When your favorite football team wins the superbowl, that's a pretty good time to run around, celebrating and shouting the name of your team at the top of your lungs, maybe pumping your chest a few times. When your favored political candidate wins the presidential election, that's an awful time to run around, shouting the name of your political candidate at the top of your lungs, and maybe pumping your chest a few times. Why? Because politics, unlike football, is about ideas. You can bet that there was no running around and screaming "Washington! Washington!" after the first presidential election was announced. Elections are not a game, and the consequences thereof are much more significant than a fancy ring and fancier endorsements. When you have the equivalent of a tail-gating party before an election (the huge party for Obama was said to be like a carnival atmosphere) and primal cheering afterwards, you know something is wrong with how the electorate views politics.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Post-election Madness
This is not a political blog. While I have definite views on many things politics, I don't find political discussion very interesting. So this post has nothing to do with political parties, candidates, ideas, or anything like that. It has a lot to do with the way politics is viewed, however.
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7 comments:
Here, here. My coworkers cannot understand why I have no interest in "watching" the election - but why would I? The Superbowl involves action and struggle that is exciting, but the struggle in an election takes place continually all year through the circulation of ideas in our culture, not in 12 hours at polling booths. Besides, ballots are secret so we're not even watching the electoral process, we're watching a stream of ill-informed speculation and maps with pretty colors. What for?
I disagree and, as a Harvard-educated lawyer, I think your ideas are very narrow-minded. While most consider my political views to be quite conservative (in its modern definition), I understand the "carnival-like atmosphere" found at the party celebrating Barack Obama's win. People who spent the past eight years enraged at their government finally felt hope towards a better tomorrow after losing significant tax dollars towards a war they didn't support and losing their jobs due to an economic situation that rivals that of the Great Depression...so why do you suggest that this doesn't allow for cheering? I think you need to take a few steps in other people's shoes, young man, and stop thinking exclusively about your own opinion.
I agree with the previous poster. You compared our post-election behavior to those of football fans celebrating the win of their favorite team? Maybe that's how it should be. I can only hope that people would get as excited about elections as they do about football. While this type of reaction to an election isn't something we're used to, I think it is a favorable display by the young voters of the country. This isn't something we've ever seen before, but to see that much excitement, that much fervor, isn't it a good thing?
I too, must say, that I find your ideas to be increasingly narrow as your writing progresses. We should be celebrating the fact that the electorate is excited enough about politics to hold such celebrations. The real tragedy is when the public cares so little that they would rather celebrate the Super Bowl than a new president.
I love the analogy between politics and football. The more I think about it, the more fascinating the comparison becomes. First, football has everything to do with politics. They're both about ideas, like everything in our world and every cultural phenomenon. Political science is the study of how power is allocated, just like how economics is the study of how resources are allocated. Oddly enough, football, which represents ideas of power and competition, is remarkably similar to politics.
Second, it's funny that critics have been talking about the "mindless" popular excitement over Obama, when mass movements and riotous excitement is all that has ever characterized political change, from the French Revolution to Vietnam anti-war movement. It's great that we can begin to define today's younger generation with activism rather than apathy. In addition, just because a movement isn't just for stuffy, erudite intellectuals, it doesn't mean it isn't worth anything. And Obama himself is exactly the type of open-minded intellectual that has been missing from American politics. His election means the return of intellectualism, thoughtful policy, and inspiring rhetoric. Now that's something to rally in excitement over.
Yeah what they said. You stink!
Snineillirl
Bw5f
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