The Distinguished Gentleman

The Political Process
In a political setting, people transfer their individual political power to their representatives to form sovereignty. The representatives then constitute a government at the helms of affairs, using the state instruments to control the political system in society. There are procedures involved in the power transfer, and each stage of this is known as a political process. However, there are different schools of thoughts on what constitutes a proper political process. Individual elector, politicians, and sometimes, political parties form their political ideologies based on the perspective that best suits their narrative of the right political process. From different countries, political parties, and leaders, we have witnessed different political processes, and one movie that perfectly depicts the public’s opinion of a political process is the 1992 American political comedy movie, The Distinguished Gentleman.
Written by Martin Kaplan and Jonathan Reynolds, and directed by Jonathan Lynn. The film starred, among others, the famous American comedian, Eddie Murphy, who played the character, Thomas Jefferson Johnson, a con man from Florida who got into the political scene with a criminal mindset, and rode on the popularity of a dead former congressman with the same name, Jeff Johnson. Thomas Jefferson capitalized on the voters’ naiveté to get votes. His campaign lacked substance, as the core basis of his movement was the slogan “The name you know.” Nevertheless, he still got massive support from the people, won the election, and soon made his way to Washington D.C. With his criminal mindset, Johnson, a member of the most powerful committee in the Congress, the Committee on Power, realized he could sell his votes as a congressman. Johnson continued in his conman attitude in the chamber full of many other corrupt congressmen like himself and engaged in several shading deals. Although Johnson had a change of heart along the line, however, the movies’ public view of the political process can be drawn from the plots and the storyline of the movie.
Firstly, the campaign which was the foremost step of political procedures, in the movie was built on a very faulty viewpoint. Johnson all through the campaigns did not grant any interview or press conference, to hide his identity. He was smart enough to completely keep his constituents in the dark as regards his true identity. In addition to that, the self-acclaimed gentleman was lacking in terms of quality of his campaigns. Instead of telling people what he would do if elected, Johnson was all about the name, playing on people’s intelligence. In other words, he failed to tell his intending constituents about his past, his achievements, and his plans if elected.
Secondly, the election further showed the lapses of the voters. Despite all his shortcomings in the campaigns, Johnson still got a massive vote to win the election, which suggests that his conman approach was effective enough to beat the collectivity of the majority’s sense of reasoning. The electors failed to ask questions and run a background check on their representative. So, from the attitudes of the electors and the mindset of the congressmen Johnson, it can be deduced that the movie, The Distinguished Gentleman, came from an erroneous philosophy of political process being a means to induce and hypnotize the electors to fulfill personal ambition.
Personally, I have a totally different perspective of a political process, which in all forms, contrasts the one represented in the film. To begin with, I strongly believe that the political process does not start and end with the electioneering process. Just as posited by United Nations Development Programmes (UNDP), a political process should be inclusive as that is crucial to peace sustainability, help to prevent conflict, and contribute to resolving structural inequities and other causes of conflict. Campaigns, voting, and other activities that lead to choosing political leaders are just a part of the political process. The right approach to a political process should start from profiling the candidate who has come out to run for a public office. The fact-checking should be thoroughly done to ascertain the credibility of the candidate, and this includes his inclination, his personal traits, and his leadership ability. I believe that an intending public office holder should be incorruptible, someone who regard others in high esteem, and have a credible track record. All this can be found out by running a background check on him.
After profiling, the political process should transcend to quality manifesto during campaigns, and that includes plans and well-cutout strategies to fulfill the proposed plans. In my own view, an intending public office holder should be grilled to spell out why he thinks he is a good fit for the post; he must be able to convince the voters on why he thinks he is better than his opponents. A serious-minded candidate should be able to analyze people’s political problems and explain how he intends to solve them. This should not be done in a random speech approach, but with presentations of facts and figures that back up whatever claims he makes. He should also make himself available for interviews, press conference and debates. This will provide the people with the firsthand knowledge of who the candidate is and what he represents, and then make their voting decision based on their impression of him.
Apart from profiling and grilling, a political process should extend to monitoring the activities of the leader after he has been given the mandate. Like the popular quote from Charles de Gaulle goes, “politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.” This suggests that the process does not end at the polls, it continues even after the election and runs all through to the end of the term of the leader in his elected position. An inclusive political process should among other things, contain elements of civic engagement, electoral cycle, constitutional reform, and parliamentary development (UNDP). To this end, I believe, that the electors need to realize their civic rights and duties as they have entrusted to the leader, their collective sovereignty. They need to always put the elected person in check by beaming searchlight on his actions and body language. Whenever they notice any inadequacy, they should be quick to call the leader to question.
Unfortunately, the movie lacked the above ideologies as the voters’ level of political awareness seemed to be low. They got carried away by the popularity of the candidate’s name and neglected the most critical aspects of their franchise obligations as major stakeholders in the electioneering process. Their failure to make their decision from a well-informed perspective led them to having a trickster swindling them of their political rights. However, as sad as this might be, it remains the political reality of many societies today. In many cases, people make their decision along political party line and the popularity of the candidate, without adequate background checks. As can be seen from the film, the voters “associated [Johnson] with a well-known congressman and therefore [voted] for him” (“Politics and Film”). Even when they were supposed to notice his deficiencies, they were still caught unaware, as this can be “clearly [seen] when Johnson won the seat and gave his victory speech which was a string of quotes and cliches that don’t make sense altogether (“Politics and Film”). His victory speech showed how unprepared and unfit he was, yet the voters were still carried away by ‘the name you know’ concept.
In conclusion, the overall presentation of the political process in the movie, The Distinguished Gentleman, denotes an erroneous view of political ideology, both from the congressman Johnson and the general public whose myopic approach led to having a con man in a position meant for a gentleman. Johnson and his cohort of greedy fellow congressmen’s view of the political process was one that was based on exploiting the public institutions to enrich themselves. To have a working society where development and growth thrives, both the political leaders and the followers need to work together. The leaders’ view of political process should be for the overall interest of the public, while the followers need to be vigilant in discharging their civic duties which including close monitoring of the people at the helms.


















References
Critical Analysis: The Distinguished Gentlemen. Politics and Films Database Honors 495: American Politics, American Cinema. https://blogs.longwood.edu/politicsandfilm/legislative/the-distinguished-gentleman/
Inclusive Political Processes: Democratic Governance and Peacebuilding. United Nations Development Programmes. http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/democratic-governance-and-peacebuilding/inclusive-political-processes.html