TM Prompt 252: Innuendo
Politics is innuendo, for better or worse (usually worse).
There are less than three weeks to go until the election. It's a nervous period, the time when politicians and their supporters realize that jobs and ideals are truly on the line. When people are nervous, they are rarely inclined to quote the latest economic reports, the most in-depth scientific studies, and the public is rarely inclined to listen.
Much as we would love to think that we vote with our heads, most of us vote with our guts. Who is this guy? Is he like me? Does he make me feel nervous? Suspicious? Friendly? Would I invite him over to dinner with my family? Would I buy him a beer?
Intelligent, hard-working men and women from all parties and walks of life are suddenly reduced to stereotypes on the page. There's been a tendency lately to define opponents as "unAmerican". Etymologically, it's a little hard to define. But semantically? Oh, of course we all know the meaning: Black. Hispanic. Asian. Muslim. Jew. Homosexual. Mutant.
One might think that a loss is a loss, that the reasons behind it hardly matter. If I lose this election, I will be out of a job, and trying to reflect on the reasons why might seem pointless. Perhaps I have, through my own actions, made this race more about personalities than about issues. But let me be voted in or out based on who I am, not what I am, on what I believe and what I have done, rather than on what others say I believe or have done.
And don't let it be because I'm "unAmerican", whatever that might mean to you.
There are less than three weeks to go until the election. It's a nervous period, the time when politicians and their supporters realize that jobs and ideals are truly on the line. When people are nervous, they are rarely inclined to quote the latest economic reports, the most in-depth scientific studies, and the public is rarely inclined to listen.
Much as we would love to think that we vote with our heads, most of us vote with our guts. Who is this guy? Is he like me? Does he make me feel nervous? Suspicious? Friendly? Would I invite him over to dinner with my family? Would I buy him a beer?
Intelligent, hard-working men and women from all parties and walks of life are suddenly reduced to stereotypes on the page. There's been a tendency lately to define opponents as "unAmerican". Etymologically, it's a little hard to define. But semantically? Oh, of course we all know the meaning: Black. Hispanic. Asian. Muslim. Jew. Homosexual. Mutant.
One might think that a loss is a loss, that the reasons behind it hardly matter. If I lose this election, I will be out of a job, and trying to reflect on the reasons why might seem pointless. Perhaps I have, through my own actions, made this race more about personalities than about issues. But let me be voted in or out based on who I am, not what I am, on what I believe and what I have done, rather than on what others say I believe or have done.
And don't let it be because I'm "unAmerican", whatever that might mean to you.