Iconographic Propaganda in the 2008 Presidential Election

I don’t think anyone would argue that 2001-2008 was a rough patch in American politics and policy, regardless of whether you voted for George W. Bush. Because of this, the pendulum swings to the opposite of what Bush represents: Even 2008′s Republican candidate John McCain didn’t beat down the White House door to get Bush to campaign for him.

However, regardless of what these 8 years were like, something is amiss in the art/design community and their embrace of Barack Obama.

The above image, by Shepard Fairey, is the most ubiquitous. Fairey is the creator of Obey, a popular street art project/brand.

But Fairey isn’t the only painter or street artist making iconographic and emotionally charged Obama posters. Obama imagery, rooted in the style of Soviet and Chinese propaganda posters, have become commonplace everywhere from Street/Low Brow art powerhouses, like Juxtapoz, to popular graphic design publications, like Design Observer.

Despite individual political views, it can rationally be argued that Obama would provide better leadership than what we have seen recently. However, Barack Obama is still a politician. He is a politician that represents one of two extremely wealthy, powerful and deeply rooted political parties that have held control of US law and policy for the majority of this country’s history.

One of the most alarming aspects of the modern political climate is the recent growth of fervent political fundamentalism. This has created a polarization of the population, both sides of which earnestly believe that their views represent absolute truth while the other side is inherently subversive. Propaganda seeks to utilize this zeal in order to acheive an end, and in doing so, it pushes the masses away from reason and encourages blind, emotional adherence to political doctrine.

Regardless of how bad you feel the last presidency was, designers and artists should be universally suspicious of iconographic imagery that supports a major-label political player by pulling at the emotions of the audience, rather than presenting them with facts and logic. Those politicians have their own marketing departments that are already saturating the public space with emotional appeal in the form of TV commercials, billboards and viral videos. However, the  campaign machines just can’t do it as expertly as the sharp-witted independent artist, working for free without deadline or supervision.

Anyone who has studied art and design, whether in a University or on the streets and railroad tracks of a sprawling metropolis, should find propaganda inherently sinister, regardless of who it supports or what that person stands for. Yet some would argue that the last presidency was so damaging to civil rights, foreign relations and the general state of the nation/world that a change in leadership must be enacted by any means possible. However, when the thinking people of a nation lower themselves by seeking to sway the mob using hype, icons and emotional appeal, that nation has not changed or improved. Instead, intelligence and reason–those things that we struggle so hard to attain–lose yet again. The only winner is emotionalism, which, by simply changing the focus of its blue or red Pantone colored gaze, stays the course.