Politics: So Over
It
My love affair with politics started at some
unremembered point in middle school, when I realized that
starting arguments in classes provided me with a nearly
sexual level of gratification. It got even worse in high
school, where as a budding young Republican, I could rile
an entire classroom of aspiring revolutionaries into an
insane frenzy with one little off-hand comment about
Reagan. I enjoyed the process so much as to become a
political science major despite future promises of poverty
from which even the most committed of socialists would not
be able to rescue me. I read newspapers. I watched
Crossfire. Embarrassingly, I thought Tucker Carlson was
both witty and astute. I looked at graphs , about opinions
.
But it's all over. I'm done. No more CNN addiction, no more
Bill Kristol, no more drunken speculation about the sex
life of James Carville and Mary Maitalin (well, maybe still
that). I'm trading it all in for VH1, Tara Reid, and
tabloid photos. You say to yourself, "Alex, why would you
throw it all away? You used to love Bill Kristol!" and I
give you my simple, concise answer:
Because politics sucks. It sucks hard.
Maybe it's just me. Maybe I've changed, and I no longer
appreciate schoolyard-caliber debate, bible thumping, and
ill-informed protest marches. Maybe I've lost my taste for
two grown men in ugly suits bickering like one threw a dirt
clod at the girl the other one liked. Maybe the comparison
of everyone in politics to Hitler or Stalin has suddenly
become a totally reasonable debate tactic. Or maybe it's
just that the range and quality of debate has fallen so
hard and fast it makes Tori Spelling's career look like the
space shuttle.
Isn't it worth considering that maybe the idea of debate is
to, you know, make policy? As much fun as it is seeing
politicians take angry jabs at each other on the senate
floor, it doesn't do a whole lot for the process. Barbra
Boxer may think that she's scoring political points every
time she accuses the Republican leadership of hating the
poor, minorities, and puppies, but it doesn't accomplish
much. If I recall, politics is supposed to result in
something . It's not a contest to determine who sits in a
comfy chair in a big white building in four years.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not some big idealist who thinks
that politicians need to be perfect and work themselves to
death fighting for the little guy. I used to like the
horserace. Nothing made me happier than a withering smear
campaign. Remember Willie Horton? That was awesome. I don't
mind people playing dirty to get elected, because that is
an inescapable aspect of politics that's not going
anywhere.
Instead, elected officials are currently left to debate
about sweeping social trends, ones which legislation can do
nothing about. Abortion? You're more likely to reach a
consensus in Star Wars v. Star Trek. Gay marriage? No
politician is doing anything until society as a whole
decided Bruce and Lance should live in holy matrimony. Russ
Feingold introduces a motion to censure the president? How
brave , Russ. You've accomplished nothing and taken no
risks because you win re-election with about an 80%
majority. Way to take a stand. Everybody trots out the same
debate time and time again, hoping to win a few extra
percentage points when public opinion shifts. If it were
more popular, the Democrats would be saying how great it is
in Iraq (which many did). If the base cared, maybe
Republicans would stop ranting about the homos and spend
like conservatives should (which they won't).
There's no middle ground anymore, or if there is, it's
relegated to farm-subsidy bills and tiny American flags.
There is more reason for the Republican Party to exist than
to oppose the Democrats and vice versa. If I'm not
mistaken, the reason to have more than one party is because
ideas and compromise are supposed to result from the
dichotomy between the two. Instead we have a delightful
situation perhaps worse than dictatorship. At least
dictators get shit done instead of bickering over who shot
whom in the face. Anybody with slightly nuanced political
views has no place in politics. You mean you want to cut
spending and kill babies? Who do you think you are?
Once you throw every other nutjob in the mix, politics
begins to resemble not so much an important part of civic
life, but a retard circus sans amusing chimp shenanigans.
Who doesn't love the never-ending parade of uninformed
celebrities who manage to get ignorant teenagers fired up
without imparting to them any actual information? Have you
ever seen a protest march? I thought people only wore gas
masks and burned stuff in effigy in barbarian nations. How
about my buddy Fred Phelps proudly rocking the "God hates
fags" posters at military funerals? If conditions were such
that I could still care about politics, these people would
be pilloried in front of the capitol as the targets of
thrown rocks. But nowadays they aren't called fringe
lunatics. They're called the party base.
In conclusion, I'm over politics harder than I'm over snap
bracelets. I'm done spending my afternoons glued to CNN,
I'm done reading the editorial page, hell, I could very
well be done voting (or at least voting informed). I'm
disillusioned. Every once in a while something
exciting might happen that's worth paying attention to,
like Cynthia McKinney sponsoring legislation calling for an
official investigation into Tupac's death, but it's
unlikely that you'll hear much else from me about politics.
You can say things like "Bush eats babies," and I'm
probably not going to start an hour-long argument about the
moral obligation of the state to encourage baby-eating.
Maybe, in a few years, people are going to cool it with the
dogmatic partisanship and name-calling. Maybe in a few
years a race of hyperintelligent squids is going to be in
charge. I'm not holding my breath for either.
Now if you'll excuse me, the Top 50 Celebrity Fashion
Disasters is on VH1, and I need to stay on top of these
kinds of things.