The Cargo Cult
Cargo cults were a brief phenomenon scattered across the South Pacific in the wake of Western expansion into the region, with some of the most striking examples following World War II. American forces would arrive on islands with no significant prior contact with the outside world. Their technology, abundant food supplies, and exotic appearance led the natives to assume they were gods come to Earth.
After American troops departed, these natives would build wood and bamboo airplanes, vehicles, and other replicas of Western technology as idols, hoping to propitiate the great king Rusafel (Roosevelt) to return with cargo. It was magical thinking, hoping to summon abundance and prosperity.
Listening to the Clinton speech last night, I came to realize the Democrats are no longer a party: they're a cargo cult. The speech was an invocation to magical forces to make the Democratic Party great again and to an economic theory grounded in government as the prime mover of both society and the economy. But while Clinton's political invincibility and ease with people, his gift for demoralizing Republican opposition and his ability to bend the press to his will were all on display last night, it was hollow at its core.
Reading today's gushing, glowing, fanboy coverage of Clinton, you might disagree. His speech was designed not to move numbers in the voting population, but as a guided weapon back into the hearts of the press. His speech was about convincing the Gang of 500 the Big Dog still has it and that he could confer his mojo on Barack Obama.
But the Democratic cargo cult (and a meaningful fraction of the media) can't understand the modern nature of things. The old gods are gone from the island.
Bill Clinton survived (barely) because he lived at the dawn of the Internet age. When he took office, there were still only a handful of media outlets that shaped the opinion reaching the majority of Americans. There was a Newspaper Of Record and its little friend, the Washington Post. There were three networks and CNN. Their power to shape public opinion was, at that time, unimaginably strong. Sure, there were outside voices on both ends of the debate, but the were de minimis in comparison.
You want to talk about narrative? They set it, and it took massive, exogenous forces and personalities to make them deviate from it.
I'm shortcutting slightly, but Matt Drudge had a different idea, and we're where we are today largely because he forced their hand on the Monica Lewinsky story. It went from a world mediated by a few hundred reporters, television talking heads, editors and operatives who imparted their consensus reality to the masses to a glorious, sloppy circus where information became unmediated and political action followed.
Until then, it was a (for all intents and purposes) a one-way dialogue. When Clinton lied, the media's instinct was to shove it aside. It had been building long before, but at that moment that the fundamental trust between Americans and the press was broken.
After that door opened, sometimes in fits and starts, news and opinion has become radically democratized. The emergent phenomenon of conservative activists communicating via the Internet (and since 2009, largely Twitter) and redefining the social media landscape as the central political battlespace is what makes a Clinton so impossible today.
The charm, rhetorical skill and sly wit of Clinton depended on you never seeing behind the curtain and on the speech never being fact-checked by the proverbial Army of Davids. In the old world, you had to believe in the character he played on TV, not the atavistic, predatory, dry-humping sexual harasser-in-Chief.
In another time, and another world, the Clinton speech's power and magnificence would have been reported as a gamechanger, and it might have been true.
The reaction to it now will be shorter, more shallow and less persistent because there is no universal mediating function in the press to make it so. It's not a game changer because they can't make an economy in crisis disappear from the minds of an increasingly connected electorate. A snappy rejoinder to Romney and a finger-wag can't disappear the insane debt we've accumulated or the darkening economic picture for young people. Promises of investments and green jobs and a unicorn-powered economy can't erase a failed stimulus and the mounting stable of Solyndras.
Clinton's speech will make a page or two in the after-election instabooks, but as for history, he no longer has the power to shape it to his will. Twitter is still talking, and shaping opinion beyond the fanboy coverage of today.
The reporting you're seeing and the spin you're hearing is just the Democratic and legacy media Cargo Cult, sitting on the beach, waiting for Bubba the Sky God to return, and bring them back their power.
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Jul '12
Re: The Cargo Cult
Brilliant observation. You said it all.
Jul '12
Re: The Cargo Cult
Some of my acquaintances on the Facebooks posited that Clinton would mop up if he were running for President today - When I pointed out to them that he was Impeached, Held in Contempt, Disbarred and accused of sexual assault it occurred to me that the world in which Clinton was elected is gone and can never come again.
People with baggage like Clinton's and Jack Kennedy's can NOT get elected to major positions like President anymore precisely because of this phenomenon.
Apr '12
Re: The Cargo Cult
I love it, some years ago I noticed this cargo cult mentality, it deserves more press.
Jul '10
Re: The Cargo Cult
And yet, and yet - he DID have one thing right. Math! And it's the math that will ultimately sink Obama and the dems.
You can't charisma your way out of the math.
Edited on September 6, 2012 at 7:58pmJun '10
Re: The Cargo Cult
Sorry, but the old god named "Pay Your Fair Share" is near the limit of his miracle quota.
May '10
Re: The Cargo Cult
"Cargo cult." Beautiful. My only complaint is that you could have worked the economics angle more, but I know you didn't want this to go even longer than it did.
The left understands economic activity as a fruit tree in the wild. It just grows, all on its own, almost by magic. Some years, it produces more, sometimes less. Maybe we can stimulate it by sacrificing a few virgins to the gods. But, fundamentally, organized human activity is concerned with fruit distribution.
The right understands that economic activity is more like an orchard. The fundamental organized human activity is fruit cultivation.
Jul '11
Re: The Cargo Cult
"The charm, rhetorical skill and sly wit of Clinton depended on you never seeing behind the curtain and on the speech never being fact-checked by the proverbial Army of Davids. In the old world, you had to believe in the character he played on TV, not the atavistic, predatory, dry-humping sexual harasser-in-Chief."
Amazing writing in your article. How people idolize such a person speaks volumes about the depravity of our society. He seems an apropos titular head for the left.
Mar '12
Re: The Cargo Cult
I agree with your basic analysis. However, the diffusion of media power cuts both ways. Imbedded within the Old Media were elements of a WASP Establishment that morphed under FDR, Truman and Ike into a part of a kind of Deep State which ruled out certain people as unworthy of leadership. Bob Woodward is the last media remnant of the post-WWII "Deep State" and in his latest book , he seems to be signaling that Obama isn't up to the job of being President. (Last week's NYTimes piece by Jodi Kantor is giving similar signals.) Ironically, the MSM has lost so much authority that these Establishment signals do not have the determinative force they did when, say, Gary Hart was taken down, as too flaky to be President.
Feb '11
Re: The Cargo Cult
Majestyk: Some of my acquaintances on the Facebooks posited that Clinton would mop up if he were running for President today - When I pointed out to them that he was Impeached, Held in Contempt, Disbarred and accused of sexual assault it occurred to me that the world in which Clinton was elected is gone and can never come again.
People with baggage like Clinton's and Jack Kennedy's can NOT get elected to major positions like President anymore precisely because of this phenomenon.
Actually, I agree with your Facebook friends. According to this chart, despite impeachment, disbarment, and allegations of assault Clinton left office with an approval rating nearly as high as Reagan's peak.
The man is a first rate politician (if not first rate human). Though I fundamentally disagree with Clinton and the left, I can grudgingly admit that last night's speech was a masterpiece and a display of what made him so popular: style, image, advantageous framing of the issues, triangulation, plausible mischaracterization of opponents, and most importantly a moral argument and vision woven throughout - both implicit and explicit. All were displayed in full bloom last night. Independents would swoon for him.
Re: The Cargo Cult
Thank you. I did trim for length, and had actually a bit more on the magical thinking of the hand-wave economics and miracle nostrums that underpinned his (and those of others at the DNC) speech.
Fredösphere: "Cargo cult." Beautiful. My only complaint is that you could have worked the economics angle more, but I know you didn't want this to go even longer than it did.
The left understands economic activity as a fruit tree in the wild. It just grows, all on its own, almost by magic. Some years, it produces more, sometimes less. Maybe we can stimulate it by sacrificing a few virgins to the gods. But, fundamentally, organized human activity is concerned with fruit distribution.
The right understands that economic activity is more like an orchard. The fundamental organized human activity is fruit cultivation. · 29 minutes ago
Re: The Cargo Cult
The twilight of the old order is bringing in something more attentive, if perhaps less genteel. I think John Edwards was the last major candidate who got away with a flagrant infidelity for as long as he did.
And yes, things like the Kantor piece are signifiers, just less potent than before.
Dec '10
Re: The Cargo Cult
I am in complete agreement, as this applies to the politically well-informed. Unfortunately, there is a huge cohort that avoids political information and absorbs the political messaging from popular culture, still being cranked out of bamboo.
People like Rob Long have a long way to before there is anything like balance on the cultural front.
Nov '10
Re: The Cargo Cult
It seems to be completely lost on the Demcorats that what made Clinton a successful President are the very things that Obama seems to find abhorrent, embracing the center, recognizing that "compromise" means both sides have to give something up, recognizing a landmark mid-term electoral defeat for the rebuke that it was... Obama and Clinton could not have anything less in common if Clinton switched parties.
Aug '10
Re: The Cargo Cult
With the recent death of Bob Denver, the cargo cult and Gilligan's Island merge into an apt metaphor for the DNC.
A blustering Skipper covering for his lil buddy Gilligan. Meanwhile, on the other side of the island, the cargo cult worships the false planes, Rusafel as they hope for the change that the strangers from the wrecked boat cannot provide.
I would love to work in a reference to the heads on Easter Island, but will skip to internet's hagiography . Lucianne Goldberg handed Matt Drudge the magic key to unleash the dogs of scrutiny, after the kennelmasters at Newsweeek tried to lose the key. I remember it clearly, it was a seachange of looking at current events. Remember when Drudge was getting 400,000 views a day ? Hugh Hewitt held a lantern next to the path for many . Ricochet began it's gestation there.
As we realized that our POTUS was a liar it became apparent that the press was lying as well. It was so long ago...and it never occurred to me to watch the speech last night or read the MSM accounts of it in the morning. I reserve fiction for special times.
Re: The Cargo Cult
Didn't he die in 2005?
Dec '10
Re: The Cargo Cult
I'm so jealous. Great post, Rick. I wish I'd written it. I wouldn't change a word.
Aug '10
Re: The Cargo Cult
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
Didn't he die in 2005? · 58 minutes ago
Of course you're right, but I thought I saw it the other day on the internet. There was a flurry of reports on the 4th about it. Have no idea why, but there were. I was out of country when it actually happened. Darned internet ! and there I was praising it up and down.
And I read it on Lucianne.com
Debbie Wasserman Schultz told me ( you cant see my crossed fingers).
Edited on September 6, 2012 at 11:03pmDec '10
Re: The Cargo Cult
Seconded.
Dec '10
Re: The Cargo Cult
Another irony is that Obama is the incumbent precisely because the Democrat Party in 2008 had bitter memories of how Bill Clinton caused them personal embarrassment and cost them control of Congress for a dozen years. That's why the superdelegates threw the nomination to Obama and kept Hillary from bringing Bill back onto the main stage as the prospective "First Gentleman" and co-campaigner-in-chief.
Apr '12
Re: The Cargo Cult
The Drudge Report, Ricochet's Jim Pethokoukis and podcasts from the Cato Institute are taking the cargo cult apart with far more sophisticated analysis. We are learning that the US government loves bubbles. Housing Bubble? Fantastic! How can we get more people into it?
We are learning risk management had the Government pumping up the risk and promising to use tax payer money to pay for problems. This cargo cult collapsed with the lowest risk financial products, mortgages, combining with the highest risk. Thank goodness for the Internet to explain the details.
Is there going to be less if an emphasis on the persinality if the President and a better appreciation of the team, like Ryan, now do you think?