Manufacturing the Strongman: Democracy in the Age of the Society of the Spectacle

By choosing a candidate who is meant to lose, the parties believe they can separate the appearance of democracy from the actual exercise of power. But once exposed to public scrutiny, the signs escape those who created them: incompetence becomes authenticity, awkwardness becomes independence, and the absence of a programme becomes freedom of speech. The candidate does not therefore emerge in opposition to the system; he is a product of the system that has spiralled out of control. The play thus shows how the discrediting of professional politics may foster not so much a genuine alternative as the manufacture of a new strongman.

The campaign headquarters becomes the backstage area of a spectacle whose script the voters ultimately rewrite. The parties play the role of producers, the candidates become actors, and political programmes turn into props subjected to the demands of the performance. But the candidate soon begins to identify with the role assigned to him: his changes of costume reflect his gradual transformation and the fascination that authority exerts over him. By taking him from popular suffrage to a monarchical coronation, the farce reveals how rejection of the elites can paradoxically fuel the desire for absolute power.