A Word With No Meaning
Timothy Noah, a senior writer at Slate, pens an op-ed in today's Los Angeles Times that analyzes a word that has become increasingly popular with politicians while simultaneously losing all real meaning. He says that it is time for a change: politicians should stop using the word 'change.'
In 1960, John F. Kennedy promised change from the Eisenhower years with the slogan "Let's get America moving again," but he didn't use the word itself. In 1976, Jimmy Carter offered the slogan "A leader, for a change." Bland as these slogans were, by today's standards they would be too substantive. In the current environment, a candidate who promised to get the country "moving again" might invite attacks that he favored big government, while a candidate who promised leadership "for a change"( i.e., as opposed to the incumbent) might get tut-tutted by the media for stooping to negative campaigning. Even "Let's make America great again," Ronald Reagan's slogan in 1980, would likely prove insufficiently anodyne today because of its militaristic overtones.
All of these candidates campaigned for change, but none fetishized the word "change." That began to, um, change in 1988, the year Michael Dukakis announced in his race against Vice President George H.W. Bush that "I want to be a force for positive change." "We are the change," answered President Reagan at that year's GOP convention. The counter-slogan proved such a success that Reagan repeated it at the 1992 convention.
That time, though, it didn't work, because Bill Clinton had made himself Mr. Change. Clinton uttered the word 10 times in his nomination speech, which was as many times as he uttered the better-remembered word, "hope" (as in, "I still believe in a place called Hope"). "It's time to change America," Clinton said. "Our people are pleading for change," he elaborated. "We've got to change the way government does business," he continued. "How do I know we can come together and make change happen? Because I have seen it in my own state," he concluded.
A LexisNexis database search tells the story. The phrases "change agent" and "candidate of change" turned up in news sources 50 and 70 times, respectively, in 1988. By 1992, they turned up 483 and 557 times. A cliche was born. A similar search for 2008 shows the phrases turning up 217 and 300 times — and that's only two weeks into the year. On an annualized basis, that's 5,642 and 7,800 times, respectively.
Obsession with the word "change" is at least partly a consequence of the decline in Democratic Party affiliation between 1977, when 48% of Americans self-identified as Democrats, and 1987, when only 38% did. Since then, party affiliation for Democrats and Republicans has hovered between 30% and 40%. As a result, in presidential years the two parties have ended up competing fiercely for the votes of political independents.
Noah rather dryly points out that not all change is particularly good. Pol Pot was an "agent of change." So were a lot of very bad historical figures. But it has become a mystical word of late with virtually every candidate promising to "change" something. It has been flogged into a meaningless, feel-good word that holds out limitless hope with no real content whatsoever.
Noah's quite right, it really is time for something different (let's not call it change). Like maybe it is time for the people running for the highest office in the land to explain what - and how - they plan to make things better.
That would be a change, indeed.
By Mockin'bird, Sunday, 13 January , 2008 @ 11:38 am
Mrs. Clinton can begin with a change to tell us real answers to our questions. She should take the risk by allowing her answers to be in the real sunlight.
By syn, Sunday, 13 January , 2008 @ 12:05 pm
I like to change the perception that Centrism unites the country, all administrations since Reagan have been Centrists and we’re more divided than ever.
I’d like think moderate, independent voters know what their doing however, they’re often so fickle and unclear about what they want it’s hard to tell anymore where they stand.
While it maybe stylish to stay in the center, it certainly offers no substance.
That said,
Go Fred08!
By Mockin'bird, Sunday, 13 January , 2008 @ 12:23 pm
Yes, of course. Go Fred08!