The Show of Politics - Or Not

The corruption scandal here that began with a police raid and culminated with the resignation of the prime minister has completely fascinated me. Of course, I say that in full knowledge that it really has no effect on my life. As a spectator and a student of politics, I can simply watch, eagerly awaiting the Civic Democrats’ (ODS) next move. I can look back through my notes on political development in post-Communist countries and try to learn something. It’s certainly not a joke – but it is a show.

As I observe, though, I would do well to remember that the shoe has often been on the other foot. We had an election in the States not so long ago, and after well over a year of following the Republican primaries, reading editorials, and watching the myriad funny internet videos, I spent the entire day of the actual election with a knot in my stomach, unable to concentrate on anything else. Mitt Romney had a chance of winning. The jokes had a chance of coming true.

We had an election party that night with a group of people from my graduate program in Scotland, and the mood in the room was palpably split. There were the Canadians and Europeans on the one side, laughing and snacking, and the Americans on the other, huddled up tensely, blood pressure raised, our eyes glued to the computer screen. We forced them to switch channels several times, until we finally got an American broadcast with the red and blue map of the states. One of my friends spent a good portion of the night criticizing the electoral system, and I remember thinking to myself that if he didn’t stop talking and let me watch, I would never speak to him again.

Fortunately for our friendship, Obama’s victory was sealed just after four in the morning, when the networks called Ohio in his favor. I went home satisfied, slept for a few hours, and survived the next day in a haze. It was over. I could relax.

The election had come and gone without major scandal, but I remember having felt aggravated as my non-American friends treated it like a reality show. Sure, I could laugh at the videos of Tea Party conventions as much as the next liberal, but as the election got closer and Obama’s margin in the polls got smaller, I found myself only wanting to talk to Americans about it. It was too close to joke.

The atmosphere here in Prague now was a bit different the other day when President Zeman named a new prime minister. No one was unable to complete his or her daily work because of a little government corruption or because they would soon have a new head of government. It’s a show, but does anyone care? Is anyone surprised that Prime Minister Nečas was surrounded by and possibly involved in corrupt dealings?

I remember watching a corruption scandal play out in the States once. After Barack Obama resigned his United States Senate seat in 2008 (he had recently gotten a promotion of sorts), the governor of Illinois at the time, Rod Blagojevich, attempted to sell Obama’s vacated position to the highest bidder. “I’ve got this thing, and it’s f***ing golden,” he said, while the FBI was listening. “I’m just not giving it up for f***ing nothing.”

His fall happened quickly and impressively. The highway signs bearing his name disappeared as though they had never existed. He was impeached and forbidden from ever holding public office again in Illinois in early 2009, and after several trials in various federal courts, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Done. No more corruption. This also had no major effect on my life, and it was also a good show, one that didn’t raise my blood pressure in the least. Was the Blagojevich scandal or the Czech government crisis really that different from the election? Would a Romney victory really have had a measurable effect on my life, the grand majority of which happens thousands of miles away from Washington?

Perhaps I should take a cue from the Czech nation. Perhaps politics is best approached with a healthy dose of cynicism and a confidence that life will go on, corruption or not, Republicans in the White House or not. The downside of the cynicism is that it comes with the acceptance that there will always be corruption in the government – maybe it turns out that I’m not quite ready to give up my optimism after all.