Politics wasn't something I talked about with my high school friends. It didn't come up on the basketball team. It didn't come up when going to see movies or play ping pong with my friends. It just wasn't a considering factor in my life. I vaguely remember the 2000 election, but didn't track it and didn't really care who won.
Politics wasn't a factor in where I went to college. I heard about Miami University being a "conservative school" but that didn't really matter much.
Politics didn't matter when I was deciding who to date in college. I didn't ask or care who my college girlfriend voted for in the previous election.
Politics didn't matter when I was deciding who to date in my first job out of college. It was more of a factor than in college, but even then it was still more of a curiosity than anything else.
Politics wasn't something something M and I discussed when deciding to move from Minnesota to Ohio. I knew that Ohio was a "swing state" that at the time of the move had gone +5% for Obama in 2008. At the time I probably wouldn't have wanted to move to an extremely red state, but really I doubt I would have wanted to move to an extremely blue state either.
Now it does matter. I wish it didn't. I wish I could go back to the time periods discussed before. I can't stand finding out about how Republican rigged elections in 2010 in Ohio. (Please read David Daley's account of that in this excellent book on gerrymandering.) I don't know if I will ever get over how Mitch McConnell just didn't even have a hearing on Merrick Garland, but was completely fine with rushing to confirm Amy Comey Barrett. I've read more about the electoral college and find it an absolutely insane way of electing a president. Things like voter suppression laws or not counting votes because signatures don't match are undemocratic. Trying to overturn the 2020 election both with violence and more importantly through actual votes (147 congressional Republicans voted to overturn the election). Holding a huge conservative conference in a country (Hungary) that somewhere between an actual democracy and an authoritarian rule is sad and worrisome. It is something that once you learn about is extremely hard to unlearn. There seems to be one side that extremely cruel (Adam Server's book the Cruelty is the Point is worth reading) and dedicated to operating in bad faith, with a distrust of American citizens and generally a warped sense of reality.
I haven't gotten into what's been the result of the above paragraph, but as I write this today I don't feel great about the future for my two daughters. I could go on and on (do we really think more guns will make things safer....really?) about the implications, but that's not really the points I am trying to make. The two main points are:
- Things aren't fair and not just in a "sometimes bad luck happens" kind of way. They aren't fair because of deliberative actions that are overwhelmingly done by one politcal party. It's hard to have a functioning democracy when only one 1 of the 2 political parties cares.
- I really wish politics didn't matter as much. This should be a boring conversation about top marginal tax rates and zoning. Heck I would even take the old conversations about who was "better to get a beer with" in regards to presidential candidates. I used to somewhat enjoy debating politics with people. Now it's just an echo chamber from people that agree with me or people who believe that climate change is just a hoax by George Soros and the Chinese government.
Anyway, it makes me frustrated / upset / worried to live in a country where politics seems to matter this much. I could add more to that, especially after the recent decisions from the Supreme Court, but in the interest of time I am going to leave this be for a little bit.
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