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PAGE 2 THE CONFIDENCE MAN BY THANDEKA Unless John Kerry can make human emotion rather than political platforms the center of his campaign, George Bush will win the Presidential election by the end of June. Kerry won't know what hit him until it's too late. Here's how Kerry will lose. When Kerry clinched the Democratic nomination of March 2, most voters did not know much of anything about him. A window of opportunity opened up for voter education However, the factual information the Kerry campaign is trying to shove through this window will not shape voters' political judgment — their emotional responses will As political scientists Richard Nadeau, Richard G. Niemi, and Timothy Amato have trenchantly argued in their essay “Emotions, Issue Importance & Political Learning," voters may forget the information they initially learned about the candidate, but they will hold onto their emotional attitudes. Bush’s team has been studying this new science on political emotion. In fact, one of Bush’s advisors, W. Russell Neuman, who works on information and security technology policy at the White House, literally wrote the book on this kind of political maneuvering (Affective Intelligence & Political Judgment, co-authored by George E. Marcus and Michael MacKuen). While Kerry went on a much deserved but poorly timed vacation, Bush’s team got busy shaping voters’ affective responses to the candidates, pouring over $20 million into anti- Kerry ads in March alone. The Bush campaign is based on what Nadeau et al call the anxiety/hope model. In this model, the politician who promises voters (or creates the expectation) that a threat to voter well-being will end wins emotional capital. In short, if a politician can replace voters' anxiety with hope, that politician will come out ahead. It's a political confidence game. Here’s how it works: A politician: 1. Takes an issue that causes anxiety among some voters. 2. Turns it into a high anxiety issue for most voters. 3. Offers up guaranteed hope and thus an expectation that the threat will be removed 4 Gains new emotional capital from voters because of new confidence in the leadership ability of the politician to end the threat. 5. Becomes their confidence man. The fundamental structure of this strategy draws on the formula for Christian faith created by 16th century Protestant reformer Martin Luther in his 1535 Lectures on Galatians. Luther’s formula can be divided into the same five steps: 1. Anxiety. The believer tries to please God on his own (without Christ or the Holy Spirit) and fails miserably because he is a sinner. 2. Anxiety Heightened. Each repeated attempt by the believer to please God through works increases God’s wrath. God is enraged because He is being offered the man’s sin (unfulfilled Divine Commandments of “Law”) as if it were good works (fulfilled Law). The believer thus experiences an ever- deepening terror and humiliation in the sight of God. He comes to the realization that he is all flesh and not spirit. 3. Universal Salvation Guaranteed'. Christ.The believer now sees himself as God sees him (he’s a sinner). Being in complete accord with God’s vision and will is the human exper ience of faith This experience of faith is the experience of the presence of Christ, who is present in the faith itself. 4 The Human Feeling o f Salvation While on Earth: Christ as Divine Mediator takes the sins of man upon himself. With this act by Christ the man is justified in the sight of God and no longer feels guilty. 5. Confidence. Luther now proclaims that “[Anyjone who teaches something different or something contrary — we confidently declare that he was sent by the devil....' By equating inner, personal certainty (a conscience at peace because it is united with Christ) with so-called objective truth (“Christians [are] constituted as judges over all kinds of doctrine and become lords over all the laws of the entire world”), Luther made the emotional experience of extreme personal confidence the central religious experience o f faith for many Protestants. For Christians, Christ certainly deserves personal confidence. But Bush is not Christ. The confidence Bush asks MIKE LANE Here’s how he put it during a fund-raising event on Long Island the following day: “[American voters have] a choice between an American that leads the world with strength and confidence or an American that is uncertain in the face of danger” (New York Times, March 12, 2004). The issue, in short, is confidence, Bush is the confidence man. Every major policy statement by Bush or his top administrators can be reduced to these five political steps. Try it. Read Bush’s statements on the Iraq War, its aftermath, his stance toward the United Nations, his tax cuts. He’s even used the formula on his opponent, creating voter anxiety about Kerry by insisting that Kerry lacks conviction and is indecisive (New York Times, March 20, 2004).Once this negative assoc iation is made, Bush moves in with the message that he has conviction, and offers the hope that he will be the decisive President voters need. The formula never changes. Bush's focused use of theologically-based anxiety/hope strategy explains why most Americans believe, despite all the hard evidence, that he is a moral man, a defender of the faith, a Christian leader, and an American savior. In short, an elect man of God chosen to rule over others. John Kerry will not be able to beat Bush at this confi dence game unless he also becomes a confidence man. This means that: 1. Kerry must speak to the anxiety of the American people in specific, concrete terms. 2. Kerry must heighten the anxiety. 3. Kerry must then promise universal salvation. Anything less than this will mean Kerry’s defeat. If Kerry succeeds, it will be because of one decided difference. Kerry will actually be salvific for our ailing, anxiety-ridden nation. Nothing less, thanks to Bush, will do. for, unfortunately, is of a completely different sort. What secular liberals don’t understand is that when Bush uses the anxiety/ hope strategy effectively, it doesn't matter if the economy's depressed, jobs continue to disappear, the U S. deficit’s still rising, and Bush is still calling for more tax cuts and free trade. While these liberals speak policy-talk, much of Protestant America resonates to the affective force of Bush’s anxiety/hope strategy. Here’s just one example of Bush’s mastery of this politi cal strategy: Gay and Lesbian marriages. '- ^ r ’Anxiety Noted Bush is told by “several prominent » evangelical Protestants in Washington” that voter turnout by evangelicals is directly linked to his support of a constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage (New York Times, March 12, 2004). Thus Bush, when introducing his proposal for a constitutional amendment of marriage, first mentions the anxiety: the “uncertainty” caused among the American people by “arbitrary court decisions" and “defiance of the law by local officials" who have sanctioned gay and lesbian marriages at the state and local level. 2. Anxiety Heightened. Bush escalates the anxiety into a universal, all-encompassing threat: a “few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization," one “honored by all cultures and by every religious faith." 3. Guaranteed Hope Through Universal Salvation. Bush promises a guaranteed salvation: he declares his intention to “prevent the meaning of marriage to be changed forever,” by calling for the enactment of a “constitutional amendment to protect marriage in America. Decisive and democratic action is needed, because attempts to redefine marriage in a single state or city could have serious consequences throughout the country." A. The Feeling o f Political Salvation on Earth is Achieved Bush now speaks of God. This time via a teleconference at the National Association of Evangelicals annual conference on March 11, held in Colorado Springs, which represents 30 million members. Bush tells them they “are doing God’s work” and thanks them “on behalf of our country." 5. Bush Becomes The Confidence Man Bush now reveals the actual content of his political hand: confidence. Thandeka is associate professor of theology at Mead ville Lombard Theological School (Chicago), affiliate minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church at Rockford, Illinois, co president of the Center for Community Values, and author of Learning to be White: Money, Race & God in America. He wrote this article for TIKKUN. A ra^&storia Real Estate — x l Thinking o f moving to the coast? ’ Come in and check out the local market! SpZ*” '- www.astoriarealestate.net Peter & Janet Weidman 503-325-3304 342 Industry, Astona, OR 97103 (at the Moonng Basin next to the Red Lion Inn) VAN PUSEN BEVERAGES ASTORIA, OREGON 325-2362 THE COMPLEAT PHOTOGRAPHER 4 7 5 14TH ST., ASTORIA & 303 S. 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