I don’t think
it’s a coincidence I’ve spent most of my TV viewing over the past few months
watching the entire seven series of West
Wing, as it has certainly made me think about the whole way we as countries
go about the process of choosing our leaders. It was fascinating to watch on
from the sidelines through one re-election campaign for Jed Bartlett, then
another campaign as the changing of the guard loomed during the last year of
his presidency.
As both Democrat
and Republican candidates waged internal campaigns for pre-selection, then a
war against each other as the clock ticked down to election day, I can’t help
but see the parallels with the current circus playing out right across every US
State as the months roll on towards November. And of course at this point in
the proceedings, Donald Trump has positioned himself firmly as the ringmaster,
seemingly in charge, in his own mind at least, calling the shots, cracking his
whip, setting the scene and stirring things into an excited frenzy as the
action revolves around him.
I’ve never really
understood the US political system, and remember a friend of mine taking some
time to come to grips with it after relocating to the States. Bringing his wife
to Australia on a visit, she was equally bewildered as he attempted to explain
how the Australian party system worked. It didn’t make sense to her. It was
foreign.
More than any
textbook explanation could have achieved, I think West Wing actually educated me by opening a window into how the US
government operates, simply through excellent scriptwriting, casting and
acting. Though a fictitious representation of the machinations of the White
House, I could imagine what I was seeing was a glimpse of what might happen on
a daily basis. Wheeling and dealing behind closed doors, meetings held openly
and in secret, tension in the situation room, the fielding of pressure from as
wide a net as your own family to the colleagues you trust, those you don’t
trust, lobbyists, the Opposition, natural disasters both at home and around the
world, responding to threats of war in any given country at a moment’s notice, economic
rises and falls, racial, religious and ethnic issues, health and education
deficiencies, you name it, somehow it all comes to the attention of the
President somewhere along the line.
Then throw into
the mix of trying to run the country, an election campaign. Not Australian
style, but a long drawn out behemoth which takes on a life of its own at a
frenetic pace as candidates crisscross the country simply to win pre-selection
within their own party. Then after that circus has finally come to its natural
conclusion, the organ grinder cranks up the music again for the next foray
north, south, east and west as the two presidential candidates promise the
world and slug it out in order to win the hearts and minds of the population at
large.
Convincing people
you are their best hope to lead the country is one thing, convincing them to
actually get off the couch and go and vote is another entirely. There’s
something to be said I think for Australia’s compulsory voting. Every prime
minister or president across the globe must hate election time. I know I would.
What a monumental distraction. I wonder how anyone gets any work done in their
actual elected roles while juggling alongside the clowns and lions and constant
barrage of noise.
The 2008 US presidential
campaign gained a whole lot more interest than usual, not only amongst grass
roots voters, but here and around the world as well. Barack Obama burst on to
the scene, the first African American to become president. A sense of hope
seemed to permeate the lead up to the election and the inauguration two months
later. Whether he has lived up to that hope will be revealed in time, but this
year’s campaign has gained notoriety of another kind, for its sideshow quality
rather than showcasing anything of substance.
Ringmaster Trump
has systematically provided the Republican party and supporters with such a
vast array of fodder through his abominable behaviour, you’d think everyone
would be heartily sick of him by now and he’d have been dispatched back to the
boardroom from whence he came.
When his campaign
began it felt to me like he was regarded as not much more than entertainment
value, but the groundswell of support he has generated even though he has both
feet firmly planted in his mouth most of the time while abusing and antagonizing
all and sundry, has been nothing short of astonishing. He’s made it impossible
for his running mates, and I say mates in its loosest sense, to run any sort of
intelligent campaign, reducing the whole proceedings to its lowest common
denominator of mud slinging insults and personal attack. I guess money and the
power it wields speaks a lot louder than common sense.
With the windup
of my West Wing marathon, I feel like
I’ve said goodbye to some good friends. Josh, Donna, Toby, CJ, Sam, Leo,
Margaret and Carol, Charlie, President Bartlett and others, we went through eight years
together in the space of four months. If Ronald Reagan can become president,
Arnie Schwarzenegger become a governor, Clint Eastwood and Jerry Springer become
mayors, Shirley Temple an ambassador, and Sonny Bono a Republican
representative, then I reckon Martin Sheen would be just as likely to succeed in
being nominated in the current climate. Then again, maybe he feels like he’s
already served eight years as president, so why do it all over again.
And of course
it’s not only the US who has the ability to stage such pandemonium that the
players become caricatures, the butt of late night talk show hosts and the
laughing stock of the rest of the world. Our own major parties have a knack of
notoriously operating in cycles where the upward trend inevitably degenerates
as the infighting takes over, and the leadership of either party changes as
candidates walk in and out of the revolving door.
All I want is a bunch
of leaders who will actually lead, whose primary focus is good governance, people
who I believe are capable of carrying out what they were elected to do.
Unfortunately, as one of the most distrusted professions, if not the most, the likelihood of sitting
back and feeling like we have the right people at the helm of the ship is
somewhat slim.
So the next few
months are going to be interesting viewing as we watch the political
aspirations both at home and in the US as campaigns roll on and elections come
closer, opponents jockey for position and bragging rights, and the man in the
street who this is all supposed to benefit, is left with his head spinning.
How do we choose?
Who will win out? After all, the business of government is not about power.
It’s all about service. Something that easily gets lost along the way.
I’d hate to see
the loudest drown out all sense of reason. As Lucy once said in a Peanuts strip…
If you can’t be right, be wrong at the top of your
voice.
