Politics makes us angry. And stupid. REALLY stupid (Caution, NSFW).
We know this but we continue to think that politics is a unifying force, a chance to walk into the ballot box and "do some good" by voting the "right way". It's activism without effort or consequence. You don't even have to do research any more because there are pay-to-play voter guides that arrive in your mailbox which tell you who the approved candidates are, depending on your party of choice that is.
Trudging out to a voting location on election day is the lowest form of political participation. It's a cop-out designed by a system whose sole purpose is the preservation of the system. Because it's so easy and, due mainly to voter fraud and gerrymandering, so meaningless today, it's cheapened what it means to be an activist as well.
Consider this: Yesterday 100 "sheroes" (Really Huffington Post?) stripped down into their pre-apple Eve outfits and held mirrors over their heads in "protest" of....what? The so-called "war on women?" In the Middle East there are the Yazidi women who are taking up arms and fighting against ISIS insurgents who would round them up, gang rape them, and sell them into sex slavery. In Pakistan their "Kim Kardashian" was just strangled by her brother in a so-called "honor killing" which drew cheers and praise from many Pakistanis. In America, 100 women in the buff holding up mirrors because they might have been, possibly, body shamed at some point. (ignoring the fact that the most egregious forms of body shaming often come from other women)
This does not give men a pass. In fact, the so-called "bro" culture needs to be placed on the ash-heap of history to be burned beside Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American" dirge. Here's an idea men: Don't sexually assault women. Full stop. Just because a woman is dancing with you, or speaking with you, or dresses and acts suggestively, doesn't mean that she wants a night of hot, sweaty sexual relations with you, or to even be groped by you. She probably just wants to be noticed which, in a way, is kind of sad.
The problem is that we've allowed the boundaries of personal relationships to be argued within the political realm. We've given it over to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to tell us how we should interact with one another. In many cases, we're now looking to President Barry to tell us when it's OK to make love.
This is a problem for a couple of reasons. One, take a look at most politicians. Many of them marry for their careers, have children for their careers and then carry out a charade that lasts for years in the name of their careers. What the hell do they know about what normal, work-a-day people need from love and affection? Given what we know about the Clintons, do you think their marriage is based on love of one another? Or profit? I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count.
Yet we continue to trudge into the voting booth and pull the lever to put people in power whom we would never invite over to a backyard cookout, or invite to our kids weddings. We do this, and then we ignore them until the next election season.
And that is the problem with our politics.
We have bought into the lie that voting is our responsibility to our Democratic Republic and it goes no further. We vote, they rule, period end of story. The people that you put into office then take a look at razor-thin voter margins with low participation rates and claim a "mandate" that allows them to take policy proposals drafted by aides, influenced by their particular set of patronage and claim they are doing the "will of the people". And we allow it, because taking the time to write a letter or make a phone call or, horrors, run for office ourselves in today's hyper-charged environment detracts from our Saturdays watching college football.
And no, I'm not just pointing a finger at you, I'm guilty of this myself.
The result of our apathy and inaction however is a political system that is not only broken, it's hopelessly corrupt and totally unresponsive to the will of the people. It doesn't matter what the issue is, both sides will immediately seek to triangulate it in a manner that most benefits their political patrons. They then roll this out to their sycophant "activists" and "party regulars" who have been looped into the system through outright bribery, or an appeal to their sense of belonging to a special club. All of this is then packaged up neatly in a tidy bow by a compliant media who regurgitate material uncritically to those outside the circle.
The citizenry, if they're paying attention at all, take a peek at a sound byte, shake their heads at the idiocy of the "other side" and wonder who's going to be the next winner of The Voice. But they voted, they tell themselves, so they can bitch. Anyone who didn't just needs to shut the hell up. This is a ridiculous argument because there is no voting requirement tacked on to the First Amendment. I heard someone, although I cannot remember who (sorry!) suggest that voting is the easiest and least participatory thing in politics that you can do, and I agree.
It also makes you the angriest. Because you're moving along in your day to day life not winning or losing, you're just hanging on. And politics, like sports, gives you a chance to feel that you ARE winning at something, that your hum-drum life, being hollered at by the boss for your TPS report lacking a cover sheet, actually has some meaning when a team with which you have no actual affiliation wins. When someone is against your team, or (even worse) "for" the other team, you get viscerally angry because they are chipping away at your absolute sense of superiority. Your political party is no longer reflective of your political leanings, it's a core component of your identity and any threat to it is dealt with aggressively and (unfortunately in some cases) violently.
And round and round it goes.
The rest of that saying is "where it stops, nobody knows".
But I think we're now witnessing a self-perpetuating cycle. No calls for civility, or a cease in hostilities, is going to slow the political outrage train. We've gone so far off the rails that I think any and all hope of political reconciliation is gone. The progressive left's need to feel morally superior is only out-weighed by the alt-right's need to be outraged.
In retrospect, it's not surprising that the two sides have nominated two reprehensible human beings to be their standard bearers. The only surprise is that it's taken this long to get this low.
