Unlike pretty much everyone else I know, I have very few feelings about this election. Not because I don't think it's important, but because I have become incapable of feeling anything about politics. I'm amazed by all the people who have become so energized in their quest to either beat Trump or support him—my response to the past four years has been near-complete political enervation.
I know I don't want Trump to win, but I don't know if it matters. Does anything matter? Can anything repair the disdain and fear and anger and resentment in politics? Pretty much no matter what happens tomorrow, half the country will have roundly rejected everything about the other half. So aren't we just going to keep having these useless contests for the foreseeable, endless, draining future? I just can't manage to convince myself that the outcome of tomorrow's election will solve anything at all.
To be fair, though, I've never been all that interested in politics to begin with—I generally agree with Hobbes that the point of the commonwealth is to provide its citizens with a secure and peaceful state within which to pursue other interests. In my ideal democracy, the vast majority of people would vote every 2 years and stay generally informed but otherwise devote their time and effort and ingenuity to other, entirely non-political, things.
But now there are no non-political things. Novels, food, sports, fashion, medicine, sex—everything you do or say, or put on your body or in your body, is a political statement. Judging by twitter most people seem to think this makes things more interesting—why just cook food when you can cook political food!—but it makes me want to lie down and give up. All I want to know is how to make babka, and I do not care one iota what you think about police reform.
If I were incapable of rational thought and only acted on my feelings, I'm quite certain I wouldn't vote at all. The political theorist in me (she's still in there, somewhere) is curious whether this utter lack of feeling is what saves democracies, or what makes them devolve into tyranny. Can democracies survive when everyone has such deep feelings about politics? When who you vote for doesn't just indicate what you think about one or two particular policies but instead reflects the very content of your character and, potentially, the state of your soul? On the other hand, can democracies survive when a portion of the population is SO SICK of politics that they are willing to give up their say in the process just so everyone will just please please please talk about something else?
Is there a political theorist somewhere who answers these questions for me? If so, please advise. I am in need of guidance.
5 comments:
Yes, Fed 49, as I blogged about recently, makes a similar suggestion.
Smitten kitchen’s views on police reform make her babka so much tastier.
I missed your post about this, but obviously I agree with you.
Fed 29 is good, but it feels not quite relevant to the situation we're in now. It's almost quaint to think that a convention or a referendum would enflame men's passions. Instead I find myself agreeing more and more with Hobbes.
I agree with all of this. I really want him to lose by I am not that personally worked up about it. Meanwhile my boss sent an email saying that if any of us were too emotionally affected by the election this week to work, we should feel free to cancel meetings. Having to re-schedule major meetings with multiple people DOES make me have strong feelings.
Your apathetic vote may have decided the election!
First time my vote has actually mattered, and it was apathetic. Sad.
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