We Can’t Avoid Politics Just Because It’s Distasteful

Power acts on you whether or not you act on it.

Photo by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash

Please read this if you think politics is ‘gross’ and you’d rather have nothing to do with it.

It’s understandable to feel that way. The smooth-talking hypocrisy, simplified soundbites, hurling of insults — we’d prefer to avoid that in our lives.

Each new scandal hidden behind a wholesome facade further erodes our trust.

And how many times have we gotten our hopes up that improvement was on the way, only to have them dashed by the most ridiculous of stumbling blocks? <Cough. Manchin. Cough.>

The thing is, governments exist. They interact with you and you interact with them in a million ways. They pass laws and impose punishments that affect your behavior. They shape the rules that determine how corporations treat you. And how other individuals treat you.

You are interacting with the government whether you want to or not. The question is if you want the power to flow in only one direction — it acting on you.

Power has been distributed in a variety of ways.

Through the ages, government has taken different forms. Pre-agrarian tribes formed self-organized structures with strong mechanisms to prevent the accumulation of power, as Elle Beau ❇︎ often explores in her writing. Individuals were in constant negotiation between their personal desires and what was needed to stay in the good graces of their peers.

Then the monarchies came in. Kings inherited their power, and with God’s convenient approval, they did as they pleased. A king ruled according to his whims, declared wars to feed his ego, and hoarded resources. Their subjects didn’t always like it, but the idea of speaking up was laughable. Monarchs used their forces to keep everyone in check. You kept your head down and stayed out of trouble.

Representative democracies were an innovation of the 18th century (though the idea had been knocking around for longer )— a pushback against the excesses of unaccountable kings and aristocrats. What if we actually cared about the interests of the governed? What if everyone had (in theory) an equal say? The idea was revolutionary at the time.

Which leads us to what we have today. Popularity drives politicians’ every action.

Everyone is jockeying for your vote, and that sometimes leads to perverse incentives. Outrageous spending on ads, smearing your opponent, and outright lying are ways to game the system.

And amid all of that, some still manage to go the honest route, and strive to pass good policies that people like and want to see more of. That’s the way we’d prefer to have people win the system.

This is still the best system we’ve had.

The crux of the matter is: politicians trying to win your vote in annoying or sleazy ways is still a sign that the power lies with you.

Under a king, you wouldn’t get a million texts from candidates asking for your support. Because your support would be irrelevant. Is that better?

The worst elements of our political system would love to see you sitting on the sidelines, convinced that politics is too big to influence, or too unpleasant to think about. They’d love to have you wait for the mythical perfect candidate whose views are aligned with yours in every way.

Meanwhile, they pull stunts like filling the Supreme Court with unaccountable zealots, eliminating women’s rights, and arming everyone to the teeth. Those politics will worm their way into your life, whether you want them there or not.

The great innovation of democracy was to create a system of tension between the average person and the powerful, where we believe in the legitimacy of government because we were the ones who elected it, and government officials do their jobs because they know they work for us. But democracy at all only works if we pull the lever that was handed to us.

And if it seems like a mess now, that means we need to pull together, now more than ever.

Author’s notes:

• If you’re looking for something to do, here are some suggestions. If you’re in the US, the upcoming midterm is going to be pivotal. I’d recommend signing up for email lists like Indivisible, or any similar group that connects you to campaigns for Democratic candidates. And Planned Parenthood needs our help, now more than ever.
• Intersecting with my usual climate change perspective, League of Conservation Voters, Green New Deal Network, 350.org, Climate Hawks Vote, and 314 Action are pretty great. Donating is good if you can swing it, but even signing up for the emails (of even one of them) gets you a good way along. I have found these particular organizations’ emails informative and infrequent.