Joan Didion – Political Fictions – Review

Joan Didion's Political Fictions (2001) is a collection of essays beginning in 1988-2000, ending just before the 2000 Presidential election between George Bush and Vice President Al Gore. The title of this collection is an obvious clue to Didion's "insider" view of the Washington DC political machine of both parties and the corporate media's influence on creating the right 'image' for politicians, particularly presidential candidates, that continues during their tenure in office, creating fictions and false personas. She paints an insular, self-referential, circular, and disconnected government whose only concern is getting elected and remaining in power. An image that came to mind is a snake swallowing its own tail.

Didion spends an entire essay on Ronald Reagan and his PR team and a slew of advisers and spins doctors, painting the ex-actor as the embodiment of stalwart "leadership" and the future and current myth that the man is the core representative of the Republican party. All presidents exploited into San Salvador, Grenada, and the Iran/Contra scandal; we see true American imperialism at its best without any justice for what many called treason at the time. But that's the deal in Washington, pardon the previous president from crimes, so the crimes you commit will be forgiven by the next, etc.

In the essays Political pornography and Clinton Agonistes, Didion focuses on the Clinton years and specifically 'Whitewater' and the Lewinsky sex scandal. This period indeed reveals the machinations of a two-party system, distracting the American people's attention from economic issues and foreign 'conflicts' to the morality of a president and the apparent moral denigration of the US people.

The media on both sides of the political spectrum pounced on this sex story and drained it for all it was worth. President Clinton was known to have a voracious sexual appetite bordering on the predatory amongst insider' circles; however, it seemed the American people generally didn't care about the president's sexual activities that, for right-wing politicians, signify that the people are simple, stupid, and without moral direction. Washington turned on their constituents, which turned its issues from economic to cultural. At this time, the Neo-conservative Christian Right moved into the halls of power. The separation of Church and State suddenly became a significant debate, and bible bashing seeped into the political discourse.

Didion spends a lot of time on the rise of the Christian Right. Many believe the president's actions with an intern and the many affairs in his past. The country needed to return to the fundamental values of 'faith' religion to "save our souls" from the sins of the democrats and any 'other' that does not believe in their evangelical doctrines. "America is God's country," Bush would scream, where, soon, prayer meetings would immediately follow the National Security meeting with the JCOS, NSA, and the CIA.

The bottom line is Washington. DC is a country in and of itself; politicians disconnected from their Constituents and a belt-way media, a central component of The Club, who often broadcast the lies and propaganda for corporations' industrial complex.

Although 20 years old, political fiction is relevant and gives the reader insight into an ongoing broken and corrupt political system.