Most Still Don’t Recall
By Gonzalo
Santos
The gubernatorial recall
election just held in California is in many ways a textbook example of the
"social construction of reality," among other things sociology teaches us.
Entire forests were felled to print stories
that attributed the whole thing to a "voter revolt," from the very beginning but
especially after the results were in. But, it turns out that only one in five
eligible voters in California voted for the recall; and, by the way, only one in
six chose "The Governator." The rest of the "eligibles," an overwhelming
majority, either voted against the recall or didn't bother to vote (see table
& graph below). Millions more - the "ineligibles" - just watched, if at all.
Altogether, only one in ten California residents voted to recall the
governor.
Some
"revolt."
Still, most people today
harbor the false impression that a huge popular rebellion decisively dumped
Davis and chose Schwarzenegger, whether they supported that or not. What is
fascinating is how all the actors involved - the media, the state agencies in
charge of elections, the political parties, and the candidates - embraced this
myth for quite different reasons.
Apart from those who actually won
(republicans, the no-tax populists, the usual business cronies, etc.), many
anti-recall folks hoped to reduce the potential for political chaos by
immediately containing and giving finality to an event that clearly threatened
the traditional rules of the game; others turned quickly to celebrate a
supposedly revitalized democracy (and with a Hollywood celebrity, no less!) to
bring back some luster and legitimacy into California - even national -
politics.
Many others who are aware of
the difficulties ahead sought to placate or channel palpable popular discontent
via flattery of the electorate and now make solemn vows that they will heed the
new mighty popular "mandate;" they hope in this way to enhance governability and
gain political cover from those millions of working class families that will
suffer the most from the draconian social cut-backs soon to be passed with
little dissent in the name of newly-found fiscal discipline; others are
desperate enough and willing enough to buy anything at this dismal point in
state politics that promises to "fix Sacramento" and yield positive economic
results. Etc., etc., etc..
All
understandable, even worthy reasons, to be sure; worthy enough to make the mass
rebellion fantasy be proclaimed as "real" by our political/media elites and the
rest of us to uncritically accept it as such. It is our collective whistling in
the dark.
The real rebellion against,
and indictment of, today's California/U.S. political system, though, lie
silently - even subconciously - in the persistent, steadily rising abstentionist
(boycott) rates that reduce these sort of events - even the Bush-Gore debacle in
2000 - to essentially fixed (as in pre-arranged and staged) tempests in a broken
teapot. A made-for-TV movie. The California recall smacks now, after so many
supposedly populist propositions (equally pre-manufactured) Californians have
gone through in the last 3 decades since Prop. 13, as "The Perfect Storm, Part
IX: The Terminator Meets
ToastMan."
Though these fictive pseudo
mass events are very real in their consequences, and are meant to be
entertaining and soothing to many, there is an eerie lack of Establishment
connect with (and concern for) the absence of well over half of the domestic
population - by far the most hurt and upset - in the political process; save,
you guessed it, a few movies that still entertain us more than mobilize us, like
Warren Beatty's 1998 "Bullworth." This is consistent with the blasé ways
the U.S. elites seems to be discounting world opinion these days. They do so, on
both counts, largely indulging in self-serving fantasies that many more of us
end up embracing at our peril. Some social constructions, after all, do
collapse.
Stay tuned for the 2004
presidential (or gubernatorial) election results, brought to you by -- we
interrupt this program to inform you that in Iraq (or East L.A.) just minutes
ago ...
Gonzalo Santos is a
professor of Sociology at Cal State, Bakersfield, and a frequent visitor to
Venice.
Posted: Sat
- November 1, 2003 at 04:58 PM