Politics
I've never been that into politics - I care about it, I have a definite political philosophy, and I feel like I know enough to vote in a way that I'm comfortable with, but it's never been my main thing. So, I probably don't have much that's profound to say here. I'm also probably not particularly unique in my emotions surrounding Tuesday's elections.
It just seems like the American political reality for the foreseeable future lends itself to apathy and/or disappointment. Members of parties with two conflicting political philosophies saying horrible things about each other during 24 hour 'news' cycles for 24 months leading up to elections which cancel out the previous one. Repeat cycle. Our political system is set up to be weak, ineffective, and at this point essentially conservative of the existing order (see Kingdon in America the Unusual). We believe a national self-fulfilling prophecy that government is the problem, and a deeply entrenched set of big power big money influences seem to pull the strings for both parties. So it's not a huge surprise that most of us would rather watch Dancing with the Stars and figure out ways to fend for ourselves. So color me disillusioned.
It just seems like the American political reality for the foreseeable future lends itself to apathy and/or disappointment. Members of parties with two conflicting political philosophies saying horrible things about each other during 24 hour 'news' cycles for 24 months leading up to elections which cancel out the previous one. Repeat cycle. Our political system is set up to be weak, ineffective, and at this point essentially conservative of the existing order (see Kingdon in America the Unusual). We believe a national self-fulfilling prophecy that government is the problem, and a deeply entrenched set of big power big money influences seem to pull the strings for both parties. So it's not a huge surprise that most of us would rather watch Dancing with the Stars and figure out ways to fend for ourselves. So color me disillusioned.
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