Deception, Distraction, and Democracy

Kathleen Hall Jamieson writes in Dirty Politics: Deception, Distraction, and Democracy, "In politics as in life, what is known is not necessarily what is believed, what is shown is not necessarily what is seen, and what is said is not necessarily what is heard."

We have political consultants (and human nature) to thank for this. Consultants get paid a lot of money to distract people from the truth. Like advertisers, they distort facts and appeal to emotions. But there is no “Truth in Advertising” law for politics. Our only remedy when politicians lie to us, is to vote them out of office. And this requires an organized effort because political consultants spend equal amounts of time subtly persuading certain constituencies not to vote, and putting the fear of God into others to guarantee their vote.

For example, this past fall, the Democrats were very effective in persuading traditional, family-values Republicans not to vote. They did this by repeatedly reminding people about the sexual orientation of the GOP candidate, and claiming that he would use his powers as the Mayor to turn Peekskill into a destination for gay marriage.

The Democrats were even more effective at persuading residents of public housing that the GOP wanted to tear down Bohlmann Towers and turn it into condos. Since only HUD has the power to do such a thing, the claim had no basis in fact.

But the Democrats did all they could to perpetuate this falsehood, and exploit the fears of people down on their luck. On Channel 12 News, then candidate Mary Foster fuelled this fear by saying, “Certainly there is no plan by the Democratic Party to remove Bohlmann Towers,” implying that there was a Republican plan to do so. In 1797, William Corbett wrote in the Porcupine's Gazette, "A falsehood that remains uncontradicted for a month, begins to be looked upon as a truth." The GOP never effectively countered the falsehood. And the only convincing way to do so would have been to meet with residents and get the truth out there.

The truth could have hurt the Democrats greatly, especially insofar as they publicly supported the Executive Director of the Peekskill Housing Authority, even after HUD had found that he had violated many regulations and guidelines to the detriment of public housing residents. But again, the message needed to be conveyed in person.

We expect that the tactics the Democrats used to keep the PHA an issue for so many months this past year, will become the template for how issues will be handled by the new administration. We also expect the incoming administration to try to keep the PHA in the forefront of the news to distract people from campaign promises that are about to be broken.

It is now being said that the new majority of the Common Council will reject Target’s attempt to locate on the Karta site, where candidate Foster said she wanted it, because Target will only build there if Lowe's, another national retailer, locates across the street. This deal, if completed, will bring the assessment back to where it was before the latest tax certiorari.

If the new majority does in fact kill the Target deal, they will have no one to blame but themselves for the lack of revenue growth.