Reading and watching the news about last night’s elections, it’s obvious politics is more of a sporting event separating the winners from the losers than it is a communal exercise in rational self-government.
Ideas aren’t elevated. Rather they are reduced to a scrum.
Issues aren’t discussed. They are used to divide.
Politicians don’t appeal to our higher instincts. They don’t try to reach out to our hearts and minds. Rather they speak to our most base emotions. They especially speak to our prejudices. And our fears.
Politics isn’t about trying to change minds. Rather it’s about reinforcing the message that your tribe wants to hear.
Politicians don’t offer clarity. They provide obfuscation; misdirection; fake democracy for dummies.
Politics isn’t thoughtful. It’s reactive. It doesn’t lead to understanding. It leads to a lot of hate.
Politics isn’t enlightened. It’s reductive. It reduces concepts like freedom and justice to mere sideshow distractions that must give way to the material needs of the corporate state that has bought our politics.
One doesn’t seek out politics to find truth. You go toward it to be lied to.
This country is facing many existential crises. We have an inhumane healthcare system. The wealth disparity in the country threatens to destroy the fabric of our civilization. We are engaged in endless wars. We deny the existence of climate change. We live in a society that is fundamentally racist, sexist, anti-anything-that-isn’t-Christian, anti-poor and violent. Yet our politics is incapable of addressing any of this with any real sense that we are all in this together and none of us are getting out of here alive.
Is it any wonder that so many people don’t vote?
Get me to the race track.
