Which America is Which?

I always cringe when I feel the need to comment on the political landscape.  As I have said many times in the past, I am not a politically-charged person.  I do not follow issues as precisely as a good citizen should, which makes me something less than an expert on most subjects involving the economy, or defense spending, or tax reform.   Given, however, that I have a pulse and that I feel strongly about exercising my Constitutional right to vote, I do not bury my head in the sand.  Since reaching voting age, I have made it a point to watch the main speeches at both parties’ national conventions.  And besides, there is nothing good on television anyway.

For the record, I will say that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan each did a good job at delivering on the tasks they were given for this week’s Republican National  Convention.  They rallied the troops, established the party line, and connected to the feel good values of a bygone era.  It was rhetorical comfort food at the right time and the right place.  They also disposed of any residual issues from a contentious primary season by uniting against a common enemy, even to the point of banning notable Republicans who may harbor dissenting opinions.  Unfortunately, they found that they could not accomplish their goals by using the truth so they cherry picked facts and manufactured others to suit their purposes.   

Having spent the majority of my career in marketing roles, I enjoy looking at these events as the pageants that they are.  They tend to be light in substance yet heavy in “message”—using the latter term in its truest marketing sense.  I heard once that an actor can always tell another actor.  So it is with marketing.  We marketeers can see through the well-choreographed stage play to the invisible hand behind the curtain.  Marketing is about knowing who your customer is and crafting a message that appeals to what they want, allowing them to see themselves “using the product.”  It is through this lens that I observed what is really at issue in this election:  there are two vastly different Americas.              

  

When the dust settles after these conventions, and the fact-checkers have dotted the last ‘i,’ the solutions being proposed will reveal what the candidates think America is about.  Over the last two nights, I heard a consistently droned message about the American nuclear family, comprised of exactly one father and one mother, producing a large litter of children, where the wife tends the flock while the husband hunts and gathers.  Together they attend church, maintain their faith, and give glory to G-d for their American freedoms.  It’s a pretty vanilla picture, underscored by the prettiest pair of candidates in years. 

This is in sharp contrast to the America that the Democratic Party sees, which is a more heterogeneous and calloused sample of the population.  At next week’s convention, I predict we will hear about the plight of the single working mother, families with two working parents trying to make ends meet, same-sex couples, the high costs of caring for the elderly, the need for equal access to education and jobs.  There will be talk about Social Security, Rowe v. Wade, and investing in sustainable energy sources.  All of these topics, as well as foreign policy, were notably absent from this week’s Republican rhetoric.

I have lots of friends who subscribe vehemently to each party’s platform.  There are merits and weaknesses to each side.  But when it comes to considering what this country needs, I come back to looking at how well a product’s specifications fit the end user’s requirements.   America is not homogeneous; it is a land of infinite diversity whose doctrines challenge a one-size-fits-all solution.   We cannot allow “shrinking the size of the government” to become one group’s euphemism for “do not spend our collective money on people who do not share our values or in ways that do not benefit us directly.”  Truthfully, I do not contribute to causes in which I do not believe, and I weigh each proposed government program according to whether or not it will make me better off.  On the other hand, I feel we have an obligation as human beings to take social justice into account as we renew our nation’s commitment to the Constitution in each election cycle.  Is our prevailing approach to freedom to be simply that we are on our own to succeed or fail?  Are we to castigate the poor for failing to exercise their freedom to succeed?  Are we not accountable for reversing the generations of policies and practices that created barriers and inequalities for some but not others?

Electing a president should be a carefully considered exercise—a right, to be sure, but a privilege not to be squandered.  It is so much more than a popularity contest or joining a club of like-minded individuals.  The constant bickering and interparty ploys have placed us in a perpetual state of election turmoil and given us a collective headache.   This energy needs to be redirected at America and its people.  We need to insist that our leaders respect the voters enough to wage a fair and honest fight.  And in the end, when it is over, we must respect the results of the process and come together as a single nation.