Popularity, Wicked Style

This week, many people from UC World Politics blogged about uninformed voting and if it was better to vote uninformed or not vote at all. I took the stance that it is better to not vote than vote uninformed, however, after our Friday discussion, I think that my interpretation of the term uninformed has changed. In my former blog post, I assumed that an uninformed voter was a person who didn’t know ANYTHING about the election, willy-nilly voting. However, there are various forms of uninformed voting that, at one point in the discussion, I wondered if all levels of voting were uninformed voting because politicians tend to do one of two things: 1) make a bunch of promises that, due to practicality and/or the situation they are in once they are elected, they cannot keep, or 2) say stuff that they don’t believe in order to get the votes they need to win.

I think that popularity plays a major role in the election process. The media, whether it is CNN, FOX or SNL, supported the candidate’s popularity. Because people watch these channels and shows that mock one candidate and, for the most part, praise the other, the media almost determines the election results themselves. In theory, they could control the outcome of the election because they can decide who is popular and who isn’t.

Because I basically had a Kristin Chenoweth YouTube marathon before writing this blog entry, we’re going to pretend that the media is Galinda and that the “chosen” candidate is Elphaba. Galinda initially didn’t like Elphaba, because she was different. But then, once she found how good Elphaba was, Galinda decided to help Elphaba become popular so that others could over look her greenness and get to know the wonderful person that Elphaba was.

After Elphaba became popular, Galinda turned her back on her because Galinda was presented with the opportunity to get everything that she wanted and Elphaba casted a spell against the Wizard of Oz because he was the one responsible for all the animal teachers being forced to retire from teaching and being imprisoned. Elphaba stood up for what she believed in and the heads in Emerald City did not want people to catch on to what they were doing, so they make Elphaba the scapegoat and deemed her the “Wicked Witch of the West.” Galinda became the face of the Emerald City government and told the public everything that the government wanted the public to believe, even though it meant ostracizing her only close friend. After that, anyone who has seen The Wizard of Oz knows what happened.

Similarly, after the media made their chosen candidate popular amongst the people and after that candidate became an elected official and after the elected official has done something that challenges the public’s mentality but is still inherently good, the media will, for the most part, turn on that elected official. With that first strike, the elected official will easily be blamed for other bad things that occur under his or her “reign,” whether it is actually his/her fault or not. That elected official’s popularity will decrease throughout his/her term, just like Elphaba’s popularity decreased until she was “melted.” (I’m using The Wizard of Oz ending because I don’t want to completely give away the ending.)

Well, that’s what has been going on in my head after Friday’s discussion and my Kristin Chenoweth marathon. Keep in mind that this is just a theory and is probably applicable in a handful of situations; I’m just talking about what I know and have observed.

Resources:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hXU6Sv2swA&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XwmA0jyWMk&feature=player_embedded