DeTocqueville in New Jersey

In my latest journey in the United States, I visited the Jersey shore. If 21st century America is distinguished by its media,then we should pay close attention to their content and style. These little trips are the only time I get to listen to talk radio and watch television.

Right-wing radio is very different in the New York-Tri-State area. In the Midwest, it is round the clock social conservatism--warnings about Obama as an enthusiastic abortionist and lover of The Gay. Given the higher economic status in the New Jersey, New York, Connecticut area, the themes are the "progressive socialist" agenda of Barack Obama and the real threats posed by estate taxes, hikes in the income taxes for the top brackets and corporate taxes. To avoid this you have to elect pure conservatives and buy gold coins. Every portfolio needs gold because of the horrors that are to happen--not what has happened. Democrats are pursuing their progressive agenda that was created by Franklin Roosevelt, who has re-emerged as the devil, and was continued on through Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and now Barack Hussein Obama (emphasis on the Middle Name). Barack Obama wants to cap the amount you earn and wants everyone's wages to be the same because he is an egalitarian. He is doing this because liberals are committed to redistributive economics and reparations to the victims of our society. If he is not stopped, then our experiment in self-government is threatened. The nervousness about our ability to govern ourselves is a curious and ominous undercurrent to alot of conservative talk these days.

The collapse of the financial system in 2008 was the fault of Bill Clinton, Barney Frank and Fannie Mae. On one aspect they did get it right: Clinton signed the Republican bill that de-regulated the derivative market. Fannie Mae promoted home ownership for minorities. And Barney Frank is of a certain ethnic identity and is gay. Now Obama is punishing the productive sectors of society with his large tax increases (so far I have yet heard from anyone who can tell me what taxes he increased). If corporations were free--like they are not, our economy would be in fine shape.

The callers were predominantly white males in their fifties, who worked for the "financial sector". They attacked Obama for trying to "take over" the economy through the Wall Street Reform bill. To them, President Obama--they never call him President--is a dangerous ideologue, who wants to increase the federal government. No one mentioned that George W. Bush increased both the size and power of the executive branch of government to the largest extent since FDR. In fact, none of the talk show hosts or callers even mentioned George W. Bush or Dick Cheney. They have been airbrushed out of history.

One woman called. She is a Republican candidate for Congress from the Jersey Shore. She claimed the average family income in her district was $33,000 and that Barack Obama was going to increase the taxes of everyone over $21,000 and these poor souls can't afford this. Since I am only aware of tax-hikes over $250,000, she must have new information. She also warned that the marriage tax would come back. The host cheered her on.

One host surprised me--Bob Grant. Bob Grant has been reduced to two hours a week. While he professed support for the tea party movement, he objected to their behavior. He urged his listeners to vote for the moderate Republican, who may have defeated the tea party candidate because he said the Democrats were the enemy. Callers denounced him saying that only "true conservatives" would implement the policies the country needs and that RINOs were traitors. Poor Bob Grant still thinks that politics is sometimes the art of compromise. One woman provided the comic moment--she was a teabaggers from Brooklyn but couldn't find another Republican in the whole borough.

A theme that was repeated was that voters in the Tri-State region should support Carly Fiorina in California because she was a former CEO. Somehow the theme that business types would actually make good politicians survives since the days of Lee Iacoca and Ross Perot.

The New York Post has the tone and content of the New York Times if it is compared to the fare on television. In some ways, the explanation of Fox News is in comparison to other cable television entertainment shows, not compared to news shows. The 100+ channels have taken Jerry Springer to an intergalactic level. Aside from watching shows on Greg Nettles and Whitey Ford on the Yankee channel, I watched an endless stream of people engaged in every vice, admitting to the most horrible personal failings and dressed in the tackiest fashions on the planet. The 24/7 entertainment shows revealed the most horrendous taste in everything anyone can imagine--even food.

Demographics clearly affect the schedule. One show highlighted a young woman as a radio announcer who partied with her girlfriends and some young studs and spent the night snorting cocaine. Another show encouraged parents to surrender their children to the cops before they went bad. Parents had their children handcuffed and taken away to jail. A paternal police officer tells the distraught father,"it's for the best" as his son is carted off to the patrol car. Geraldo Rivera or Jerry Rivers as some of us remember him recreates the murder of the American tourist in Aruba. This time it's nice to see that the special correspondent is Geraldo's son. Another show is Jersey Couture--believe me, there really is none. Or Desparate Houswives in New Jersey--neurotic women with bad taste who have too much time on their hands. What's interesting is that no one in these shows is rooted to a specific place or neighborhood. For a region teeming with ethnic enclaves and neighborhoods, the shows are peopled with individuals of indeterminate race and ethnicity and slightly above white trash in terms of economic class. This is the new homogenization of suburbia.

There is one disgraceful fact about America which its citizens refuse to confront or debate. The United States has more prisoners than the entire world combined! So what do you do with these prisoners--you make television shows. A foreigner looking at these shows must think we are the latest version of the movie Brazil. There is a series called Lockdown, which focuses on the searches of prisoner's cells for contraband and the placement of prisoners into isolation. The series gives you a tour of the United States. I saw San Quentin, Nashville, New Mexico, and Angola in Louisiana in just two nights. The prison staff are interviewed in the beginning about all the horrible things they have experienced and then we cut to troops of helmeted riot squads pepper spraying an inmate and dragging him out of his cell for the inspection. This scene is repeated in every episode in all the prisons.

Once in a while there is a break. At Angola, you get to see the new program for constructing nice coffins for the elderly inmates and an inmate saying that he has built a good life in prison while building these rather handsome caskets. In New Mexico, they set up a rather sadistic scene of a middle-aged Hispanic man, expecting parole in 48 hours, being told that there was a clerical error. Prison officials forgot to add three months to his parole because of infractions four years ago. It's clear the prison officials got a charge at screwing the guy and the television producers got terrific television.

Liberals can contend with the state's public broadcasting network. This has grown more sophisticated since the days I lived there. They hosted a Carole King-James Taylor concert, a Kris Kristofferson retrospective, and a Pete Seeger memoir.

Since we are talking New Jersey, there is a regular show called Mob Talk, which is a tour of famous places where mob hits went down. At least this show portrays real neighborhoods. I watched two shows on slain mob boss Angie Bruno, who lived in Philadelphia. Then there appeared a strange show on Tommy James and the Shondells. Doug Payne and I interviewed Tommy James for our book on rock and roll stars from the past. Well, Tommy has a new book out about his relationship with the New York mafia and how his record label and his producer was mobbed up. I never knew. He recounted how he played Red Bank and the mob concert organizer wouldn't pay him until Tommy pulled his own credentials on the guy. He paid up in minutes.

Is media real or Memorex? Do people watch to feel better about themselves or do they want to imitate what is on the screen? I've never decided. But I think you can understand the appeal of Sarah Palin if you watch the entertainment shows on American television. She is a perfect character from these shows and is readily understandable to the audience. The same applies to Fox News. Fox News is just a type of reality show but with more cleancut people. In other words, you watch Fox for the same emotional pitch but can feign you're a snob over the people who watch Lockup. You are part of the Jacobin elite if you're watching Fox.

American politics becomes reality television--what a concept!