Politics Isn’t Fun Anymore
I grew up with a love of politics. Some of my earliest memories are seeing the assassination of Robert Kennedy on television, the nightly news broadcasts of the Vietnam war and later airliners exploding on the tarmac in Jordan during Black September in 1970. While waiting for my protestant friends to come home from school I watched the Watergate hearings. In fourth grade I wrote imaginative stories about Jimmy Carter living in a peanut, and my Favorite Sister and I discussed the merits of Jimmy Carter over Gerald Ford over the summer of 1976 while hoping Teddy Kennedy would run.
Every four years I became energized by the whole process and spectacle of American Democracy. I loved it – the heated debate, the rhetoric, the history, the pageantry. So getting a degree in what I loved was a natural. To me it was like studying football or baseball, just that the World Series or Super Bowl wasn’t held every year, although secretly I wished it was.
But I don’t love politics anymore, and I’m not exactly sure why. Perhaps it’s age; maybe I’ve seen too much and have learned that politics isn’t really a game. Politics does matter. Or perhaps it’s the fact that it does matter yet I have so little control over it that makes me find it depressing.
It’s not fun anymore, and since it is ingrained in my personal history it’s not like I lost interest in a recent TV show or anything. Politics has always been a critical part of who I am.
And now I’m sick of it and want to hide from it. Heh. Given the election is 9 months away it’s going to be pretty hard to do that.
Jack Snyder:
Scott,
I’ve never really been all that interested in politics and for the most part I’ve watched silently from the sidelines. The reason is with politics there is no clear-cut solution to any political problem. And no one can see far enough into the future to perceive the ramifications of a political decision made today. Both parties routinely get blamed for actions 20 years ago contributing to problems today. Its like politics is an impossibly complex rubex cube. Politics is not math; most problems don’t have a concrete answer.
And I believe all politicians have to compromise themselves so much to get anywhere that by the time they have enough clout to do anything, they owe so many people and have made so many promises to interest groups that they become pretty ineffective in enacting the will of the people.
At the end of the day, I don’t think it matters much anymore who gets elected President. If deep down you think that as well, maybe that’s why you’re sick of it.
Jack
8 February 2008, 4:44 pmScott Kirwin:
If deep down you think that as well, maybe that’s why you’re sick of it
That could be it; at this point I really don’t know. It’s a malaise that I think is part of something bigger – that crosses the line between public and private and so can’t be shared here.
But I really once lived Politics…
8 February 2008, 6:33 pmsamir farid:
Politics is never a game. It is a reality that governs our fates. To cling to politics as a hobby is typically American…but to fall in its grip is part of the fate of 3rd world countries. Some people play, others die or suffer, that is the logic of things.
10 February 2008, 6:08 amScott Kirwin:
Samir
For the past century changing governments in the US hasn’t been a big deal. There hasn’t been much variation between candidates; there simply isn’t much difference between our two parties, and that traditionally has been a good thing.
However recently I’ve seen people view this as a bad thing. It seems they want the two parties to be different. In effect what they are asking for is the two parties to become more extreme. We’ve seen this with the Democrats who have embraced the far Left, and we are seeing it to a certain degree on the Republican side with the party wanting a more far-right candidate than centrist John McCain.
But being a centrist myself I sense this is a mistake. Extremism can have dangerous consequences. It can rip Americans apart, dividing us at a dangerous time in our history.
I think that’s a good part of why I’m not finding this election “fun”.
10 February 2008, 10:06 amJack Snyder:
Scott,
I agree with your assessment of the two parties; that people want them to be more extreme. I’m a centrist myself; a left-leaning centrist, but a centrist nonetheless.
It has shocked me to hear that Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh have discussed voting for Hillary as a protest vote. Granted, they are probably joking but it still illustrates their dislike for John McCain. To hear them you’d think they believed he was the anti-christ.
Extremism does (not “can”) have dangerous consequences. Though I’ve been critical of Bush, it amazes me how critical the far right has been of him. I’ve heard the word “betrayed” thrown around quite a bit by both the left and the right when discussing him. From the left, its to be expected—but from the right? I shudder to think what an ideal candidate would be for either the far-right or the far-left.
We are indeed living in dangerous times and this election is far from fun.
Jack
10 February 2008, 11:37 amScott Kirwin:
Jack
Ann and Rush are off their rockers. For one thing you know that I’m a centerist too – and actually supported McCain in 2000 before the Bushies walloped him in the primaries. But the idea that they would sacrifice the country over their pettiness is simply disgraceful. As commenter John B wrote at Classical Values:
BTW I think I could live with a Hillary administration having supported her husband twice in the ‘90s. However Obama scares me. I mean really scares me. I always felt that a demagogue would come from the Right, but he strikes me as one coming from the Left.
Regardless this election isn’t fun. At all.
10 February 2008, 2:11 pm