Just Get It Over With Already
Most people who know me are aware that I avoid political discussion like the plague. I keep it out of my conversation, I keep it out of my correspondence, I keep it out of my blog; I have been known to leave the building when the mere shadow of the topic, in any form, has appeared on the horizon. Setting aside the deeply farcical nature of the whole process… it isn’t because I don’t care or because I don’t have views - on the contrary, I do and I do. Very deeply. Strong ones. I just don’t see the point of arguing about it, and even less do I see the point of agreeing about it.
But I have to say something about it now because today I can’t seem to think about anything else.
I’m in the enviable position of disagreeing with everyone, both friend and foe, and it’s depressing the hell out of me. This is the first time in living memory that I have dreaded the prospect of victory for my own party. In the past it has always been, if not simple, at least relatively straightforward. Grey areas or no grey areas, you could pretty much be comfortable with feeling - for reasons you could clearly articulate and quantify - that the Other Party’s Guy was the Wrong Guy, and your Own Party’s Guy was, if not the thrillingly actively Right Guy, at least a big uptick over the alternative.
This time? Not so much.
I hold no brief for the Other Party’s Guy - I certainly don’t buy into most of his ideas and his general political philosophy; not to mention that I think he’s made a number of stupid tactical errors in the course of his campaign. (As indeed who has not? That part is probably a wash.) But by gum at least he doesn’t terrify me like Our Guy does. Our Guy frightens me in ways I didn’t even know I COULD be frightened. Partly because of who he himself is and what he himself is like; the things he says, the things he does, the things he doesn’t say and doesn’t do. But perhaps even more because of the way everyone else in Our Party apparently sees him.
Am I crazy? Very possibly - it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that THAT possibility has been mooted. Statistically it doesn’t seem improbable that where EVERYBODY ELSE thinks one thing and I alone think another… they are not the wackos in this picture. Maybe I’m the one who is deluded and the emperor really is as magnificently dressed as they’re all saying he is. Maybe there is cause for all this passion and rejoicing and enthusiasm; maybe I’m the blind one for not seeing it, for seeing exactly the opposite and wishing I could tunnel to the center of the earth to get away from it.
Am I wrong? I can only hope so. Time will show, I suppose.
All I know is, from where I stand there can be no good outcome today. No matter which way it goes, the prospect seems to me oppressively bleak. Sure, we need change, big change. And one way or another I’d say we’re going to get it. But there is such a thing as change for the worse, preposterous as that may seem after eight years of rock bottom.
I’m NOT about to tell you to Go Vote. If you’re a citizen of this country you already know everything I could say about that, both on principle and in practice. You probably will anyway; and if you don’t you probably have your reasons and it isn’t my job to tell you your job. Oh yeah, I’ll vote, for all the difference it will make given where I live. I was brought up to believe that I have no right not to exercise my right. The process is a mockery, but it’s still important to be part of the process. Honestly, though, I’m going to be really hard pressed this time to choose the lesser of the two evils before me.
Like I said… I hope I’m wrong. I really do. You don’t know how much I do.
But don’t be surprised when I politely refrain from joining in the celebrations - no matter which side is holding them.
November 4th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Um…you’re not disagreeing with me. I was thinking *exactly* the same thoughts as I stood in line today.
A good friend is conveniently celebrating a birthday today — and she doesn’t know that we know. Secret cake baked, decorated by boys, and delivered to the restaurant + camera at the ready = television ignored.
November 4th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
I’m really sorry that you feel that way… I kinda felt that way last time around. I’m just so pleased to have a condidate that doesn’t make me feel dirty and ashamed, but I understand that you don’t agree with me. I hope that you are able to find a bit of comfort in the time to come, regardless of who wins. Lord knows I’ve spent the last 8 years feeling like an outcast and a rebel in my own country.
November 4th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Shh, dear… it’ll be all right. We’ve lived through the last eight years; we’ll live through the next four.
Knit something. It’ll make you feel better.
Myself? I can hardly wait for the returns to come in.
November 4th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
I agree with Tina - I’ve felt like an outcast, and I’ve been called unpatriotic for a long time (more than 8 years…) - However, you are right:. the process we have in place is so screwy that it can’t possibly result in a good outcome.
By the time the actual candidates have been chosen, they have been homogenized, bought, and sold, and they no longer represent anything near actual change. (See “The Candidate” with Robert Redford. Although it’s decades old, its message is true, still. Also see, Gore Vidal, whose conspiracy theories about who Really Runs the World may not be as extreme as they once were.) Candidates who speak truth are mocked. Candidates who don’t fit into the story that the press wants to tell are ignored. Candidates who get through the system represent nothing more than what their corporate sponsors (or the larger forces behind those corporations) will allow.
teabird’s law: if you want power, there’s something wrong with you. That doesn’t leave much wiggle room, does it? Power = ego, wanting a lot of power = needing one’s rather large ego, um, validated.
If nothing else, look at each candidate’s enemies, and what they’re saying about him. This year, the enemies were so eager to channel Joe McCarthy that their fear was sickening and thick. We never should have heard the adjectives that we heard this year.
As for the Emperor - both candidates are quite unclothed, except for the corporate logos on their butts.
Do take heart.
November 4th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
For what it’s worth, I feel more or less exactly as you do (except, I suspect, from the other direction). I voted as I did, not because I thought him best (or even that good), but because I thought him better than the alternative.
By the way, voted in my first ever election! Whee!
November 4th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Wow, thanks for saying this out loud. I thought I was the only crazy person out there feeling this way. I actually couldn’t sleep last night for worrying about my vote. My one teeny-tiny wee bitty vote.
Do you think they’ll let Abby sneak us spindles and Abbycrack into the ward so we can spin?
November 4th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
I’ve been shaking my head and saying “This is the best we can do?” about both parties’ candidates (the whole group of primary candidates, including those who fell by the wayside) for more than a year.
The Founders thought that being elected to government was a duty, a rather onerous one, and one that nobody would want for very long. Clearly, a lot changed over the last 232 years to make elected office an attractive life-long career. Sigh. I have a congressman-for-life in the district where I live. I didn’t know the name of the candidate running against him (who is from My Own Party!) until I went to the Board of Elections website to find out the voting hours for Virginia. And I barely knew who was running against our soon-to-be-annointed-with-all-but-divine-light new senator, who I think was a crummy governor, and who isn’t anything like a native of the state (no, I don’t think you have to be, but he just feels like a carpetbagger to me).
Politics–Poly, meaning many. Ticks, meaning blood-sucking insects.
On the “hope for the future” front, there were two young boys–maybe 12 or 13–working as election pages at my local elementary school polling place. One looked so cute in his dapper beige linen suit! They had PDAs with the voter lists and were verifying line-standers were at the correct polling place. Apparently, the election board split our district this year because of the expected high turnout, and they were concerned that not everyone actually READ the polling place on their new voter registration cards. This is a community where a lot of people have lived in the same place since it was built–circa 1965–so people are used to going to the same poll. The boys really proved their worth to the lady in front of me in line–she had gone to the wrong poll! Saved her 45 minutes of standing in our line and the aggravation of having to go to the other place.
November 4th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I just want to chime in and say that I chose my candidate because I strongly believe he is the person who can lead our country in the right direction - and I think many members of my party have taken this reasoned approach. Its really not about the glamour, although can you blame me for liking that a little as well?
Also, I really, really hope this comment doesn’t seem rude - I don’t mean it to be! Thank you for sharing your interesting and personal opinion.
November 4th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
You’ve eloquently stated the deep sadness of many Americans.
Well spoken.
November 4th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
From where I’m coming from, I respect your position a lot more than I respect those who say that no matter what happens things will be better. I don’t know your policy/value specifics, but about the hype being unwarranted: I will say that if Obama hadn’t been the Candidate of Hype in the primaries, I might well have voted for him, and I know a lot of my friends & family might have as well. However, I did start to look closer in the past few months, and liked what I saw a lot, and saw a lot of the more subtle, complex things that make me excited about a candidate, in terms of worldview, values, etc. That said, I still find the will.i.am songs a little bit . . . odd, even if I am largely won over by the rhetoric.
November 4th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
every time it is election time i think of this poem by Piet Hein, a danish poet.
i find it holds true.
our voting system is different, our way of democracy is different, but it always boils down to the same….
MAJORITY RULE
His party was the Brotherhood of Brothers,
and there were more of them than of the others.
That is, they constituted that minority
which formed the greater part of the majority.
Within the party, he was of the faction
that was supported by the greater fraction.
And in each group, within each group, he sought
the group that could command the most support.
The final group had finally elected
a triumvirate whom they all respected.
Now, of these three, two had final word,
because the two could overrule the third.
One of these two was relatively weak,
so one alone stood at the final peak.
He was: THE GREATER NUMBER of the pair
which formed the most part of the three that were
elected by the most of those whose boast
it was to represent the most of the most
of most of most of the entire state –
or of the most of it at any rate.
He never gave himself a moment’s slumber
but sought the welfare of the greater number.
And all people, everywhere they went,
knew to their cost exactly what it meant
to be dictated to by the majority.
But that meant nothing, — they were the minority.
November 4th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Piet Hein!!!
When I was young (and our next President a zygote), TAB Books offered two volumes of his shorter poems “Grooks” and (I believe) “Grooks II.”
“If no thought your mind does visit,
Make your speech not too explicit.”
And others of the sort. Hein (a physicist, I believe) wrote thousands and thousands of them. Collectively, they are all the wisdom anyone could possibly require. Even a President who, whatever else one might say, has some facility with words.
November 5th, 2008 at 1:46 am
I just wanted to say well done for stating what I myself have been feeling the past month or so, not really thrilled with either canditate, worried about the things to come no matter who was going to win. Knitting is what calmed my battered nerves today. And thank you for keeping your blog so very politics free. Its a breath of fresh air when everywhere I turn there’s been talk of politics. It makes this blog a safe haven, and your refusal to name names in this post keeps it that way despite the political aura about it.
November 5th, 2008 at 7:47 am
I am not blind to my candidate’s faults. I do fear that with a majority in the Senate and House, they may run roughshod for a little while over anyone else’s ideas. I do not like the calls of a death knell of the opposing party, or many of the comments I have heard concerning this. We do not work well as a one party system.
But I feel hopeful right now. It was *clean* with no disputed states, no legal arguments in courts for days dragging it on. No demands for recounts. The speeches last night were grace and dignity on both sides.
Today, we’re actually going to hang our American flag. I have hope for something better than the politics of fear.
November 5th, 2008 at 8:00 am
Well said. Neither option was “great” and we can only hope that the result does not send the county down some difficult path. Let us hope that the checks and balances that the founders of the country put in place “work” and let us hope that the country does not suffer the test that Mr. Biden predicted. This is a difficult time and the nasty, heritage of politics of blame ends here and now.
November 5th, 2008 at 8:18 am
The Boy and Carolien–Thank you!! I shall have to go seek out the poet.
As for the prospects this term…well, ‘dim’ is a good starting point and we’ll all have to see where it goes from here. Hopefully no one will be digging out the miners’ helmet lights anytime soon. Hard on the yarn, you know.
Tom Lehrer had something to say on the topic of process, as well…I recommend ‘It Makes a Fellow Proud to be a Soldier’. Everyone needs a good giggle, time to time.
It IS sad, though, that one voted as they did for a lack of anything better presenting itself.
That, and apathy in general, will be the true death knell of democracy. Perhaps by then we’ll have learned something to make it better, eh?
November 5th, 2008 at 10:04 am
On a completely different topic…I’ve (finally) started to read through the collected work of Sayers, most of which I hadn’t gotten around to yet. Started with Whose Body?, then Clouds of Witness, am now onto Unnatural Death. Lovely stuff!
And thinking about our prior discussion of genre vs writing style, a book occurred to me that you might like- Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. It’s nominally fantasy, but and can be sort of described as ’suppose there were an ancient tradition of English country magic’. It’s set in vaguely Napoleonic era and the writing is really lovely. A big thick book, but if you pick it up in the library or bookstore and read a few pages, I think you’ll know pretty much immediately whether it would appeal or not.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Hmmm. I’m not quite sure what to say…
I’m deeply surprised by the strength of my reaction to the results - I can’t seem to stop weeping tears of joy. I did not initially support Our Man, having fervently wanted Our Woman, but I don’t believe I was or am afraid of him. He is a politician, something that many have seemed forget over the months and years of this process. His victory proves that he is a damned good one. It also proves that he is smart and can choose smart people to support him, both promising signs given the (to me) noticeable lack of reverence for intelligence in the current administration.) I do believe his victory says something profound about the growing pains of this country, something America can be proud of. Whether he is as good a man as he has tried to persuade us he is remains to be seen. If he can make good on half or even a quarter of his promises it will be change for the better. I don’t think I have stars in my eyes, but I can’t help feeling hopeful - for him, for us, and for the rest of the world.
Try to hope, dear Tsarina.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Amen!!! Well said, I felt and am feeling the same way. It is a scary time for our country right now. You are NOT ALONE in your thinking, just most people wont say it.
November 5th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Hmmmmm. I guess it goes to show what a bubble we occupy over here in California. I am of course overjoyed that Obama has won. I am not blind to the fact that he and those running and managing his campaign ran a tactically shrewd and extremely well-funded race, nor the fact that the economic crisis and general dissatisfaction propelled people away from Republicans and McCain. So I am not a stars-in-my-eyes he won a mandate because he’s the next FDR and can walk on water type o’ gal.
Watching the Frontline special on PBS, I was struck by how calculated Obama’s 2004 “rise to power” was, the grooming with the shades of George W. But at the same time I was struck by how Obama can be a “conciliator” as shown by his time as editor of the Harvard law Review. { http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/choice2008/view/3.html (10 minutes in)} Being a bit of a bi-racial, mixed up who-knows-where-I’m-really-from person, I can identify with this conciliatory way of thinking. When you find yourself in the middle of two worlds you care about but can’t occupy one wholesale and forsake the other, it changes you, effects your way of thinking and seeing things.
But this is why you don’t like to discuss politics. I’m about to break out the footnotes, I’ve laid myself bare etc. That’s why you’ve left the building, right?
November 5th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
And now for something completely different.
A nine-dimensional hypercardigan should prove a welcome dostraction from politics as well as making Belshazzar’s Nemesis seem a piece of cake.
Go to: http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1267
November 5th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I feel for you, I honestly do. While in a different country, I’ve felt the same reservations.
Granted, we have the bonus of having more than 2 players; ergo for the second term in a row; we don’t have a majority government (which means our leader doesn’t have carte-blanche).
For that alone, I am truly thankful.
November 5th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
I’m sorry you feel that way. I don’t want to be disrespectful of you or your blog, so I will refrain from stating my feelings about the candidates and the winner, but I will say one thing about this election.
I was living in the UK during the last election. The damage that has been done to our world reputation in the last several years has been huge. This election has already gone a very large way towards improving our sadly battered relationship with the rest of the world. That’s worth a lot to me right now.
November 5th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Thank you for posting this. I thought I was the only one who felt this way.
November 5th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
I’m with you, Tsarina. This election did not offer a lot of good choices for me, either.
November 5th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Very well put. I had been feeling a lot of that myself. Now that the election is over I hope for the best from our govenrment and our people, and I pray I am not disappointed.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
I too am just glad yesterday is finally over. I am looking at it from the conservative angle. The losing candidate was not my first choice, but I believe he is a good man. The winning candidate is a total unknown, young and inexperienced. The reaction of people to him with such awe is frightening. Nobody can live up to whatever they think he will bring to this country. I truly pray that our new president elect will become the president that we need, not the unknown quantity that we just elected. I do this knowing that the defense programs I work today are now on the cancel list and I will lose my job in the next few months.
November 6th, 2008 at 12:06 am
You’re not crazy, and you’re not the only one.
November 6th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
I am so glad you expressed yourself. I totally feel this way (I am Canadian). I don’t read newspapers or watch the telly, therefore I know I have no information to argue with. Keep. Mouth. Shut. I am concerned that the media is in the hands of a few so opposing opinions and full details are not aired properly. I am concerned with the high levels of illiteracy in this country. I don’t believe democracy works if people are not both properly informed and able to process the information. I do my best to help society by assisting people one on one to live a better life. It is rewarding, it inspires me to better myself (and God knows I need to), but it sure does cut into the knitting time.
November 7th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Although the candidate I voted for was the one who won, I was feeling really down Wednesday. I am still concerned about the future of our country, and disappointed in how much rancor the election process has caused. I do hope the healing process in our nation can begin.