The science of politics is the art of partisanship. Politicians are only as strong as their opponents are weak, only as unifying as their enemies are divided.
Political rhetoric can mean different things to different people for different reasons. Stump speeches and campaign slogans speak to the intended understanding of those really willing to listen and not to those hoping to understand. Opportunists understand this, but it takes a truly skilled politician to master it.
Enter Newton Leroy Gingrich. The former Speaker of the House’s impressive debate performances and powerful showing in the South Carolina primary stand as a testament to his oratorical skills in galvanizing an audience and riling up the mob.
As the Republican primary season continues throughout the spring and summer of this year, the GOP will eventually have its nominee to provide a vision for the party in seeking to reclaim the White House in 2012. Of the four remaining in the contest — Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul — there is something more than meets the eye for Newt.
For all the supposed grandiosity of the former speaker’s deluded beliefs, from janitorial child labor to extraterrestrial lunar colonies, there is some truth to his fantasy. As large as his ego is, there is something still larger looming over the primary race and the general electorate.
He sees what his opponents do not. He sees opportunity where there is despair. He sees real resentment in the face of fear. But most importantly, he sees that in politics it is easier to hate than to love.
Newt knows that when people find themselves in a corner, they demand the head of the person who pushed them there. Leroy learned long ago that passion, and not policy, moves polls and collects votes. Gingrich gets that it is easier for people to boo the golden rule than it is to defend gay soldiers in the military.
In this new norm of demolished factories, shuttered businesses and prolonged unemployment, Americans have turned a blind eye to their fellow citizens. People are only as kind and generous as the world affords them the luxury to be. The better angels of our nature will be defeated by the worse demons of our soul.
Our country and its people find themselves in the middle of a depression they have come to know, think and feel of in all but name. Depressed people do not make for informed voters and the politician who channels the rage of the despondent will surf to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Gingrich understands this better than any of his three competitors in what has become a verbal bloodsport in modern day politics. Party nominations come to those who can best serve up the red meat their base demands, and Newt smells blood in the water.
Gingrich knows that Palestinians are fictional characters, blacks are welfare queens and Hispanics are lawbreakers, even if they aren’t. Newt Gingrich knows this because this is what his voters know to be true. In a world where perception is reality, fear of the “other” overpowers the hope that we can live together.
A young African American senator from Illinois not too long ago once campaigned on a slogan of hope triumphing over fear. Hope won in 2008; fear may win in 2012.