FURTHERMORE
Don't sneer at America — its democracy is in better shape than ours
PFTRONELLA WYATT The English middle classes from Carlyle onwards have had a prejudice against America. They may, from time to time, professing great distaste, bundle their fami- lies on cheap flights to Miami, but basically they think it stinks. Sitting behind such peo- ple on an aeroplane, which I have some- times done, one may overhear the words 'vulgar', 'loud', 'tasteless', 'schmaltzy' and 'sick-making' (the last two of which are, of course, Americanisms).
The greatest target for scorn and choler is that country's political process and the circus that is be found along its way. When I told an academic acquaintance that I would be going to the Republican and Democratic conventions in San Diego and Chicago he commiserated. One English commentator wrote that both political par- ties were guilty of 'disgusting manipulation' in using such speakers as Mrs Nancy Rea- gan and the crippled actor Christopher Reeve.The very obvious emotion of the convention-goers was described as 'revolt- ing', even 'the sort of thing Goebbels would have appreciated' (forgetting that the Nazis usually gassed the handicapped, rather than let them gas).
There is a question mark, of course, over the tastefulness of employing infirmity or personal sorrows for political gain. A few years ago I attended a party in New York for Mrs Jean Kennedy Smith. The occasion was a book she had written about physically handicapped people. There was something almost Gothically grotesque about that evening. I heard afterwards that para- plegics had been brought in specially, as one would bring in some novel kind of canapé. Apparently, some of them had to be propped up in the lift as their wheelchairs were too big to fit inside. But that is the Kennedys for you.
Mr Reeve was a different case, however. He was not, to anyone's knowledge, 'manipulated'. In fact, he asked to speak, so the manipulation could fairly be said to be the other way around. Nor was Mrs Reagan in any way 'used'. Indeed, one cannot imag- ine a person whom it would be more diffi- cult to manipulate, except perhaps for the late Cardinal Richelieu. Mrs Reagan may have manipulated the audience, but one doubted it. From where I was sitting in the convention centre, Mrs Reagan made one of the most sincere and simple speeches I have heard at a political event. I am not ashamed to admit that, along with most others, I cried.
The crying game is the crux of it. The 'sophisticated' Englishman and woman are contemptuous of American politics because it is beyond their understanding. They can not comprehend the tears or the spectacle because both seem alien. So they assume that it is at best bogus and at worst sinister. In Britain, except for a few sporadic rushes of hot blood, we like our politics served lukewarm. We distrust sentiment, we recoil from roars and yells. This is why the Sheffield rally did so much harm to Neil Kinnock.
Mr Kinnock, however, would do well at an American convention. He would be a sort of inferior, Welsh Jesse Jackson. There is nothing wrong with a show of feeling at a political rally. In most cases it is efficacious. It is good to be touched — figuratively, I mean. I was touched by Jackson's impas- sioned invocations of the American poor. But it was my heart that was moved, not my reason. One was still able to see his speech for what it really was — a load of cobblers. Only a child or a extraordinarily childlike adult would have failed to do so.
Neither at the Republican nor the Democratic conventions was the atmo- sphere unhealthy — quite the opposite. The rapt involvement of the floor was a sign that Americans still value their politi- cal system, that they still feel they can con- tribute to it, even bring about changes. Many hate their political opponents far more than Tory supporters hate Labour (some of the advertising campaigns that have been used in the past make Lord Saatchi look like Rolf Harris). But hate, I think, is better than the indifference we are beginning to have here.
What is alarming about Britain is not how politicians are loathed but how they are almost entirely discounted or ignored. Anyone who has done the rounds of an English constituency will be familiar with Put this to your ear, press 607 and you can hear the ocean.' remarks like 'They're all the same to me', 'Why should I bother to vote? It won't change anything', or, even worse, 'Person- ally, I've got nothing against John Major'. Such remarks are code for a political malaise, a general weariness, a feeling that our parliamentary process is becoming almost irrelevant.
This is far from being the sign of a healthy democracy. It is, after all, public apathy which has often allowed dictators to assume power. A dictator could not impose himself upon North America because its people are not yet cynical enough. This is not true of all Americans, of course, but it is true of the majority. Even the more fanatical right-wing anti-abortion lobbyists are a welcome indication that American democracy still works.
Perhaps it is because America is a young country that she has not yet grown up into a weary sophisticate. Real Americans hate weary sophisticates almost as much as they hate smokers (they doubtless assume that the one causes the other). This is why they can rarely understand the British sense of humour in its drier variety. Irony is lost upon them. Bob Dole, one of the few politicians in that country to practise it, remains essentially disliked. Such feelings are also common to most immigrants. Assimilation has meant the adoption of American tastes. I found Chicago full of second-generation Pakista- nis who prided themselves on their Ameri- canisation. One of them had lived for a few years in London before moving back to the States. He told me, 'England is in some ways an easier place to live. But you feel sidelined. In London none of my friends cared either way about politics.' The sincerity of Americans is evident to anyone who visits that country for any length of time. They can, of course, be sin- cerely wrong. At present they may be wrong in preferring Mr Clinton, though it might be said that for a liar he seems very sincere, especially when he is lying. Nonetheless, you will argue, if American democracy can throw up a bum like that it must have its drawbacks. All I can say is that the democracy that produced Mr Clin- ton also gave us the great Ronald Reagan. I doubt that Mr Reagan would have hap- pened in Britain. The bien-pensants would have been too sophisticated to vote for a former B-movie actor. A grocer's daughter was difficult enough for them to swallow.
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