My view on the problem with politics today is that people have started to view it as sport, not selecting competent people to represent you for law making. I call it Political Face Painting. Like the guy who paints his face the colors of his favorite team when s/he goes to the game. That's cool, if you want to paint your face to go to a ball game, drink beer and scream your head off, great, no problem. But it seems like that mentality has crept into politics where you now have people paint their face red or blue and view it as a competition between parties. That will not end well in my view.
There is no "selection process." The only people eligible to participate in federal "democracy" are already rich, powerful, and well-connected. The voters then "choose," in primaries and elections, based mostly on who has the best marketing, which is again a function of wealth and power. Occasionally participants in this process will throw ordinary citizens a bone as part of the marketing, but even these gestures are largely emaciated and performative. There's not some solemn exercise of civic duty going on.
2,000 years ago people born into wealth and power fought amongst each other for leadership and control while the population simply learned to live with the results. The only thing that has changed since is that the process has been optimized: less bloodshed, less constant dramatic upheaval, the hills and valleys leveled a bit. This benefits everyone, including those on top. But let's not pretend we're engaged in some grand experiment for the betterment of mankind. We're living in a plutocracy. Always have, always will.
> 2,000 years ago people born into wealth and power fought amongst each other for leadership and control while the population simply learned to live with the results.
2,000 years ago even the plebeians had the right to vote.
>2,000 years ago even the plebeians had the right to vote
2,000 years ago they voted in meaningless elections while the emperor was nondemocratic. And before that when the elections weren't meaningless, the plebians of Rome could vote while anyone outside if Rome was barred.
The idea that politics is a function of wealth, power, and marketing is cheap cynicism.
Also, the idea that being rich is bad pervades your post. I see this idea expressed more and more commonly. The truth is that, unlike you, the populace doesn't view politics as class warfare. Middle class American does not feel that only a middle class politician can represent them. As far as I'm concerned, this is a good thing.
> Middle class American does not feel that only a middle class politician can represent them
I've been hearing about the destruction of the middle class from middle class Americans since the Clinton era. In many ways, they were right, as I can look at some of those same people 30 years later and see how housing and medical debt, wage stagnation and the restructuring of the economy post-2008 have put those once middle class Americans into the lower class.
Are middle class Americans given a choice between being represented by people from their social and economic strata, versus representation from upper classes? Most middle class Americans have to work, they don't have the time, money or connections for effective political campaigns, especially at the national level.
Clinton and Obama were both middle class presidents.
You're adopting this class warfare perspective and it's simply not how normal people look at things. To a man on the street, being rich is not bad, it doesn't mark one as an exploiter. Normal people have also not accepted this theory, oh-so-common on internet message boards, that rich people are responsible for everything bad.
> The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
The problem with politics today is how they are covered. Nobody wants to watch how sausage is made, but they will watch the sausage factory burning down. All you hear about is conflict and partisanship, but if you look at polls you see that the vast majority of the country holds beliefs firmly in the middle of the political spectrum, most people are reasonable, and will not run over your BLM or MAGA lawn sign. Unfortunately that doesn’t make for good entertainment, so we are being forced to only see and talk about the extremely partisan positions and actions on both sides.
Matt Taibbi (and others) compare it to Pro Wrestling. Which is actually kind of a cool thing, and gets dumped on way too unfairly in general as an art form. But as a model for politics, oh god, please, no. The guy with the nuclear launch codes should not be the best entertainer.
> Matt Taibbi (and others) compare it to Pro Wrestling.
Kayfabe. And yeah, Hate Inc, was such a good book, I listened to it 3 times in 2 years and it's scary how closely this resembles most of the political theater that takes place around the World.
It's not just the US, though its the most visible, it's a systemic issue that is ultimately incredibly effective: it's the same formula that reality TV used but on steroids and for much higher stakes and with mentally sick participants (sociopaths willing to do anything for power and control).
As a long time channer, 4 and then 8 before things got incredibly violent, I highly recommend the Q: Into the Storm to see exactly what 'type of people' buy into these types of conspiracies.
Like most of the BS that went on chans, larping was always for the lulz, so whether it was John Titor, or the Time Traveler who predicted Bitcoin would destroy the Earth it's there for entertainment purposes to fill the void between the boring parts of life (think: something to read while waiting for a bus or taking an uber).
Instead it was taken seriously by a cohort of the population who were entirely destroyed economically and disenfranchised since the Reagan era in the US (and abroad) and it shows the perils of how basic the current Human Condition is when a pervasive narrative that suits your desired reality eventually becomes your entire reality.
It also underscores the reasons why Social Media is and has been a major source for anxiety, depression and suicide: the Human mind is just not optimized for that much input, so when coupled with low intellect, wide-spread loneliness and a need to feel accepted at all costs due to a loss of community it's not hard to see how this all turns out.
Cullen Hoback was recently on Joe Rogan and it was super insightful to hear his views on the entire thing (seeing Hotwheels' drama was utter insanity as I checkedout entirely from channing after the mass shootings) after watching it in utter disbelief when this documentary came out detailing how this whole thing took place and who was involved.
There's some real value to this. I think a lot of folks on the left failed to understand that Trump is a heel, and were caught completely off-guard that every single scandal ("grab 'em by the pussy!") not only flopped, but energized his base. To this day, a lot of press seems focused on "orange man bad" without any recognition that they're supporting his political standing.
Can you explain why people would want a heel to make decisions about their lives and freedoms? I assume you’re implying that heels gain popularity through drawing emotion, but likely has an inverse correlation to being a good leader? Heels are self-obsessed generally, right?
Because the heel hurts "the other" - marginalized people - more than the average person who voted them in. They're willing to suffer a little, as long as the right people suffer _a lot_.
I'm not inclined to characterize people with radically different political views from mine... but I'd encourage you to read what Trump supporters say that they like about him and dislike about other leaders, and to take it with a lump of salt because you'll be reading the writing of his most fervent supporters and not his "median supporter." Also, I'd encourage you to read what the Trump-supporting press writes about him, and what they write about other leaders, because that's what the "median supporter" is probably consuming.
Also, something weird has happened in the wrestling world. Once upon a time, heels were booed, and faces were applauded. Today... heels are increasingly popular and faces are getting boos. I can't explain this.
>My view on the problem with politics today is that people have started to view it as sport
The average person is simply unable to evaluate competence, especially from news clips and "debates". The median voter is not a highly competitive white collar knowledge worker with a background in STEM necessary to evaluate complex topics with objectivity. Instead its the fry cook, the retail worker, the warehouse stocker, blue collar tradesman, liberal arts graduate, etc.
What really happened was that the pool of politically active citizens expanded, and now because of the shape of the normal distribution we are dealing with a sort of political endless summer - which media in particular are all too eager to take advantage of for political power.
> The median voter is not a highly competitive white collar knowledge worker with a background in STEM necessary to evaluate complex topics with objectivity
I'm more scared about highly competitive knowledge people with STEM degrees making political decisions. They might be naive enough to think they can engineer society to fit their whims with no unintended consequences.
Isn't that exactly what we have now, only people with less education? I don't think being a Lawyer, CEO, or Activist is any different when it comes to unintended consequences. I just look around and have to shake my head because the US Government is not comprised of the best people we have. They're all wealthy actors and most if not all get little to nothing accomplished except lining their own pockets.
It’s really not about STEM vs cook. Voters are stuck compressing a huge range of choices into a single vote which creates horrific incentives for politicians. You can piss off huge swaths of the population as long as you can just squeeze through enough voters it doesn’t matter. Toss in a little inequality in how much each vote counts and things get much much worse.
Consider what would happen if rather than voting for your favorite you subtracted points from the candidate you dislike the most. It’s not better but suddenly everyone wants to be an inoffensive centrist. Which just shows how much incentives influence the system.
> Consider what would happen if rather than voting for your favorite you subtracted points from the candidate you disliked the most.
Would that work? If there are only two candidates, then it’s equivalent to casting the inverse votes for. If there’s three candidates, and one is literally horrid, then would people give all of their negative votes to the horrid candidate in fear of destruction and leave very few votes to differentiate the top two? Or, would voters cast all negative votes for one of the top two and hope enough _other people_ downvote the horrible candidate?
Sorry, I know your comment wasn’t meant to be serious, but it’s an interesting thought experiment.
> The average person is simply unable to evaluate competence, especially from news clips and "debates". The median voter is not a highly competitive white collar knowledge worker with a background in STEM necessary to evaluate complex topics with objectivity. Instead its the fry cook, the retail worker, the warehouse stocker, blue collar tradesman, liberal arts graduate, etc.
The tradesmen likely know more about the logistical structure of a functioning society than most STEM employees, who too often live in ivory towers.
The restaurant staff often know more about human nature and behavior than the Psychiatrist who’s been trained to see all our flaws as chemical imbalances to be fixed.
Comments like yours are increasing the divide in this country, and are deeply problematic.
I agree with your point, but disagree with your point about psychiatrists. The ones I know are the first to tell you that the field of psychiatry is young, what we know about psychiatry is miniscule compared to what we don't know, and that reduction of behavior or disease to "chemical imbalances" is the result of simplistic marketing campaigns by drug manufacturers.
The issue is that people come to psychiatrists seeking help and, at the moment, the majority of tools in their toolbox to help their patients are the drugs derived from our study of the role of neurotransmitters in the brain. Giving medication that changes the levels of those chemicals to patients who are suffering is all that modern medicine can offer them outside of therapy and electromagnetic stimulation of the brain or nerves.
