jindal's sneech logic

Music: Murder by Death: Who Will Survive, And What Will Be Left of Them? (2003)

Last night's speech by Obama set a new precedent: although we have had many eloquent politicians in the past, Obama is the first to establish the benchmark for what is possible in a heavily mediated political culture. Style and substance were balanced in equal measure; details danced with dramatic displays; and the modeling of his immediate audience was infectious. That glint of "hope" longed for by MSM commentators made an appearance (and it didn't see its shadow). Indeed, the speech was so well done there's simply not a lot to say.

Jindal's canned Republichristain response, however, was so captivatingly bad I'm not sure where to begin---or even if I should begin at all. The trouble with his speech is likely emotionally obvious to most; it just felt wrong! He was so juiced on his own rising stardom that he read the teleprompter at a lightening pace, replete with sing-songing intonations than imparted an absolute lack of sincerity. Some commentators remarked the speech "read better" than it sounded, but I beg to differ. In fact, not only can we use Jindal's speech as a textbook example of "canned delivery" (with nods to MM), but it serves as a particularly naked example of pandering. Pandering generally refers to the gratification of someone's otherwise unhealthy or immoral desires. Plato's original condemnation of the art of rhetoric hinged on pandering as the province of sophistry: rhetoric catered to the "basic instincts" and bodily pleasures, at the expense of the "soul."

At first blush, it would seem Jindal pandered on two levels. Substantively, he took one of the many republican stances on non-governmental interference: the government should not be involved in propping up the economy. This caters to a black-and-white, cognitively simple understanding of how the world works. Frankly, this way of thinking in the Republican party seems long discredited, even by movers and shakers in the party, so why Jindal continues to stroke this conviction is baffling to me. In the wake of a sweeping, epic Presidential speech one would think pandering would go in a different direction. I suppose we should keep in mind that Jindal believed his message was directed at the "soul," while Obama's plan is, in fact, a form of pandering. In other words, bucking the trend is understood sympathetically as an anti-pandering gesture.

The real pandering, however, happened at the beginning of the speech. We know we are in panderville when tone doesn't quite align with word. Jindal began:

Good evening. I'm Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana.

Tonight, we witnessed a great moment in the history of our republic. In the very chamber where Congress once voted to abolish slavery, our first African American president stepped forward to address the state of our union. With his speech tonight, the president completed a redemptive journey that took our nation from Independence Hall -- to Gettysburg --to the lunch counter -- and now, finally, the Oval Office.

The opening gesture acknowledges the historical significance of the speech in terms of racial strife. The term "redemptive journey" is, of course, a signature of post-racialism. I gag a little.

Regardless of party, all Americans are moved by the president's personal story---the son of an American mother and a Kenyan father, who grew up to become leader of the free world. Like the president's father, my parents came to this country from a distant land. When they arrived in Baton Rouge, my mother was already 4½ months pregnant. I was what folks in the insurance industry now call a "preexisting condition."

What? Is this a dig at the insurance industry? I'm not quite sure what this latter statement is going for, except that it seems to cast Jindal an "unwanted" light. Moreover, the explicit simile is bald pandering: "see, I'm foreign and dark skinned like Obama!" How Jindal's personal story relates to the republican response to the stimulus bill is not apparently clear, unless, of course, this is grooming for future office.

To find work, my dad picked up the yellow pages and started calling local businesses. Even after landing a job, he could still not afford to pay for my delivery -- so he worked out an installment plan with the doctor. Fortunately for me, he never missed a payment.

Or as Annie Lennox once sang, "Indians are doin' it for themselves."

As I grew up, my mom and dad taught me the values that attracted them to this country -- and they instilled in me an immigrant's wonder at the greatness of America. As a child, I remember going to the grocery store with my dad. Growing up in India, he had seen extreme poverty. And as we walked through the aisles, looking at the endless variety on the shelves, he would tell me: "Bobby, Americans can do anything."

I still believe that to this day. Americans can do anything. When we pull together, there is no challenge we cannot overcome.

The achievement of wonder is, apparently, fifteen different brands of soap. As for fortified levees, not so much . . . .

From here Jindal's speech moves into familiar territory most readers can easily anticipate. The auspicious opening remarks, however, are those that elicited a collective facebook groan. Why? The reasoning that links Jindal's many claims to his evidentiary support (which is, of course, just more claims) is what we might term a "warrant of equality" or a "warrant of erasure": I am black like Obama. If viewers agree that Jindal is included in the same "class" as Obama, then presumably he speaks with the same "authority" and justification of past experience. He gets to declare "redemption" (white people do not). Like a mixed race child in the United States, Jindal is asserting his status as a "preexisting condition" is functionally racial. Consequently, the implied argument Jindal advances in his opening statements is this: I am of color too, and had a challenging life story like Obama. Thus, our racial authorities cancel each other out. We are consequently forced to consider the economic stimulus plan on principle, not character. Or something like that.

The leveling of racial difference in "watercolored" or "not-watercolored," of course, waters-down historically particular, materially specific differences associated with the sight of skin in the United States. To be African American in the United States is unquestionably radically different---in experience, in reception, in response---than an identification as Hispanic, Native American, or Indian. Discrimination against racialized others has taken many forms: in the states, some were marked for genocide, while others, temporary internment. The logic that cordons off all racialized others into a given class or set, as Jindal does himself, is precisely the form of generalized instrumentality that leads to barbarism. The historical significance of Obama's presidency is not that he is "of color," it is rather that he is "black" (and the complexities of his light-skin have thus far escaped discussion in the MSM, another sticky point), and that his blackness is irrevocably tied to slavery and genocide. Sorry Jindal, your father may have seen abject poverty in India, and that is truly horrible, but different horrors lead to different responses. In short, the warrant of erasure that animates Jindal's republican response is not simply stupid; it is the logic of instrumental reason.

For almost seven years now I've been studying psychoanalytic understandings of the world. I'm still thinking through what I believe, which school I find most persuasive, and so forth (recently I've been taken by Klein's work). One thing that the whole enterprise has taught me, however, is that many of our arguments and complicated justifications for policy are built upon very basic, classically infantile affects, many of which are unconscious (to ourselves). I think many of us cringed last night watching Jindal's speech because those affects were so palpable. As one commentator noted, Obama seemed like a man, while Jindal appeared like a "boy." The truth to that statement is made plain by looking at their respective deliveries and words. Jindal's race-canceling logic seems like playground politics on the surface. Dr. Seuss wrote a kiddie book on this whole thing titled The Sneeches: some critters have stars on their bellies, while others do not. The starless seek to erase their difference by getting stars, while the star-bellied critters seek to remove theirs. And so it goes until, in the end, the Sneeches realize there is no savior to create homogeneity; they accept their differences, even celebrate them, and have no need for a Messiah with a Machine.

Jindal's remarks appeal to a post-racial homogeneity, drawing on what folks are already saying about Obama to make his case. Obama don't "go there"---that is, he's not pandered to the post-racial--- but I also worry that others put Obama into that space, forcing a Sneech logic and casting Obama as The One who can homogenize us into, um, das volk.

The context is totally ripe, y'all.