Politics, Stage Right

To finally break the hold of our current government we need to use the tools of theater

The trials of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the alleged crimes of corruption and breach of public trust have one major theme threaded through them: Netanyahu’s decades-long attempt to control the narrative. Whether it be deal-making to stop negative coverage by a major news site, or quid-pro-quo to buy positive headlines, Netanyahu has become the embodiment of the politics that has come to dominate: politics as reality TV.

Reality Politics differs inherently from the Realpolitik in the same way that Reality TV differs from Documentary: whereas Reality TV’s arc is driven by the capacity of the individual character to manipulate the environment to suit their personal ambitions, Documentary focuses on the overall picture and the needs of the various characters involved in influencing the outcome.

Similarly, where Realpolitik justifies coalitions of leaders of different types in an overall effort to further the power of the nation – even if such furtherance requires actions that may not always align with the values they profess – Reality Politics pits the main character against everyone else in an attempt to drive the narrative arc of the national drama towards his personal ambitions. It is the return to the Great Man period of politics with a shot of testosterone to boot. Less populism than popularity, trading the good of the nation for clickbait serving the star.

Reality Politics has been made possible by the ubiquity of media and the public’s addiction to shock value as a source of excitement in their otherwise humdrum lives. As more of our lives are lived within digital media we are more easily manipulated by social media fueled narrative tools. Those who aspire to remain the main characters of the national drama – such as Netanyahu and his overseas ally, the president reelect – understand that instinctively. They have developed extraordinary powers to manipulate the news cycle and distract the public by stringing together well-timed scandals and well-planned ‘candid’ remarks designed to shock and awe the opposition.

While some may rightly remark that using scandal and media coverage to distract the public by redirecting attention away from the real action is an old trick, doing so fluidly, consistently, and regularly in a vertigo-inducing way across media channels could only be made possible by the fact that most of our sensemaking about the world is digitally intermediated. It is as much a paradigm shift as oceanships to airships, or mail to email.

Which is why it may be time to abandon our old ways of analyzing and engaging in politics if we intend on ending the reigns of today’s reality kings, and instead bring to bear the tools of theater.

“One of the foundational principles in theater is intentionality,” tells me Ori Lenkinski, an artist, journalist, and activist, whose observational ability has impressed me for over 30 years. “That every action is motivated by an intention, by a desired outcome. So, for example, if you’re going to cross the stage, you are going to cross the stage because you want something to occur, because you want to elicit a certain emotion in the other person on the stage, to draw the audience’s attention to something.”

In the world of Realpolitik, politicians are understood to be humans who sometimes make mistakes. Forgivable gaffs. In the world of Reality Politics, every action needs to be observed for its intentionality. For example, the firing of the former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, serendipitously released just in time in an attempt to kill the breaking news of the scandal concerning the intentional leaking of highly classified documents to the international media to allegedly manipulate public opinion about the hostages. Or take, for example, the slew of private pieces of legislation well-timed to sabotage public attention each time Netanyhau is required to testify in one of his many corruption trials. Get ready for a big one to break in the coming days.

Instead of focusing on analyzing the particular policies advanced by the government and their implications, a Reality Politics approach would use narrative tools to observe the actions and  their timing to understand how they advance the story they seek to tell the public. In response to those actions, a Reality Politics approach would focus less on the procedural aspects of resistance, and more on disrupting the narrative, shifting the frame to new characters, upsetting the intentions of the main character in order to unseat their primacy and wrest control of the plot.

Unfortunately, the protests won’t do it. As Lenkinski warns, “monotony is the enemy of good theater. Momentum can’t be gained on a steady path followed in steady motion,” such as the weekly Saturday Night protests now ending their second full year. “Momentum has to be gained by picking up energy,” by keeping things unpredictable, engaging, and sometimes enraging. “That is why Trump is such an interesting character – he keeps people glued to the TV,” keeps people guessing what he will do next while the actual work is being done while they’re distracted.

If we would like to preserve Israel as a liberal democracy we need to fight on 21st century turf. We need to take over the narrative, build up characters who can take center stage to challenge his prominence, responding fluidly to his attempts to gain media dominance with scandal and intrigue to counter. It is by, as Lenkinski advises, “constantly presenting disruption, disturbance, dissonance” in an unpredictable and thereby captivating manner. When politics becomes theater, those of us who care about the continued existence of a liberal, democratic Israel cannot cling to the political tools of yesteryear. We need to adopt the tools of theater, and act accordingly.