On politics.
I was listening to On Point this morning, and as usual these days the topic was politics. Some fellow in Somerville called in to talk about how he had been undecided, but that a speech by Obama that he'd heard this weekend was so powerful it made him cry. As a result, he's decided that what the country really needs is a great leader, and Obama is
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You're doing it wrong. Politics benefits three groups, none of which you include you: the politicians themselves, leaders of politically influential organizations, and idiots. The first is self-explanatory. If you don't want to run for political office, you can still ensconce yourself in the lowest, almost apolitical positions available. Alternatively, you can work for the campaign of a candidate whose goals you more or less support. This is difficult to do while you have a job, but that's the case with anything in politics; that's why polling stations are always manned by shambling hordes of the undead.
Mapping politics onto marketing, the second group is the client or customer in the relationship. No one cares about your vote. That is, no one is going to campaign on the platform of making the world a better place for lionofgod. Politicians do care about the votes of your demographic. The point of joining a politically active and influential organization (and here I'm thinking of something like a union of $foo workers or the Christian Coalition, rather than a partisan think tank) is that you're part of a bundle of prepackaged votes waiting for politicans to grab. You have power; polticians have to pander to your organization, whose goals presumably overlap significantly with yours, in order to get elected. Even for something like the Christian Coalition that reliably votes for a particular party, there are still primaries and local elections to consider.
The only other choice is the third group: idiots. Idiots can happily watch a thirty-second commercial for a candidate or some speech filled with patently ridiculous and transparent rhetoric and be interested and influenced. The country is divided into Republicans, Democrats, and independents. I don't know what the exact sizes (or definitions) of the three groups are, so let's assume for the sake argument that each makes up 1/3 of the electorate. If you're a serious Presidential candidate, you're either a Republican or Democrat. Congratulations; you have a third of the vote locked up for you and a third locked up against. So has your opponent. Independents decide every election, at least at the presidential level. As for why they don't vote consistently with either party, it's possibly because they:
- Don't feel that they agree enough with one particular party to officially join them or consistently support them.
- Can't support either major party candidate in good conscience.
- Are stupid hippies who don't understand how voting works in a two-party system and would rather indirectly support the opponent of the fellow who recently won a Nobel Peace Prize for his global warming activism.
- Just haven't bothered and only vote sporadically anyway.
- Are sufficiently disillusioned with the system that they're not interested in voting at all unless they come across a candidate who especially appeals to them emotionally.
- Are single-issue voters, and the sides of that issue don't map perfectly to the two parties.
- Are fucktards who are influenced by things like Hillary Clinton's looking as though she were about to cry in New Hampshire.
And so on. I assume you vote regularly, and would do so regardless of how much you liked the particular candidates. A significant section of independents don't; a lot of time and money and effort is spent exhorting them to vote. You don't receive any of that time or money or effort.The point of all this is that unless you plan on running for office yourself or becoming a full-time political apparatchik, you only have two options for influencing the political process: You can either join an organization and basically face the same situation (electing a leader, deciding on a platform and goals, determining whom to endorse), just with a slightly smaller group of idiots; or you can have your vote swamped by the masses of fucktards. In short, if you want more influence in the political process but aren't an idiot, you're going to have to become more politically active beyond just duly showing up on Election Day.
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Some fellow in Somerville called in to talk about how he had been undecided, but that a speech by Obama that he'd heard this weekend was so powerful it made him cry.
I certainly agree that Obama is an excellent speaker, but...really? A political speech made him cry? What the fucking hell is wrong with people?
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A political speech made him cry? What the fucking hell is wrong with people?
Ha! Neither of you are cynical enough. If you want to get quoted on the radio, you have to say something outrageous! Was that guy really undecided?
To be honest, the main reasons I'm voting for Obama are because he always knew the Iraq war was a bad plan (like me) and because he represents academics from the South Side of Chicago (like me). I am so tired of seeing anti-American protests every time I go to Hyde Park (London) on the weekend.
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That's the first time I've ever been told I'm not cynical enough.
If you want to get quoted on the radio, you have to say something outrageous! Was that guy really undecided?
I would be suspicious if it were for a reality show or something like the Tonight Show's Jaywalking segment, but who wants to be on NPR that badly?
To be honest, the main reasons I'm voting for Obama are because he always knew the Iraq war was a bad plan (like me) and because he represents academics from the South Side of Chicago (like me).
German chancellor Angela Merkel has a doctorate in chemistry, wrote her thesis on quantum chemistry (not that there's really any other kind of chemistry), and has published about a dozen papers in the subject, including at least five in which she's the primary author. Academics don't seem to enter American politics, at least in elected positions; the career paths for that are almost exclusively law, Sloanieism, or the military, with a couple of random medical doctors randomly thrown in. Obama certainly has an impressive academic resume, and none of the other candidates even come close; but I wouldn't classify law as quite the same sort of academic field as immunology, and certainly not the same sort of thing as mathematics.
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