Bread, Circuses, Politics
An observation of the different personalities during the 2024 American election
This is not directed at any one party, but an attempt at coalescing the mindsets of attitudes I hear on the street and read on the wider web. This piece was written back in August 2024. Anything that has transpired, election-wise, after the writing of this piece, is posthumous.
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There are real dangers afoot in our world. Bogeymen threaten us in every shadow and corner of the mind, meant to steal the breath from our lungs in tightened panic, disrupt the peace of our hearts, and create a sense of disorder that can only be calmed by voting for a particular bloc or specific candidate and set of policies that aligns with chosen values particular to us and our specific interests—other people, perspectives, and populations be damned.
There has been a great deal of hand-wringing, sighing, and fretting over current events. Events that make us shiver, drawing our coats and scarves tighter against our chests and breasts, shaking our heads in quiet disbelief and astonishment that that neighbor believes this hairbrained idea about my candidate. The sheer nerve. Why, I cannot understand that person ever again; they must be shunned; or perhaps, we have already shunned them, after four years of silently shaking our heads in our own tut-tut-tut kind of way; that we could not be less like them.
We cling to the sane party; those others like ourselves, who really see the truth and know us better than they know anyone else; we could not be like them. They’re all wrong, crazy, on the wrong side—voting for that person who’s beliefs are so antithetical to our own, we could have nothing in common with them. And thus, we must shun them. Snicker and twitter to our friends who believe as we do, that we’re all the sane ones. How could those people vote for him/her? Don’t they realize the future of our culture, democracy, government, etc., hangs by a shredding thread? Have they no decency for all that is good and right, according to our morals?
Where once we might have smiled and waved (perhaps not, the East Coast isn’t always the friendliest part of the Union, despite their airs) at the man walking the dog down the street, or the lady who leaves her house at the same time we do each morning to drop her children off at school—in our hearts we see them, arrows and daggers turning a little deeper as the anger churns a brighter red than it did before.
We wonder, or perhaps we don’t, at how once we might have had coffee together, and a laugh over so-and-so constantly mowing his tiny patch of lawn three times a week to maintain strict regulation length grass, according to the HOA regulations we both internally think are petty. We marvel at the changes that have taken place (or don’t) in ourselves over these last four, eight, 12, 16 years that have transpired from leader to leader, a quiet dread growing as we contemplate the fate that befalls all of us, as one demon vs another vies for power. That person cannot be entrusted with power. Fifty percent of the country is deeply mistaken. They’re all mindless fools, and we cannot understand how those who do not think as we do can come to the conclusions they have. They must be mentally unstable and are the most untrustworthy sort. We contemplate all the fears we have for the Republic or Democracy, that it is lost unless we can save it with the right candidate. The imagined conversations, the self-satisfied way in knowing that we are right and they are not, as we engage in the fantasy of whatever justification for violence or smug approval of some wrong that has befallen that other party, vindicated that they deserved whatever calamity has befallen them, because they brought it on themselves, don’t they know.
We cannot agree, we do not understand, how they could be so wrong-minded. We engage in diatribes quietly to our spouses, best friends, or drinking buddies, in cloistered places or public ones loudly, so that we might be heard, for it feels good to be heard by someone. Maybe we want to be heard as we are gunning for a fight and simply wish for an avatar to expel our frustrations, our violence, our anxieties onto, the valve release to the tension that never really leaves us alone. Perhaps we enjoy the attention and exhibitionism of a performance. Perhaps, we do not care about the peace of others being disturbed as our feelings take precedence over everyone else’s. Though perhaps, we don’t always (or refuse to) acknowledge the uncomfortable stares and quiet silences of the people carefully observing or pretending not to notice our outbursts who stand around on the sidelines. We believe and assume their silence is agreement, rather than the unsuspecting notion that it is self-preservation.
We cannot see that we have become the enemy, capitalizing on pithy quotes from “1984”, “Brave New World”, “Animal Farm” and the like, that the totalitarianism or authoritarianism is only on the other side. We display it proudly on bumper stickers and yard signs, assuming that others who also display them are our secret compatriots, and we feel a smug sense of camaraderie and superiority in the comfort of our position. Perhaps, we fail to see the poison in our own hearts. “That’s not me” we think; we are not like them. We truly understand the use of language to bare down and call people for what they really are, failing to see that we have become the thing we hate that we accuse them of being, if only to say that we have won the battle at the cost of our integrity, self-respect, or values.
Or perhaps, we are the sort, looking out on the field of players, befuddled, frustrated, or resigned grimly, to the reality that we like none of our choices, and the people on the polar extremes, or the party we once belonged to, has left us behind. The sheer insanity of one side or another, and we are left in a sticky predicament, with one candidate as repugnant to us as the other, for massively different reasons than can be summed up in 30 seconds or 140 characters. Nuance cannot be communicated effectively to people who are determined to convert you to their religion and view your defection as a betrayal to the ideas you may have once shared with similar bedfellows. For now, you find yourself in the strange position of encampment with someone from the other side, whom once you viewed as enemy, and now understand as likely a disaffected ally as you once viewed as completely unrelatable. You grimly sit on the fence, leaning toward one person, even a third party candidate, and contemplate whom and how many are going to disown you should they discover your secret musings to a candidate you once despised but feel cornered into voting for. You wonder if you shall flip on a dime at the last minute, because the choice is so odious.
Quietly, you may be the sort who sits back and hasn’t quite made up your mind, more observing and waiting to see where the chips fall. You have your leanings, but take a back seat at the others who rend their garments and gnash their teeth in outraged fury, more than a little frightened and unsettled by the emotional changes in those around you who seem to have lost a piece of themselves and their minds in the wave after wave of news about the latest development making the rounds of whatever cable network or social media site you and they follow.
Or, you shake your head as things begin to devolve into chaos, wondering if you were always this blind and naïve to the ferocity and viciousness, saddened at the loss of innocence, unable to take back the blindfold.
You watch the landscape of reactions: pundits, the commentariat, friends, strangers, coworkers, family members. A cycle of events seemingly tailored to wring the last ounce of indignation, contempt, and scorn for each reported slight, meant to strike you in the heart where most it hurts, for those people could not be your friend—only the enemy, so vastly different from yourself. You wonder if you are the last sane person.
The hyperbole of the polar sides strikes you as oddly ironic, in that neither seems to be aware of their ability to stir their own into manic frenzy, don’t recognize the manipulation of one group versus another to be two different sides of the same coin. You wonder at the emperors’ not wearing any clothes, at the effort to say both emperors are equally distasteful, their advisors and viziers, the coteries of sycophants who slaver and salivate and insist that yes, they are wearing the latest fashion, you dunce. You are disturbed by the insistence of those promulgating apocalyptic auguries, even more so than before, but especially by the religious zeal with which they press you with, that you must hear the truth of their subjective belief in the reality that the world is ending unless we do something now. The bombastic language unsettles you further, and it is a wonder they cannot hear the fear they try to infect you with, insist on the logic of their view, fail at seeing the fallacies in their own thinking that is the Achilles heel in both groups. You cannot escape the signs in the front yards or the inane slogans on the backs of cars, quietly amused at the co-opting by both sides of the same quotes who insist that Orwell was really speaking about the other team; it could not possibly be theirs. Their people, their tribe, could never be guilty of the evils of the other side, so purely wrapped in the belief of messianic salvation for their positions.
Si non nobiscum versus nos.
You wish to go back to a different time, or in your case, to be blissfully ignorant and unaware, like others who exist, allegedly, focused on their work, their children, their lives outside of the cycles. You choose to step away, and fight the urge of others who wish to loop you into their despair, indignation, and choose inappropriate times (such as working hours) to vent about people and events that in your heart, you know you have no control over. Politicians and celebrities who exist in worlds and social circles where you cannot even begin to comprehend the structures of their inner workings, let alone imagine ever finding yourself in. Such-and-such event transpired, so-and-so said this, the audacity of that individual. You find yourself desiring more banal conversation, for the emotional charge of the person’s lit fuse, and your staunch stance to try and stay as emotionally unattached to the situation, threatens to incinerate you in the heat of their emotional tirade, regardless of what side it is. Efforts to express the inappropriateness of expressing such volatility in the confines and social strictures of the place fall on deaf ears.
“I feel better venting” they snap and retort, “I have a right to my feelings”.
Sure.
The conjunction hangs there: but.
But, so do we all. The other person’s feelings, so intensely felt, must be given to someone else. But why does that person have to be you, at this time, when there is a project or paper due?
For our feelings of discomfort at being drawn in are lesser in importance than their need to explode. Never mind how it makes you feel; you are responsible for cleaning up the emotional mess that now churns within, with little remorse or recognition that their venting or frustration was not welcome and has disturbed your inner equilibrium. You wonder if you’re a doormat, didn’t make your feelings heard loudly enough, or perhaps, more painfully to acknowledge, they don’t care—you are simply a means to an end for them to expel volcanic ash and lava onto.
But we can no longer express our true feelings, for when we push back, we are dismissed to the violent possession of the demon of the other person’s rage, unhappiness, despair. They simply wish to be heard and validated, a fair point. But at the cost of your peace— or your indecision about which side to go, or even if you agree with voting for the same person—the peace of mind you needed to concentrate and focus in this moment on the task to be completed.
You would like to voice your disagreement, or be heard that this is neither the time nor place, but the outburst takes precedent, and our only option is to leave for some amount of time until the other has cooled down enough to leave us alone until the next eruption. And we dread the next outburst, which will come with the next outrage and outpouring of anger over a candidate who doesn’t know we exist, or event, that even if we had had predetermined knowledge of its outcome, very likely would have had little to no power to prevent its occurrence.
The continued lack of civility, the abandonment of mores and social appropriateness seems to have all but vanished. You do your best to avoid but the tension is difficult to ignore as everyone seems on edge. Or maybe it is just you, in your own mind, hyperaware and given over to the imaginary audience you think is suddenly mind-reading all your interior movements and beliefs, concerned you will be found out. Or not.
For others, we feel an island to ourselves, navigating the waters of people’s uncertainty or tumultuous feelings, and wonder if we have gone truly crazy. Perhaps, we have stopped being the sane ones. Should we not too, feel the same intense internal disruption they seem to display on a daily, even moment-to-moment basis?
Perhaps, we need the adjustment, not the other way around, and feel further alienated from those around us all reacting and knee-jerking with the political version of rubber-necking at a terrible accident that has just transpired.
Perhaps we are the ones who are broken, so weary or battle-worn by decades of political back-and-forth, that almost nothing surprises us anymore. Perhaps, that we take it on the chin in stride, invest as much as is emotionally appropriate so as not to derail us from the day-to-day of caring for our families, children, spouses, homes, bills, and jobs, makes us the unadjusted ones. We allow ourselves shreds of normalcy outside of the hype-man; we watch the game, play with the dog, take a walk around the block, get our groceries. Get on with our lives while others either melt down or live in a depressed state of resigned defeat; we pay them a moment of pity, but dwell not on it otherwise.
There are children to feed who demand our attention and love, and we give it to them, in their simple way, for it is a welcome respite against the storm clouds you turn your back to. You hug your husband, wife, partner. Have meals and beers together, get together for game nights, pull weeds from the garden, clean out the garage, take your car in for an inspection or detailing. There are gutters to be cleaned, trash to be taken out, the end of the week and other bits of life to look forward to—as constant as the seasons. The politics bother you, but there is life to be getting on, you dull yourself to the sensitivities of the panic, anxiety, and worry your neighbors and friends obsess and fret over. There will be other indignities to be upset about; the world has changed, and there will always be a calamity somewhere, happening to someone. These things we accept as outside our control. And we wonder a little less at the latest scandal.
Perhaps, perhaps.
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