Democratic Burlesque

In the wake of the two political parties’ national conventions — beyond the analysis of the speeches and the choreography of each performance — one is left with a series of impressions that don’t necessarily have any political value, nor do they help to make predictions, but they do perhaps offer a peek behind the scenes.

The great comic satirist Stephen Colbert remarked that, after witnessing these performances and meeting so many politicians and wealthy people, the first thing you want to do is wash your hands with antibacterial soap.

While the Republican delegates and candidates were talking about God, Country and Family, Christian values and ordering the women to behave themselves, the lap dancers were waiting to perform in Tampa’s numerous strip clubs — and apparently the Republican Convention was big business for these establishments. Perhaps the biggest draw was those clubs where strippers performed disguised as Sarah Palin, Republican candidate for the vice-presidency four years ago and darling of the far right. Apparently, there is no greater fantasy for some than watching a far-right conservative woman do a striptease, then come closer with the offer of an intimate table dance.

Incidentally, similar clubs did good business in Charlotte, too. In fact, the star of that particular show, Bill Clinton, is remembered as much for his sexual escapades as for his political achievements in the White House.

All of which leads one to think that there isn’t a great deal of difference between the strip clubs and what went on at the conventions: They are both a kind of burlesque, within each of which money buys grand illusions in exchange for fake seductions. The truth is, strip clubs are a lot more honest than conventions. In the former, nobody’s pretending anything, just playing at sex — performance in return for cash. In the latter, what’s being played out is much more dangerous: In return for cash, the pretense is that all of this is for the good of the country and the world, when in fact the only ones to benefit are those who are paying.

The real pornography took place at the conventions, where the most powerful politicians presented themselves in public as representatives of the people, then behind closed doors had cocktails and attended parties at the invitation of multi-millionaires who had summoned them for private discussions — out of sight of the masses — on how to direct the country’s interests. In exchange, the super-rich are investing millions in what will be the most costly election in history.

The consequences and what is at stake are similarly much more serious and complicated than what goes on in a strip club.

To avoid using an even more alarming adjective, the reactionary position of the Republicans is a direct threat to — and in fact actually proposes to turn back the clock on — decades of social achievements, like social assistance programs, public education, labor rights, women’s rights, not to mention ground recently won in the gay rights struggle. Expressions of racist and anti-immigrant feeling — like the outright hatred against immigrants from non-white countries contained in the proposed immigration controls — are crystallized in measures aimed at reversing the achievements of the civil rights movement. All of this and more has provoked a number of traditional Republicans to flee the party, alarmed that it has been taken over by the forces of extremism.

As for the Democrats, there is no doubt that, coming from the sea of white faces at the convention in Tampa — where perhaps the only oasis of diversity was formed by the foreign journalists — the multicolored, multilingual American mosaic which came together in Charlotte was a return to something a little more civilized, though once again it was just another pre-rehearsed performance. All the same, the tensions between Democratic factions — labor unions, environmentalists, anti-war progressives, Hispanics and African Americans, women, gays, to name but a few — were an expression of something more real, more human, even though no dissident voice was allowed to be heard from the podium; that would have been too much like democracy.

But maybe because it was more real and more human, there was also a greater contrast between what was said and what is known to be true. For instance, listening to Barack Obama tell of how he has fulfilled his promise to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, when we all know that there are currently more American military operations in more places in the world than during his predecessor’s presidency. Or listening to elegantly formulated phrases about how all of us, rich and poor, have to play by the same rules, when we all know that it was the giants of the financial industry who precipitated the disaster that left millions jobless, homeless and without a future, while the former continue to enjoy the fruits of their crimes and deceptive practices with arrogant impunity and there is scarcely a politician who dares to bring them to justice — and not so much as a word on the subject from Obama.

The undisputed star of the show, former President Bill Clinton, made a magnificent condemnation of Republican politicians and their irresponsibility. However, he failed to mention that it was he and his economic team — during his time in the White House — who laid the way open for the current crisis with their annulment of one of the most significant reforms to be passed in the aftermath of the Great Depression: the Glass-Steagall Act, which had separated commercial from investment banking. With the repeal of the act, the big commercial and investment banks merged, helping to spark off, and deepen, what is now known as the Great Recession.

Good political rhetoric doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the truth. Although the Democrats’ message was much more progressive than that of the Republicans, in the end they agree on the basics: ensuring that this country is the best nation on the planet, commitment to seeing that it remains the most powerful and that the free market and free trade are basic ingredients of what they call freedom.

Comparing both performances, the truth was never actually revealed at the conventions, while in the strip clubs truth is irrelevant, but at least something was exposed.