The first debate between Trump and Biden was widely perceived as a mockery of democratic institutions and particularly a free, open, pluralistic debate. The personal attacks, non-sequiturs, mindless rambling and general lack of substance that characterised the whole event provide evidence for this, and it certainly seems compelling.
However, a unique lens we might be able to apply to this is Baudrillard’s. Much of his writing concerns itself with the places of “fantasy” that mask the absence of a reality in the world, famously taking Disneyland as his exemplar - an unreality surrounded by simulacral hyperreality.
In this sense, the debate could be interpreted as functioning similarly to Disneyland, but with a temporal rather than spatial separation. It tells us, this is merely the phase of unreal politics. Surely, though, the real question to ask is, “was there any reality to our previous political discourses?” The answer is not necessarily yes. Indeed, through structural mechanisms (as explored by Althusser) and less concrete ones, our thought is limited, and the thought that is presented to us as legitimate, even more so.
What is the reality in politics theoretically and (in the Žižekian sense) ideologically confined to an alternation between a few images of political opposition that bear no relation to any really radical antagonism and that fundamentally agree on the majority of things? When the Trump era ends, and we return to Obama-style “civilised” debates, with laws of engagement both formal and substantive, where will the reality of politics stand?
Written by Oliver Haythorne
Artwork by Zara Masood
Yorumlar