Alabama governor’s race of 1986. I don’t think I have seen one single piece breaking down the actual policy positions or differences between the candidates on either side – everything is pure horse-race, who’s up, who’s down, who’s got the money and the endorsements. And while I will be the first to say that the meta-narrative is often more entertaining and interesting than the narrative (example A: pro wrestling in the early part of the decade), the meta-narrative is MEANINGLESS absent the narrative.

Personally, I blame Ted Turner. CNN was a news network until the day they decided to go with gavel-to-gavel coverage of the OJ Simpson trial. Now I wouldn’t trust CNN to tell me the sun was going to rise in the East. That same obsession with meta-narrative is the thing that gives us 18 hours of talk shows and Crossfire ripoffs and tells us it’s news coverage. Once and for all: commentary is not news. I don’t care if it’s a blog, if it’s talk radio, if it’s the Sabbath Gasbags arguing back and forth, whatever – if it’s talking about what happened, rather than saying what happened, IT’S NOT NEWS.

And if you have any other question: George W. Bush. Newt Gingrich. Trent Lott. Tom DeLay. Bob Livingston. Dick Armey. Bill Frist. Mitch McConnell. And oh yeah, Bill Clinton and Al Gore. When they said that the South would rise again, this is what they meant. Not so funny now, is it?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.