Election "news coverage:" Screwtape is alive and well


In an early chapter of The Screwtape Letters C. S. Lewis writes that his trainee tempter should lead his patient with jargon, not to actually teach him anything. This is a good description of election coverage.

I recently heard comments like these from news reporters:

"Primaries push candidates to the extremes; the main election pushes them to the center."
In other words, we are deliberately selecting people who either are so malleable that they change their beliefs in this short period of time or else they change what they say they believe. Either way, we have no idea what we're going to have in office.

"What does [this candidate] need to do to attract [this voter demographic group]?"
The question should be "what has this candidate done/said in their career that is relevant to the demographic group, subject to their political constraints and alliances?" I don't see anybody doing this in a thorough fashion.

What we hear is
"He's a liberal!" "He's a conservative!"
"He's a Christian!" "He's a racist!" "He's a right wing fundamentalist!"
"He's the same old thing!" (another phrase in The Screwtape Letters) "He offers hope!"

So, we basically have jargon and emotion leading us to choose the next guy who stands toe to toe with big business, big government, and islamofascist terrorists who really do believe we deserve to die - and will not respond to a 12 steps counseling program.

Posted: Wed - July 2, 2008 at 01:17 PM           | |

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