I Think the U.S has Electile Dysfunction

You like that title? Thanks I was proud of it.

Anyway, I’m not going to lie, I used to be really into it. Heck I even majored in political science in college (with a concentration in International Relations)(don’t forget the concentration!), and for a while, I thought I was on a clear career path. I did a couple of internships on some campaigns, some for left-leaning candidates and some for right-leaning ones, just to see what the day-to-day was like, to figure out what I wanted to do. Really to just live in the political world and… man, those experiences absolutely soured me on the whole thing. It was all so… political. Which I guess is a silly thing to say, but it’s true. It wasn’t about ideas or people or what was best for the country, state, local jurisdiction. It was a game. A sport. And I wasn’t there for it. If I wanted to do sports I would’ve accepted my offer to Syracuse and went there for Sports Journalism. (honestly if I could… I would) With that being said, I could go on for days about my gripes with how gamified its become and maybe it’s always been that way, but to me it was a surprise, I wouldn’t expect it to be this way.

With that being said, now that I’m an “adult”, today it feels like that game has gotten a million times worse and simultaneously million times louder. And this game is all anybody wants to talk about. I’ll be sitting with friends, and the conversation will be going great, we’re talking about a new movie, or a cool new I don’t know MicroBrewed IPA flavor that Bid Light dropped (we don’t talk about those, I don’t even know if those exist, but the point stands), or like if I’m with my sports enjoying friends, we’ll talk about who’s going to make the playoffs or an upcoming draft… ANYTHING. And then, cue eery music out of nowhere, someone drops a political grenade. The whole vibe changes. It’s like we’re not friends anymore,  but instead we’re just pawns on two sides of a debate. And I’m sorry but I don’t give a shit who you voted for, like we can disagree on that stuff but we’re never going to change each others mind. As long as you’re cool and we vibe like you’re my friend, period. I don’t want to argue about anything. Why can’t we just talk about beer and sports, you know? Why does everything have to be a political statement? It’s exhausting. 

And now I mean politics as a whole, the professionalism, or total lack thereof, is just embarrassing. It used to be that the politicians had a debate, maybe a bit of a heated one, but there was still a sense of decorum, a little bit of respect. Now, it’s just a reality show.(ironic if you think about it) It’s personal attacks, zingers and grandstanding. It’s about owning the other side, not about getting anything done. And it’s not just the democrats, not just the republicans, not just the extremists, it’s all sides of a political sphere. And all are guilty of it, and it feels like a race to the bottom of a fish-tank. Each side uses their adversary’s  worst behavior as an excuse for their own, and it just escalates and it’s a slippery slope that keeps on slipping. It’s a battle of trying to get the moral high ground, in reference to certain topics. It’s gotten so ugly and so unprofessional, that it’s kind of a chore to watch. From the outside looking in, this whole thing feels less like groups trying to lead a nation and more like a high-school cafeteria argument that’s been put on primetime television and all over social media.

So it’s a conscious choice for me to not engage in political talk. I have my opinions, sure, who doesn’t.  But I don’t need to brandish them like a weapon in every single conversation. I don’t need to know every detail of every gaffe or every new soundbite XYZ politician said.  I really don’t care, and maybe that is privileged of myself but what am I going to do about it, I’m just a 26 year old kid (maybe not kid, but idk what to say) and I live on Long Island. Like I’m more interested in believing in the good in the people around me, my friends, my family, the folks I run into every day. Maybe that’s naive, but I’d rather spend my energy building something up than tearing something down. Like at the end of the day, if you like the New York Giants, treat me with respect, are nice to me and we get along, I could give two shits who you voted for. That’s it.

The whole game just feels pointless. It’s designed to divide us and to keep us angry. And I think that’s the part that really gets to me, man. It’s that everyone seems to fall for it, on both sides. If we’re being honest I think a ranked choice voting system I was introduced to in my undergrad could be a cool way to like eliminate the two party system. But aside from that, this is my conclusion…We’re so busy fighting each other, we forget that we’re all just people trying to make it through the day. I’d rather believe that we have more in common than what’s being sold to us. Like I mentioned earlier, I’d rather have a beer, or two, or three…four????… and talk about something real with someone I can call a friend rather than pretend we’re enemies all because we checked different boxes on a ballot, or actually they’re like bubbles now. That, to me, is the real strength. Choosing to be human when the world wants you to be a political pawn in the game.