Electoral Gutter Ball

Much has happened in the last several months, yet all that has become unimportant (temporarily, one hopes) in the face of the re-election of Donald Trump. I've written about this before, here, in 2020, but old posts become buried. Below are a few things those in my physical orbit may have heard me say and, whether of any value to a reader, I wrote them out.

Social Media & News

You might hear about the death of traditional/conventional news media; its impotence in the face of social media's democratization of news delivery. I don't worry much about people ignorantly sharing false news, wrong data, outright lies, conspiracies, superstitions, and the rest -sure it happens quickly at great scale, but it is human nature to repeat falsehoods and has been part of our lives for as long as we could whisper in the ears of our neighbors. 

However, social media used as a powerful tool of disinformation and propaganda at the hands of malignant forces is worrisome. Those powerful, or empowered, who intentionally devise an array of media designed to align power with a social-political world view, who can alter its code to redact information, display AI-generated propaganda, and is easily contrived to appeal to individual identities is a great threat to governing institutions and civil society.

Factual information has been replaced by opinion information (this is my opinion) under the masthead of news journalism. This has been exacerbated by news channeling, whereby we receive information that mirrors our individual perspectives. Traditional news sources have been hollowed out due to mistrust cultivated, from the left and the right, by the accusation that these traditional new organizations are accomplice to power. 

Today the only "true" news is editorialized news that aligns with someone's position on any and all topics. This slippery slope ensures traditional news outlets slide further toward editorial to keep eyes on its revenue-generating ads. Consumers of this editorialized news announce that they are eyes-wide-open critical thinkers who have done their research, when what they really have done is divorce themselves from the responsibility to listen, think critically, and form a complex understanding of complex issues in favor of a marketplace of reassurance.

Disillusionment and Defection

When people do not vote, or worse, defection vote, out of their idealism, I am confounded. As an artist, it is rather clear -I can imagine a perfect circle, yet I cannot draw one. This illustrates, rather simply, how I, a human in a complex social-political reality, differ from the abstract perfection to which I might simultaneously aspire. To wait for the perfect candidate, whose perfection must also ensure winning, or even to wait for a candidate only more closely aligned with a belief system, is to misunderstand politics, but also humanity and its flawed systems. 

Democracy, in its best form, is compromise with parties who want different outcomes. However insufficient this is when it yields results not closely aligned with a set of beliefs, it remains the best system we have to date, over thousands and thousands of years of human civilization, in which human beings have hardly changed. A single vote is the slightest nudge toward the direction aimed for. When people do not vote, it suggests a belief that they will not be affected by a move away from the direction toward which they supposedly aspire. To vote for the candidate who will take us in the opposite, or unknown, direction from which the voter believes we should head in protest against the insufficiency of a candidate, then that voter is reckless, ignorant of the consequences, careless, or self-destructive.

When people say "my vote doesn't count," all I hear is "my vote should be worth a lot more than one vote." If someone does not vote because they do not have a conscious idea of which direction the country ought to move, then there is ignorance, indifference, confusion or laziness. General election information is simplified and everywhere. Ask your mother, your father, your preacher, your cousin, your friend to help out.

Politicians Are Not Mother Theresa, They Are Not Martin Luther King

A political leader is a politician, not a religious leader, a thought leader, a saint or Samaritan. Politicians at the highest level have the awful responsibility to weigh various outcomes, to consider the consequences, political and otherwise, of their choices and compromises. They will make unrighteous decisions where choices must be made, where silence or doing nothing is the worst choice. The political leader will need to make these choices knowing they will be exposed to criticism from factions within their own party and opposing parties salivating as they encircle the tent.

The critic is only required to consider their cause, for which outcomes will not be tested, where the political leader must weigh layers of local, national, and global outcomes when making a choice -one that will be scrutinized, distorted, lambasted, and certainly tested. The critic has little to no responsibility for the consequences of their critique, there will be no one to measure the results of their policy, to hold them to account, to vote them out, to bitterly complain that their failures led to a despicable new political figure.

And that is where we find ourselves in 2024. Fear of threats, real or imagined, seem to be our biggest motivator, whether it's fear of fascism or fear of immigrants or climate change or losing control over your body or crime or losing your job to AI or transgender kids or paying off your debt. Too often I hear about people voting against their interests, but choosing a political leader isn't always a rational decision. The influence machine (i.e. social media/channeled news/regional talk radio) is powerful and repetitive and our local and chosen communities create group think. 

Regardless of local, national and global outcomes, the voter will rationalize their choice with arguments concocted by the media machine. Do not waste your time with retorts to these arguments as you will only become frustrated and maybe even reinforce foolish ideas implanted in their head. After all, anything you might say as a means of argument has been previously constructed as evidence of their righteousness. It's not a free exchange and the outcome is predetermined. 

I feel as if I have wasted too much precious life time on this already, so I will curtail it here.