One Foot in the Grave

I’ve been fairly outspoken about politics since I was old enough to care about them (circa 1989, when I discovered R.E.M. and was finally old enough to understand what U2′s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” was about), but I’ve never really much cared about elections, including the one for president.  Maybe it’s because I was pretty cynical from a young age, but I’ve never really felt like the outcome mattered much.  Politicians on the national stage are, by and large, fairly interchangeable down party lines.  The Republicans are mean and shallow and materialistic and beholden to Big Business.  The Democrats are wishy-washy and shallow and materialistic and beholden to Big Business.  To paraphrase George Carlin, the same shit gets shoveled around every four years; the person holding the shovel is largely irrelevant.

George W. Bush sort of changed all that.  For the first time I saw how one person actually could make a huge difference, not just in the national discourse, but in the laws that shape our society.  As a result, I went all-in for Obama in 2008 and, while I don’t regret it, I’m sort of back to my apathetic self as the 2012 election rolls around.  I will likely vote for Obama again (unless Romney suddenly wakes up one morning and starts pushing for a single-payer health care system at the national level, an instant cessation to oil drilling, and an executive order that all Wall Street bankers have to queue up so the American people can collectively kick them in the nads), but I will do so with little enthusiasm.  His education policy is a disgrace – at once repudiating and doubling down on No Child Left Behind – and there’s no question that the big banks have too much influence on his economic policies.

But I’ll vote for him precisely because of what I’ve seen in the unending series of GOP debates.  The 2012 presidential election is shaping up to be both the most entertaining and the most potentially catastrophic in my lifetime.  It’s sort of shocking to me that any of the current GOP field (except for Romney, who’s as close to a Stepford Candidate as any I’ve ever seen) is being taken seriously by anyone minus the most terminally out to lunch.  Gingrich is a delusional megalomaniac; Bachmann is a religious weirdo who actually makes Sarah Palin seem intelligent; Santorum is so socially conservative he’ll probably ban double beds; Perry (as we’ve seen amply over the last week) is Dubya Revisited – a down-home shitkicker who seems like a swell dude but who can’t string together two coherent thoughts to save his life; and Cain is an ignorant huckster who thinks a memorable catchphrase qualifies him for the job.  I haven’t forgotten about Huntsman or Paul. Huntsman is clearly  the most intelligent candidate in the mix, but that means exactly two Republicans will vote for him, and while I like some of what Paul has to say, the selfishness inherent in libertarianism is something I could never fully get on board with.

I think we all know that Romney will get the nomination, but in this country’s weird political climate I’m not about to rule out anything.  And that’s why – as much as I’ll be gritting my teeth – Obama has to get my vote.  Putting any of these Republican jokers in the White House would be a disaster.  Say goodbye to economic regulations designed to look after the consumer, and say hello to tax policy that will favor the wealthy over the working-class.  And that flawed but well-intentioned health care plan that attempts to equalize access for everyone?  That’ll be out the window in favor of something that resembles those scenes in Civil War movies where the poor folks have to take a swig of whiskey, bite a stick, and try not to black out.

What worries me most about the GOP field is this: I’m not politically savvy, and there’s a hell of a lot I don’t know about economics, foreign policy, or the inner workings of our government, but I get the feeling I could hold my own with any of the current Republican candidates in a debate, and there are a few I could run rings around.  That’s not right.  As a country, whatever our political party is, we should be nominating someone who’s a viable option for doing the job well.  Right now the Republicans have the unenviable task of nominating someone who just isn’t Obama.  And with this field, if Obama loses, we’re all in trouble.

*****

Current listening:

Spotlight Kid – Disaster Tourist (2011)

Flash Floods Don’t Retreat

I’m starting to think the phrase “mellowing out” is really just a euphemism for “not giving a shit anymore.”  When I was younger, the notion of mellowing out had a vaguely comforting feel to it – it implied a degree of wisdom, of reconciliation, of coming to terms with who you are and what you believe.  It was an unequivocally positive thing, connoting relaxation, contentment, and peace.  What I didn’t expect was that I might mellow out simply because I got so jaded and cynical that I couldn’t be bothered to care anymore.

This is what I’ve noticed happen to me in the realm of politics.  I spent most of 2000-2008 (specifically, the Bush years, for those who need it writ large) in various states of fury, occasionally bordering on apoplexy.  I followed political news closely, often subjecting myself to Fox News, just so I could keep tabs on, as I put it then, the enemy.  All I had to do was tune into one of Bush’s press conferences, or listen to the latest asinine ramblings by Cheney or Rumsfeld or Rove, and I’d be reduced to frothing, barking hysteria in about five seconds flat. There was a brief period where, as I watched then-Senator Obama start to carve out his commanding presence on the political landscape, I thought things were going to get better.  But then John McCain decided to foist Sarah Palin on the world (something for which none of us should ever forgive him), and I started gnashing my teeth again.

Within the last couple years, though, that’s all changed.  Mostly.  The stuff that used to bother me doesn’t even really show up on my radar in any significant way.  Take the recent news, for example.  Time was, I would have been furious about Donald Trump’s birther crap (and the thinly veiled racism it represents), or Newt Gingrich’s recent assertion that Obama is a “food-stamp president” (because in this economy we should totally attack programs that help people), or Ron Paul likening Social Security and Medicare to slavery.

And then there’s the whole non-controversy of rapper Common being invited to the White House – a non-controversy whose flames were predictably fanned by Fox News and other right-wing media, and which Jon Stewart thoroughly eviscerated in this clip:

There are, of course, more examples of right-wing buffoonery in the news today than I can shake a stick at, and all of it would have driven me to distraction not too long ago.

So what changed?

The truth of it is this: they plain wore me down.  I had hoped that the 2008 election would chasten the Republicans enough to bring about some sense of decorum and fair play, but it turns out they’re even more frantically repugnant when they’re out of power than when they’re in power.  From Day One of Obama’s presidency, the GOP (and the Tea Party, which, duh, are interchangeable, despite their claims to the contrary) have reminded me of the bad guys in an action movie car chase.  You know what I mean, where the cops are hurtling along after a huge truck driven by bank robbers or terrorists or car thieves, and the bad guys keep dumping things out of the back of the truck and into the path of the cop car – oil drums, tires, sheets of plywood, or, in the case of Robocop, another of the bad guys – and the cops have to keep swerving and dodging to avoid all these distractions until, usually, the criminals get away.

That’s the Obama-era Republican Party, and it started as soon as he took office.  Even though they had no substantive power in 2009 and most of 2010, the Republicans just kept flinging out distractions hand over fist in the hope that our fearful, short-sighted, easily-distracted electorate would take the bait.  Which they did.  Death panels, birth certificates, sexy accusations of socialism and Hitlerism – anything Obama did, the GOP countered with simple obstruction, and the more ridiculous the better.  I mean, did anyone with two brain cells to rub together really believe Sarah Palin’s claim that Michelle Obama wants to swipe our children’s cookies?  Of course not. But the media ran with it, contributing to the right-wing’s favorite meme, which is that Obama wants the government to control every facet of our lives.  And in the meantime, Obama’s very real accomplishments got overlooked in favor of the Republican Bullshit Story of the Week.™  Because, you know, the media is so liberal and stuff.

And in the end, itt just wore me out.  There are only so many hours in the day, and at some point I realized that I can’t spend them getting angry every time Sarah Palin opens her petty, hectoring, self-righteous trap.  This isn’t to say that I’m completely immune to political indignation.  As always, education is at the heart of everything I do, and I remain angry at Obama and Arne Duncan’s apparent extension – and expansion – of Bush-era policies, which will lead to more testing, more meaningless standards, and more vilification of teachers.  But when it comes to the minutiae, the stuff that’s going to be digested and spat out of the news cycle within a few days, I try not to get too worked up.

I’d be lying if I said this didn’t bother me.  Part of me knows that I need to stay agitated, that to some degree the Republicans are hoping for apathy, and that this war of distraction they’re waging is also a war of attrition.  In 2012, the GOP wins if the angry, old, and – yes – white voters that are now their base outnumber the rest of us.  If they can delegitimize the president and his policies by publicizing every conspiracy theory and Tea Party wet dream that comes sauntering across the transom (90% of Planned Parenthood’s business is abortion!), they win 2012 in a walk.  But it’s difficult to maintain a 24-hour-a-day condition of indignation, and I’m faltering.  Did falter.  Have faltered.

The fact that I’m writing this, though, makes me think I haven’t given up entirely.  At least I’d like to think I haven’t.  I was pleasantly surprised to recently find myself growling back at Andrew Breitbart when he was on Real Time With Bill Maher, and I have to admit to unmitigated glee anytime I think about any of the current GOP presidential hopefuls running against Obama next year.  And, like many of my brethren, I consider a Trump or Palin or Michele Bachmann presidential bid to be a gift from the comedy gods.

I want to care.  I really do. But too often I greet the news with a sigh and a roll of the eyes, and I know I don’t have the fire and the passion that I used to have.  When this happens, I can’t help but wonder whether this is a sign of growing older, or a sign that I’ve given up.

*****

Current listening:

R.E.M. – Out of Time (1991)

Last movie seen:

Thor (2011; Kenneth Branagh, dir.)