The following is from Signature and is the work of LORRAINE BERRY. Except for the French references, just what I was thinking. – JDW
There are people who think of Johnny as a clown and a buffoon. But I do not. I despise John Iselin and everything that Iselenism has come to stand for. I think if John Iselin were a paid Soviet agent he could not do more harm to this country than he is doing now.” – The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon (1959)
Americans, I think, have a different conception of time than those from nations in Europe and Asia. In America, we think of old houses as having been built in the nineteenth century, but as any visitor to Western Europe, or Russia, or China knows, buildings that have stood for a millennium are not uncommon. History classes for school children may start before the beginning of the Common Era. French historians, such as Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, refer to studying history over the “longue durée,” the idea that to understand historical change in some parts of Europe, it had to be studied over centuries. For Americans, whose conception of history is short-term, time is measured in decades or generations.
So in Russia, for example, a plan that takes twenty-five years — or fifty — to reach fruition is a blip in time, not a significant fraction of a nation’s history.
For example, if I were to do my wildest impression of a conspiracy theorist, imagine what it would take for a real-live Manchurian candidate to be elected in the United States. What would be the components?
You’d have to have an educational system that was poorly funded, and hobble it with ideological battles over whether it was correct to teach scientific theories or religious dogma. A mass media system in which populations were not challenged to think critically but were fed information that stimulated their feelings. A system by which large portions of the population could be permanently disenfranchised from the vote through conviction for petty drug crime or similar offenses. Suppression of the vote through the necessity of carrying expensive identification in order to prove your right to vote.
You’d have to have a steady diet of “reality” programs that blurred the line between facts and lies. The creation of celebrities who are famous not for their achievements but for their fame. A constant state of hyper-alertness against an abstract enemy whose followers could be hidden in your own neighborhood. A distrust of the news media promulgated by the idea that all news was fake or biased.
And ultimately a loss of faith in the political process, because the populace believes the entire system is corrupt and broken.