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Had David Foster Wallace Lived to See Obama Win...
Would the brilliant ironist cling to his belief that politics is a hurtful lie?
Author Wallace took his life on Sept. 12.
- McCain's Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express with John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking About Hope
- Back Bay Press (2006)
Well before John McCain's actual loss Tuesday to newly elected Democratic President Barack Obama, there were many clear reasons for the former maverick's demise. The choice of the terminally incompetent Sarah Palin as running mate. The Republican campaign's pandering to fundamentalists and hate-mongers at the expense of independent voters and fiscal conservatives. Countless cases of compromised idealism, like McCain's 180-degree reversal from opposing new offshore drilling to the asinine and wilfully ignorant chants of "drill, baby, drill!" at town hall meetings. Old age and impending death. Hideous facial contortions at the debates. The enduring Bush legacy of lies, corruption and economic catastrophe.
Regardless of what constellation of factors caused November's blue landslide, John McCain was lost in the fray long before the results came in. The Navy veteran, with a once-proud commitment to opposing corruption in Washington, was forced to publicly compromise his integrity in order to compete with the runaway stardom of President Obama. Looking back to his last shot at the White House in 2000, it has clearly been a long, slow downward spiral for the dejected senator from Arizona.
According to the late American author David Foster Wallace, McCain's run for the Republican candidacy back in 2000 was an abnormally acute investigation into "how millennial politics and all its packaging and marketing and strategy and media and spin and general sepsis actually makes us U.S. voters feel, inside, and whether anyone running for anything can even be 'real' anymore." In McCain's Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express with John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking About Hope, Wallace describes his experience as a writer on the campaign trail, trying to understand the tension between our collective cynicism about electoral politics and our deep-seated need to believe in something.
On the 'truth' trail
Published as a stand-alone volume in 2008, McCain's Promise began as an article Wallace wrote for Rolling Stone. When the maximalist and notoriously prolix writer turned in a massive manuscript, his editor gently explained that "running the whole thing would take up most of Rolling Stone's text space and might even cut into the percentage of the magazine reserved for advertisements." It was a sharply truncated version that eventually made it between the glossy covers, but the full text was later published under the opaque title "Up, Simba" in Wallace's 2005 non-fiction essay collection Consider the Lobster. In its latest incarnation, Wallace's story is full of new relevance for the 2008 campaign.
As Slate editor Jacob Weisberg explains in the foreword, "It takes fresh eyes to observe the essential absurdity and the sheer redundancy of it all: the candidate who goes from place to place repeating the same jokes, the pack of reporters who witness precisely the same speech ("The 22.5"), the labour and expense of hauling gear and technicians in secure conditions, and the fact that 99.9 per cent of what happens is never reported at all." Through Wallace's outsider perspective, the Straight Talk Express comes off as more of a demented Magic School Bus than a vehicle promoting rational democracy.
The image of bookish Wallace on board the campaign bus is hilarious and incongruous. The Infinite Jest author, who can barely write a sentence without issuing some caveat, qualifier, footnote or disclaimer, in the midst of a slick media machine that functions to keep the "truth" straightforward and always on message. With his characteristic insight into the workings of unusual social phenomena -- halfway homes, tennis academies, cruise ships -- Wallace details a world inhabited by sycophantic journalists, surly technicians and the indomitable maverick, McCain himself.
A few hundred words in, the jargon becomes so impenetrable that a "glossary of relevant campaign terms" becomes necessary to orient the reader. Composed largely of information gleaned from the network techs, the terms sketch out the insular language of the political circus. The average day of a cameraman on the road is organized around any available "OTC" (Opportunity to Crash) and "OTS" (Opportunity to Smoke). "B-films" are short, silent clips of the candidate making nice with the public. The verb "to cabbage" describes the manner in which hungry journalists steal food from catered campaign events.
The pack: sick and blind
What emerges is a picture of a pack of very unhealthy men and women, subsisting on endless cups of shitty coffee and Krispy Kreme donuts, rarely disconnected from a Bluetooth headset or network uplink. Awake at hellishly early hours every morning, rushing from one identical speech to the next, these foot soldiers of the political process chase the sound bites and spin nuggets that compose our public discourse. There is humour and levity here, but also crushing tedium, and the roots of the bone-weary malaise that pervades the entire world of political media coverage.
But Wallace isn't content just to show us how weird and depressing it all is. He wants his readers to muster the strength to care, however briefly, and consider some of the great questions of politics: Can a candidate ever be truly honest? What does leadership actually mean? For a generation that has been marketed to and manipulated their entire lives, is it possible to really believe in anything that comes to us through the media? Do the men who run for president really want change, or are they all just a bunch of megalomaniacs in different guises?
There aren't any easy answers to these questions, but there is one thing about Senator John McCain that contains the unmistakable ring of something quite like truth.
McCain's tortured self
For David Foster Wallace, the inscrutable core of John S. McCain III resides in the five-plus year span of his life spent in a North Vietnamese prison. Wallace doesn't mean that we should always defer to war heroes in matters of public policy. Instead, he urges us to think about what really happened there, when a young pilot crashed deep in enemy territory, and was hauled off to a dark cell to be tortured and confined. With three broken limbs, and a bayonet wound to the groin. In pitch-black solitude. The nearly incomprehensible levels of pain and fear. But most importantly, the fact that, when offered his unconditional release, McCain overcame his aching desire for safety and comfort and medical attention and basic well being and said no.
McCain voluntarily chose to remain in prison because he believed in something greater than himself. Whatever code or creed it was that drove him to say no, the fact of the matter is that McCain has real, indisputable experience in devotion to something other than his own self-interest.
It is this incident that gives McCain all his "moral authority" (a cringe-worthy term, Wallace acknowledges), and what makes him more than just another blowhard talking about hope. But it is also at the core of what makes politics so tough to stomach. Even with this truly inspirational feat behind him, McCain's 2000 campaign eventually succumbed to negative campaigning, push-polls, smear tactics and outright falsehoods. He sacrificed his candour and frankness and everything that set him apart for a chance at power. As happened again in 2008, the machine of politics undermined anything potentially valuable the Republican candidate may have had to say.
'Modern politicians make us sad'
This mutation of integrity is at the heart of the question of the health of liberal democracies. "The likeliest reason why so many of us care so little about politics," Wallace explains, "is that modern politicians make us sad, hurt us deep down in ways that are hard even to name, much less talk about."
If David Foster Wallace had lived to see the election of Barack Obama, I can't help but wonder what he would have had to say. Would the author, so sensitive to fraudulence and hyper-aware of the struggle between appearances and reality, believe the new president's message of change?
Before the end, Wallace manages to give us a kernel of hope. The fact is, he says, that we can never know the truth about anyone, John McCain or Barack Obama or anyone else. But in a democratic country like the United States, where the president ostensibly exists to carry out the will of the people, what really matters, ideally, is not what's in the heart of any politician. It's what's in yours.
Related Tyee stories:
- Kapuscinski Is Dead?
Remembering a great personal, political essayist. - John McCain, Plain and Simple
His run for US president proves a crude brand of patriotism still sells. Plus: Naomi Klein on Barack Obama. - Yes He Can
Obama's no radical, but he's been empowered by his fellow citizens to do big things.
![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
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- Who Mowed Down the Premier?
- Death in Remand: a Tyee Inquiry
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- Now Is the Time to Talk up Big Ideas
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- Harper gov't funded study arguing Canada suffers from 'Dutch Disease'
- Bias in BC's Pesticide Decision? Follow the Bouncing Verbs
- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- It's no yolk: Breakfast crew share $21.4M Lotto 6-49 jackpot in Ontario
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- North Island College Cutting Down on Face Time
- Gov't Moving to Keep Farm Disease Outbreaks Secret
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- 'The Dictator'
29
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G West
3 years ago
Thanks for this Tyee
Sadly most of us are suffering not so much from a democratic deficit as we are afflicted by electoral burn out.
I hope the fact that few comments have been forthcoming does not mean that Tyee readers are ignoring this thoughtful appreciation or Wallace's other writings.
And, it's important to remember, as hope for change is smothering the lessons of bitter experience, that, as Wallace says, "(t)he likeliest reason why so many of us care so little about politics, is that modern politicians make us sad, hurt us deep down in ways that are hard even to name, much less talk about."
The disappointment which will obtain when Barack Obama starts to make 'us' sad will not be a pretty thing. The euphoria engendered by November 4 seems to have obscured the fact that the United States is still a bitterly divided nation split almost 50/50 between people who idolize the man and those who hate him.
I doubt Wallace would have been among those who expect all that much from the 'new' president....or the old corrupt system.
Booker
3 years ago
Wallace
It sounds like Wallace correctly notes that McCain's five years in Hanoi haunt him still. McCain's inner conflict about that time might not be just about the horror of the treatment that he received; it's also about his own behaviour in prison. McCain may well feel, as some of his fellow inmates apparently do, that he fell short of the standard of honour expected of a military officer. Considering the trauma that he experienced, it's difficult to fault McCain too much, but the hero worship that many Americans treat him with may not entirely be based on reality.
Rolling Stone had a long article about McCain's checkered military career last month, describing him as, among other things, a "worse pilot than George W. Bush".
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain
snert
3 years ago
Hate is too strong a word.
Reserve the hyperbole for humorous occasions.
G West
3 years ago
Hardly
You clearly haven't been paying attention.
Hate is precisely the correct word. And so is idolize: Both are mistaken.
snert
3 years ago
The hyperbole
is in the percentages. Quite trying to make things seem more than they are.
G West
3 years ago
Have you checked the actual percentages
The final result was 53% (Obama) to 46% (McCain)
Not far off 50/50 and more than enough evidence that the US is a very 'divided' country.
That's not hyperbole - it's just fact.
And if you need any further evidence of what the crazies (descendents no doubt of the first Pilgrim settlers) are saying, you can look here:
http://the-end.com/2008GodsFinalWitness/?gclid=CL6J4IbS5pYCFQv7agodkheIPg
Now that's hyperbole!
snert
3 years ago
I don't need evidence.
You need facts to support your 50-50 idolize/hate hypothesis. So far you are just coming up with the obvious unemotional vote split.
G West
3 years ago
You wouldn't know evidence
You wouldn't know evidence if it bit you in the ankle my friend.
Why not check out what McCain hardrock supporter Senator Lindsey Graham promised to do if Barack Obama took North Carolina?
You must know how to search the internet - the fact that the US is bitterly divided and conflicted has been all over the media for months - and the strong feelings of the people who don't want a black man in white house are equally close to the surface.
Don't let me stop you educating yourself....
snert
3 years ago
No need to check anything.
Where's you're evidence that 50% of the people love him and 50% hate him.
Is "Senator Lindsey Graham" 50% of the people?
G West
3 years ago
Look snert
I'll spell it out for you since you can't seem to do the necessary reasoning on your own.
The media, most of whom made Obama their darling, are creating the impression that everything in the US of A is now sweetness and light. They are stumbling over themselves to convince their public that the Mighty Republic has turned a new leaf and left its dark and dismal past - a past haunted by the destruction of the societies and most of the population of the aboriginal nations who 'owned' the continent and who then imported human chattels called slaves in their thousands and tens of thousands when the Indians proved too fragile or susceptible to disease to be bent usefully to their will.
Have a look at how popular Obama was in many of the states of the deep south and then think for a moment about the actual results of a vote where the difference between the results for the two parties over the whole electorate was less than 10%.
And don't forget to conjure for a moment or two with the fact that Obama had, as his competition, a man in poor health who was the oldest candidate ever for the office and a woman who was clearly incompetent.
If ever there had been an opportunity for the nation to leave its past behind with no apologies, this was it. And yet, they have just barely elected the man.
Obama won (despite his colour), but only because of a stellar organizing effort and the most money ever burned by any campaign in an American presidential election.
Some victory - and yes, the word is hate - Puritans don't much like it when things don't turn their way, and Americans are still, essentially, puritans.
You should read a lot more David Foster Wallace.
snert
3 years ago
Look, G West
Certainly there are some people that "hate" Obama and just as certainly there are are those that "idolize" him but you have failed to show that everybody falls in one camp or the other.
Sorry, you can dodge the issue until the cows come home but you're the one that made the hyperbolek quantum leap, not I.
Have you noticed that you use the word 'spell' in a different context....as in try to weave one.
G West
3 years ago
I'm not dodging
You are.
I made the comment that the US is still a bitterly divided country and hasn't, just because a black man is going to become its next president, turned back into the ‘big rock candy mountain’ for the umpteenth time. Accusing me of saying or implying things diametrically opposed to what I actually wrote is your tactic my friend - not mine.
Why don't you just go back and read what I wrote - if I suggested anywhere that everybody in the US 'hates' Obama I'd like to know where it was.
As a foreigner observing the US I've always found that it's important to retain a high degree of skepticism about their many successful 'revolutions'.
No leaps of any kind for me. You may think Obama is the second coming and from here on out the United States is going to become Reagan’s ‘City on the Hill’ again – not me, and, I’d bet, not David Foster Wallace.
And, 'hyperbolek'; are you Polish?
snert
3 years ago
Your words.
You also try to slide nicely over the fact that 40% plus of the registered voters felt ambivalent enough to not even bother to vote one way or the other.
It must be an odd world where if you just don't like someone you do, in fact, hate them. Is that your world?
G West
3 years ago
Not my job
It's not my job to educate you snert.
I stand by what I said - the US is a split nation - one portion (slightly larger) sees Obama as a savior, the other portion sees him as a danger, a terrorist and, for many, the Anti-Christ.
That's not my world, that's the real world.
Like it or lump it.
I wish him well, how about you?
change
3 years ago
hope and inspiration
Thank you David for your well written article"Had David Foster Wallace lived to see Obama win----" Obama's outstanding ability to bring hope and inspiration to so many young people and others and his historic victory of becoming the first black US president, may well have brought Wallace enough hope to keep despair at bay. Wallace could have been encouraged by McCain's sincere speech in which he urged Republicans to offer their next president goodwill and efforts to find necessary compromises to bridge differences.
Obama asked people to believe not just in his ability to bring about real change, but also asked people to believe in their own ability. Like Wallace said, what's in the hearts of the people is what really matters.
G West and others like him who have so much fear, cynicism and black and white thinking do not have hope for change because they themselves don't believe it is possible.
There are a lot of people who don't hate or love Obama and don't have extreme views. There are many moderates among those who voted for Obama and those who didn't. Some of them will work hard to push the president to keep promises and work for ideals.
G West is fearful of Puritans_-the modern Christian Right and other radical fundamentalists such as Weinland from the church of God ( considered by many to be a cult) West spends a lot of time fearmongering. He doesn't seem to know about the increasing number of progressive Christians and others --people of faith and secularists who are working for and want to do more for the common good of all people.
They will encourage and stand with the president in efforts for societal transformation in a number of areas, such as helping provide equal access to health care. They will work to overcome poverty both in the US and Globally including the poorest among us in efforts to resolve the economic crisis. To search for and implement better ways than war to resolve conflicts in the world. To promote a consistent ethic of life that addresses all threats to life and dignity. To reverse the effects of climate change.
Obama still needs to work within the system so change may have a slow start. Change will be hard and take years with set backs and many obstacles to overcome. But with people inspired by a president like Obama who wants to listen to and respect people, I believe a more compassionate and equitable society is possible.
G West
3 years ago
Oh really.
Well perhaps, change, you'd prefer to hear it from someone else - David Grann in the November 17 New Yorker (as an example), to appreciate why what I write isn't, in my opinion, cynicism. And it certainly isn't something only I have observed....
I think the idea that one should ignore the realities of politics is naive - no matter who does it.
And further, I'd prefer you address my ideas and not me.
I'll just include two paragraphs from Grann's article about John McCain and his campaign - you can find the rest yourself, if you're interested:
In the final weeks of the 2008 campaign, it became clear that John McCain might lose more than the Presidency. On October 6th, slipping steeply in the polls, he held a rally in Albuquerque. Rather than speak off the cuff, as he preferred, he kept his eyes on a teleprompter. During the 2000 race, McCain was known as the “happy warrior,” but now his tone was harsh. Angrily waving a finger, McCain portrayed his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, as a shadowy figure who never seemed to reveal his true identity. McCain noted that Obama’s campaign recently had to “return thirty-three thousand dollars in illegal foreign funds from Palestinian donors.” McCain urged the audience to wonder, “Who is the real Barack Obama?”
Before he even finished the speech, he and his aides had begun their now notorious campaign—sometimes in public, sometimes sub rosa—to supply insinuating answers to this question. Ads appeared accusing Obama, who had served on the boards of two charities with William Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground, of being allied with a “terrorist.” Voters received flyers featuring a mug shot of Ayers and the words “Terrorist. Radical. Friend of Obama.” Then came the same kind of robo-calls that had savaged McCain in 2000, and that he had once denounced as messages of “hate.” McCain even hired one of the same firms that Bush used in 2000. The messages warned, among other things, that Obama had tried to stop doctors from caring “for babies born alive after surviving attempted abortions.” Meanwhile, McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, charged that Obama was “palling around with terrorists.” Other surrogates claimed that Obama was “anti-American,” a “guy of the street” who “used cocaine,” and had “friends that bombed the Pentagon.” According to Newsweek, Michelle Obama asked an aide, “Why would they try to make people hate us?”
snert
3 years ago
Too much Fox News, methinks.
I think you've fallen victim of the very same hype you so despise.
Once again, dislike is not hatred. Discomfort is not hatred. And, ambivalence is not hatred.
There are extremes, certainly (maybe 10% - 15% on either side) but they have always been there on any given contentious issue.
You keep ignoring a third portion which is by far the largest and most likely made up of the majority of both Republicans and Democrats that were either just unhappy or happy with the results of the election as opposed to being despondent or euphoric.
G West
3 years ago
Nope
No Fox news, ever.
But no Polyanna either. I don't disgree with your percentages and, once again, you need to read more carefully and understand that many does not mean all.
If you think David Grann and the New Yorker are into hype then I think you need to check your medication.
As I said earlier, I'm an Obama fan, but I'm not an idiot who thinks the job he has is going to be either easy, or, with a large segment of the US population, popular.
Once again, I urge you to go back and re-read what I wrote.
But I won't be disappointed or surprised if you don't.
snert
3 years ago
From "50/50" to "portions" to "many."
Maybe you should re-read.
Once again.
I could have sworn you were a Fox News fan because of the hyperbole.
G West
3 years ago
Please, look again
This is what 'started' your little series of diatribes snert:
The disappointment which will obtain when Barack Obama starts to make 'us' sad will not be a pretty thing. The euphoria engendered by November 4 seems to have obscured the fact that the United States is still a bitterly divided nation split almost 50/50 between people who idolize the man and those who hate him.
I doubt Wallace would have been among those who expect all that much from the 'new' president....or the old corrupt system.
Please note the bolded qualifier almost.
G West
3 years ago
I'm about the farthest thing
I'm about the farthest thing from a Fox News fan that anyone could imagine...moreover, it seems YOU'RE pretty familiar with the network, its debating tactics and lack of intellectual rigour...
snert
3 years ago
By reputation only.
50/50 seems pretty close to absolute to me. Nice try though.
G West
3 years ago
Like I said - whether you know it or not
You wouldn't be at all uncomfortable on Bill O'Reilly's show.
I tuned in last night just to refresh my memory about where you get your marching orders.
Perhaps you'd enjoy this little encomium for Sarah Palin from another Fox News worthy, Sean Hannity. Please note the lovely t-shirts available for purchase...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,444403,00.html
G West
3 years ago
Oh, and that bit about Obama as the Anti-Christ
You read it in this thread first - remember?
And now you can read it here:
http://thetyee.ca/Video/2008/11/11/GodHates/
G West
3 years ago
Let me know when you've had enough.
http://news.aol.com/main/obama-presidency/article/republican-warns-of-obama-dictatorship/243817
snert
3 years ago
Ahhh, the olde shotgun approach.
You seem to having a little trouble admitting that your original comment was just a bit (a non absolute value) over the top.
Well carry on. I'm sure that you can find many (another non absolute value) links to back up you hypothesis that the US is about to tear itself apart because of this bitter divisiveness.
Oh! Here's a NY Times link to back up your theory. It seems to express peoples concerns without using the word 'hate' though.
And here's a link to a Google News Search obama +antichrist. All 243 (an absolute value) articles.
Bye for now. Fox News forever!!!!!
G West
3 years ago
No trouble
No trouble admitting anything - I've stood by what I wrote from the very beginning.
And, if you'll go back and read it all again, you'll see why...
Enjoy your Fox News snert, it was obviously made for you.
As for Barack Obama, may he live long and prosper, there's a world of hurt waiting for him among his own countrymen - he needs all the good wishes he can garner.
Glad to see you've mastered Google though - is reading comprehension next on your to do list?
Ray
3 years ago
C’mon
At first it was kind of funny, but gee whiz, G West, you’re coming across as a bit of a loose cannon.
I have to agree with snert -- you did say it was divided 50/50 between two extremes. I’d again agree with snert that maybe -- maybe -- 10 - 15% are in those extremes, while the rest are somewhere in between, either voting for McCain because he’s a “straight-talker” or Obama because he is offering “change.” I’d reckon that’s probably at least 40% of the voter demographic right there. No, I don’t have the link for that stat, but I feel pretty confident that there are a lot of relatively reasonable people out there. At least that’s what I hope, but, G West, you make me wonder.
G West
3 years ago
Ray
Did you read the original post?
If I'd written just '50/50' you would have a point.
I didn't.
This is what I wrote:
Remember?
Subtle and nuanced enough for you? Or simply an opinion that doesn't happen to agree with yours?
Attack me, if you must, for what I write - not what you THINK I've written: I take care and time with every word and I'm not here to just throw mud - as some others appear to be.
If snert, or you, had wanted to initiate a serious discussion about the high expectations of one segment of American society and a very large minority of the US population who think Obama is not the second coming you could have done that.
If there's been any loose cannon action around here, have a look at how 'snert' introduced his point.
He wasn't looking for a debate. You, I have no idea - but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
If you think I'm the only one who doesn't agree that a new day has definitely dawned south of the border, have a look at the comments on Vanessa Richmond's 'apology' in another Tyee story up thread a bit.
I think there are even some thoughtful Republicans who voted for Obama - those who didn't, in the majority of cases, do NOT, in my opinion, wish him well.