The Borders of Absurdity

   The inanity of U.S. politics has never ceased to me amaze me but two incidents as of late leave me somewhat stunned. First we have the crashing of a U.S. spy-drone in Iran. While in itself not hugely exciting, what is interesting is the U.S. response, to ask for the drone back. Only in a completely topsy-turvy world could someone ask for a crashed spy-drone back and yet in mainstream media in the U.S. the outrage is over Iran's refusal to return the drone. Even comedians have lashed out at Iran's intransigence. For me this is a symptom of how nonsensical U.S. discourse has become. Consider the contrary situation, an Iranian spy-drone crashes in the U.S. and the Iranian government asks for it back. What would be the likely response? It would receive howls of laughter from the press, it would serve as yet another example of Iran's disconnect with reality.
   The second example I'll give concerns Newt Gingrich's comments about making poor children work as janitors in order to pay for their education. In any reasonable world this should have resulted in his immediate disqualification for office, the newspapers would read "Child Labour Scandal: Gingrich resigns amid howls of fury" (throw a pun in and you might get closer to today's newspapers). In the mad world that is U.S. politics however this comment had little or no impact on Gingrich's election chances. There has been no real media outcry, there has been no backlash.
   These incidents are by no means isolated but rather are indicative of a trend in U.S. (and to a much lesser extent, World) politics. What facilitates this madness however? The psychology is simple. When one encounters an unfamiliar scenario one tends to take their cue from those around them. This effect is well studied and applies across society whether it involves etiquette in a fancy restaurant or whether or not to give to the homeless man ahead. In the case of novel political events or policies the public tends to be primed by the media and tends to judge the outrageousness of any statement based on the outrage expressed in the media. If the media presents such positions as acceptable then the public at large presumes they must be.
     This feeds in to the increasingly absurd and extreme positions held by many candidates, particularly those in the Republican primaries as of late. Interestingly, none of the candidates that have fallen in popularity have done so due to policy positions. Indeed Perry fell not because he wanted to annihilate the Department of Education (surely an extreme position) but instead he fell in the polls due to not being able to remember which departments he would get rid of. Likewise, Cain and Bachmann lost top spot due to gaffes and scandal rather than (in my view) the insanity of the policy positions which they were actually able to communicate.
    We live in a world where increasingly bizarre positions are glossed over by a press which instead concentrates on gaffes. There is no outrage over the idea of getting rid of the Department of Education, instead the outrage is expressed over a bad memory. With this sleight of hand the position becomes legitimised and there is no real examination of the policy itself. In this fashion any position can be made to seem reasonable and can be presented to the public by focusing on trivial points related to it. In this fashion ideas such as child labour, abolishing the Department of Education and the returning of crashed spy-drones all stow their way into public discourse as reasonable ideas, indeed as non-controversial ideas. What do you think?