This is a book that looks toward achieving a democracy without demons—a more inclusive, respectful, egalitarian, participatory, and just political covenant—by examining the current proliferation of demonizing rhetoric in the United States as indicative of a dangerous and divisive moral paradox. America's moral paradox, according to Tom De Luca and John Buell, is a deeply rooted dilemma of two fundamentalisms—social “Puritanism” versus material “hedonism”—that must be negotiated with care if we are to avoid projecting hidden fears and forbidden desires onto “despised others” (pp. 48–49). Each pole of the paradox exists in every American, but when one pole begins to dominate, the desire to displace anxiety onto others begins to swell.
In an important sense, this book about political scapegoating is a call to community that respects individualism, identity, and difference. It nudges the likes of Jean Elshtain (Democracy on Trial, 1995) to stress not only the responsibility of citizens but also the right to participation by citizens who have been denied equality. True to their own sense of balance, the authors also call on theorists of inclusion, such as Iris Marion Young (Inclusion and Democracy, 2002), to recognize that widespread participation requires broadly shared commitments to “universals” or “common goods” such as “quality education, voting rights, information access, and economic opportunities” (p. 188). Similarly, De Luca and Buell observe that Bonnie Honig's insightful warning against xenophobic reactions to foreigners (Democracy and the Foreigner, 2001) is helpful for understanding problematic patterns of solidarity and American exceptionalism but does not erase the basic moral paradox of American politics.
To achieve a politics of equality embedded in a strong constitutional protection of rights will require a project of reform that mitigates the strong motive to demonize. Thus, the authors call for a program of change that will yield a “new political covenant” (p. 168), wherein political discourse shifts from rancorous wedge issues to quality-of-life concerns, from divisive rights claims to “a balance of self-interest and society's interests” (p. 170). This is the attitude and aim that drives the book's analysis and critique of the polarizing discourse that dominates American politics. The book explores a deep divide in which inequalities have increased considerably, political participation has decreased noticeably, the influence of money and media in politics has risen remarkably, and professionalized public interest organizations have become progressively more removed from their membership. War, as demonstrated by Michael Sherry's In the Shadow War: The United States since the 1930s (1995), has become the dominant metaphor of contemporary American politics, a rhetoric that the authors recognize is “both cause and consequence of an ever less vital democratic process” (p. 88). Thus, political demonization, which reduces difference to deviance and evil, is as common to fighting culture wars at home as terrorism abroad.
Speaking of terror and terrorism, the authors do not duck the issue of evil. They do not excuse the deliberate killing of innocent people for political purposes or consider such terror anything less than evil. They argue instead that the charge of evil should not be made lightly and must be held to a high standard of public argument. To wrongly charge another with being or abetting evil is “the most reprehensible form of demonization” (p. 103). Accordingly, the Bush administration's undifferentiated “war” on terrorism is regarded as problematic because it criminalizes legitimate dissent, threatens civil liberties, and undermines healthy dialogue among citizens, between citizens and their government, and between the United States and foreign governments. The Manichean logic of contemporary American political culture has been manipulated to conflate the war on terror with the ongoing culture wars at the expense of effective problem solving and to the detriment of public health and safety. At the moment we most need to understand an opponent's or enemy's thoughts and motives in order to respond appropriately and effectively, we fall prey to the rhetoric of caricature instead.
Demonizing rhetoric is more than just a symptom or effect of the degraded state of American politics. It has its own dynamic, according to De Luca and Buell, that diminishes democracy by deepening partisanship, exacerbating polarization, stifling dissent and dialogue, and distracting the public from structural inequities by focusing on the politics of character. They argue that demonizing discourse, as distinct from reflective criticism or careful moral censure, is a sustained effort to stigmatize individuals or groups for illicit gain or even self-righteous purpose. Demonization attributes evil or depravity to others, represents them as acting immorally, and does so without adequate inquiry, evidence, or justification. It “weakens our ability to deliberate in the most interesting and creative ways for the purpose of improving the quality of our lives” (p. 4). Both the political Left and the Right engage in demonizing discourse that constructs enemies rather than interlocutors. Demonization is a deleterious practice that cannot be eradicated, but De Luca and Buell believe it can be diminished enough to renew the nation's democratic covenant.
This is a stimulating book that pursues its volatile subject in a straightforward, thoughtful, and insightful manner from start to finish. It progresses from conceptualizing the basic problem of political scapegoating to explaining and illustrating its core sources and key features in contemporary politics. It even suggests how we might work to overcome the worst of a bad legacy. It is more hopeful and illuminating than dark or depressing despite democracy's recurrent degradation in an era of rampant demonization. Perhaps the book's greatest achievement is that it sustains a style of presentation and argument that exercises political judgment on issues as threatening and divisive as terrorism without defaulting itself to demonizing discourse.
The authors argue for a progressive political program that seeks to increase equality and social security, improve community well-being, enhance citizenship, augment opportunities for work and leisure, and improve international relations. Ultimately, their aim is to improve the quality of democratic exchange enough to “let the chips fall where they may” (p. 182). One must wonder, though, if the moral paradox that perpetuates demonization American-style can be managed well enough to achieve such a healthy democratic process. This is the troubling question the book raises more successfully than it answers.
