New-Old Boss

A.D. Freudenheim, The Editor

For some reason, in the weeks and months leading up to a presidential election, I often find myself drifting back to give The Who’s 1971 album Who’s Next a listen, and many more listens after that. The nine songs assembled here remain some of the best contemporary music ever made, the maturation of rock music angst into something more focused, angry, self-aware, and political than much of what had come before.

But it is with the last track – “Won’t Get Fooled Again” – that I move past the music and start thinking about the political, because the song demands it. With lyrics like these, how could I not? You can hear, even feel, the failure of everything hopeful about several generation’s worth of politics. And the song’s bruising final words – “Meet the new boss / Same as the old boss” – make the point as powerfully as any treatise of political philosophy.

Here we are, mid-2008, on the eve of what is often billed as an “historic” election. (As if the previous ones were not? Our sense of history is too facile.). In one corner, we have an aging candidate who represents a certain kind of establishment, although he has over the years spent much time and honest energy trying (ever so slightly) to buck that establishment, with mixed results. In the other corner, we have a younger candidate who represents a certain kind of establishment, although he has over the years spent much time and honest energy trying (ever so slightly) to buck that establishment, with mixed results. Both are far from perfect.

Fine: perfection in politics is hard to come by. If a good example is needed, read the recent, four-part “Forum: Politics of Fear” from issue 6 of n+1. Arguments about the way in which fear is used as a political tool raise crucial questions about both the integrity of our government and the response of the citizenry to threats of various kinds.

So to come back around to The Who and “Won’t Get Fooled Again”: the challenge for this election, for citizens as much as politicians, is to try to achieve change in a political environment in which stasis (in the name of stability) tends to be the dominant theme. I’m looking forward to meeting the new boss. And I’m hoping against hope that in policy – to say nothing of personality and intellect – he’s nothing like the soon-to-be old boss.