ABOVE THE FOLD: Populism and election campaigns

Positive polls were touted. Negative polls were dismissed. Polls were treated like the Holy Grail.

By MICAH HALPERN
Israeli workers count ballots cast by Israeli soldiers and civil servants living overseas at the central elections committee building in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem March 18, 2015. (photo credit: AMMAR AWAD / REUTERS)
Israeli workers count ballots cast by Israeli soldiers and civil servants living overseas at the central elections committee building in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem March 18, 2015.
(photo credit: AMMAR AWAD / REUTERS)
Once upon a time, elections were about policy. Candidates stood up, spoke up and articulated the policies they would, if elected, carry forth.
Then came polls. Positive polls were touted. Negative polls were dismissed. Polls were treated like the Holy Grail.
Today, policy has fallen to third place on the priority list of candidates. Polling, to the chagrin of most voters, still holds firm at second. But first and foremost comes a new entry into the political arena – populism.
Whether America or Israel, the political campaign game plan for candidates is the same. And voters are on to the game.
The election of Donald J. Trump has had a transformative impact on elections worldwide. Not only did he forever change the role of professional, seasoned politicians in search of higher office. He also changed, energized, popularized, the art of campaigning. Trump was, and still is, a master populist communicator. The masses, thousands upon thousands at a time, still line up to gain entry into his rallies. Some even spend the night, sleeping bag in hand, to insure a spot at the rally.
Much like the president of the United States, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is using the populism tool. And for Bibi, too, it is proving to be effective.
Populism, like polling, has the pretext of being about the people. Polls are supposed to tell us what the people want, need, think. Populism juxtaposes the people against the elite.
A large part of the populist message is offering simple solutions to difficult issues confronting voters. It is about distilling the problems into simple and catchy phrases. And then comes the twist. The populist then explains that it is the elite who are responsible for, who are to be blamed for, preventing these simple solutions from being implemented.
If a legal indictment against the prime minister is handed down before the April 9 election, you can be sure that the indictment will be flipped into an election weapon. Netanyahu will react just as Trump would react. The spin on the indictment will go something like this: “The elites are attacking the man of the people.” Bibi, of course, unlike his political contenders, is no longer a prince; he is now the representative of the masses.
During his campaign, Trump spoke about “draining the swamps” of Washington. His official slogan, now known simply as MAGA, was “Make America Great Again.” Neither of those has yet to happen. In truth, they were both catchy slogans; they still are catchy slogans, but nothing more. When confronted, Trump blames the failure of his fulfillment of these slogans on the elite.
They stymie him, they prevent him from fulfilling his promises. It’s not his failure, it’s their successful blocking of him that has caused the failure.
Benny Gantz has watched carefully and learned well. Part of the success of his campaign thus far has been his reliance on slogans and his deliberate decision not to dive into policy statements. Gantz fundamentally understands that the less a candidate says about policy, the less people have to disagree with.
The Gantz slogan “Yisrael Lifnei Hakol” is the perfect example. Whether you use the simple translation “Israel Before Everything” or the more nuanced translation “Israel is Our Priority,” the slogan chosen by Gantz mimics and is an exact parallel to candidate Trump’s very successful “Make America Great Again.”
Even the short video clip that Gantz posted in which he says: “For me, Israel comes before everything. Join me and we will launch on a new path because we need something different and we will create something different,” and which ends with him saying he thinks he has “already said too much,” shows just how little policy he is prepared to put forth. And even when he made a policy statement, he left the voters wanting more. Gantz has said too little. Just a slogan.
In the 2016 US presidential election, Americans learned a valuable lesson about political polls. They are unreliable and often reflect a bias. Of all the polls, the countless polls, predicting the election, only two (and one of them originated in India) consistently predicted that Trump would emerge the victor. And then – voilà!
Today, American Jews and non-Jews, unaffiliated Jews and deeply committed Jews and religious Christians, people who are interested in the April 9 Knesset elections, want analysis – not party politics and certainly not polls.
And they’re right. Certainly, at his point in the political process, the election is too far away for polls to have any accuracy. Even though it has fallen into third place, concerned voters are still concerned with policy. They have no interest in Teleseker, KAN, Midgam, Maagar Machot. In fact, there is a growing distrust in polls.
Populism can be effective, but it is a vapid campaign tool. Polls are interesting but often misleading. Policy is what counts. And today, policy is what’s missing.