It's The Martians, Stupid

Every once in a while a curtain parts, a mask falls, a slip shows, and you catch a glimpse of inner works.

I remember one such moment, many years ago at the dawn of "Nightline", the then innovative late evening news show on the ABC TV network.  Ted Koppel was trying to get his guest to explain some technical point in a certain way but was getting no satisfaction.  The guest simply did not understand how he was to answer.  Finally, an exasperated Koppel blurted out, "How would you explain this to an 8th grader?"  A revealing comment.

Most public discourse works at a very low intellectual level.  For example, during my childhood, The New York Times was famously written at the 8th grade reading level, and this self-styled newspaper of record is supposed to be for educated adults.  It is a mark of our degenerate age that these days the NY Times is said to be written at the 10th grade reading level.  This is consonant with other measures of school effectiveness that document a two grade level decline from approximately 1985 to 2000 (I tremble to think what has transpired since then).

And if you still think I overstate my case, I invite you to read some of the ethnic papers, like the "NY Post" or---brace yourself---"The Amsterdam News".  During the Tawana Brawley Hoax, circa 1990, I made a point of regularly reading both "The Amsterdam News" and the now defunct "City Sun" (not to be confused with the "NY Sun" newspaper).  Try a newspaper like those, for a bit, and you will understand everything there is to understand about my pessimism regarding American democracy.

So, last night I heard a snippet of a radio broadcast in which David Brooks, the putative conservative commentator for the NY Times, was remarking upon the Democratic Party convention.  If a Martian had observed both Democratic and Republican conventions, Brooks was saying, he would suppose that the Democrats are the more patriotic party.

What an odd comment, I thought.  Why a Martian?  The only sense I can make of this observation is that Brooks is assuming that a Martian does not bring with him any intellectual baggage.  Put another way, a Martian, if such a creature existed, would not actually know anything about the political parties or, indeed, anything about American society or American history.

And that, I think, reveals much.  Modern American politics is a Theater of The Absurd for an ignorant electorate.  If you have a better explanation for how we have come to this:  Donald Trump leading the Republican Party and---it's hard to write this---Hillary Clinton leading the Democratic Party, I would dearly love to hear it.

And if you do not have a better explanation, then you must accept Brooks's comment as yet more evidence for the end of democracy as we have known it.