On the first Tuesday of November, 2016 I was frustrated. I was certain voting mid-day would encounter the briefest lines, but my schedule and hideous DC traffic were not cooperating. Four years earlier, getting to the polls at 2:00 pm, I felt fortunate only having to wait about 35 minutes to help re-elect Obama, but it was going to be rush hour this time around. Arriving at Kilmer Junior High I was surprised to find a relatively desolate parking lot, which encouraged me to check if I missed a sign directing me to another area of the campus. Heading inside it was just me and several partisans from both the GOP and Democrats handing out sample ballots. I was confused enough to seek confirmation that in fact polling had not ended earlier than I assumed.
When I entered the voting area I was stunned. It was me and the volunteers… that’s it. I asked the lovely woman checking my ID what the hell happened to the crowds; she smiled and said “it’s been very quiet all day.” As I processed the opposite of what I expected, the ramifications began to surface. When I got home, I was perplexed enough that my wife Susan asked me what was wrong…. we may be f****d was all I could muster. The rest is sad history.
At some level, to some degree, no matter how far the process is set to autopilot, democracy is about personal responsibility. If the binary choice is rule by an authoritarian’s decree – or a fool’s tweets – or some form of collective consensus, no other conclusion is possible. Those in America, Britain or Israel who choose to ignore the basis of the latter are simply advocating for the former… that simple. Either participate and accept responsibility for the result or let it die and suffer the whims of arbitrary chaos.
In America things have been taken for granted so long, constant and guilt-ridden perfunctory plaudits to a volunteer military aside, it’s fair to ask if fully disregarding one’s responsibility to civic routines is the norm or aberration. Certainly the numbers aren’t very hopeful in that regard, particularly those clarifying the newest generation of participants. Of all the age groups, 18-29 year olds exercise their most basic right the least. Less than half voted in 2016, surely influencing a result that hinged on a percentile in several states thought before the election to be foregone conclusions. Had our youth turned out in mass, would we be suffering Trump today? Not likely.
Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone is perhaps the best writer in America when it comes to establishing the equilibrium one requires to address the Trump era. Somewhere between crying Hitler and tuning news out completely in favor of compulsive selfies of friends and family is a sweet spot we’re all trying to find. It’s a place between laughing and crying, between toxic cynicism and hysterical alarm, between taking to the streets and clutching a remote. In short, each of us defining our civic obligation and accepting the responsibility for creating what few still believe is normal.
Taibbi can hold forth on the wretched core’s destructive alienation, and the longing for demigods it creates, and chew gum at the same time. He can recall ugly bigotry spewed by rally goers while assessing the absurdity of protesters’ inane chants across the street, which only fortify Trumpie resolve. The degree to which one can disdain Democrats arguing about who is least racist while a neo- Nazi idol ruins us defines how elusive salvation may prove to be. Do we really want to save a process that’s so broken? Or are the “Bernie or busts” right… it’s revolution time? Who’s to know? When facts are replaced by placards all bets are off. When Breitbart is the journalistic equal of the Washington Post, it may just be too late. Stock up on corned beef hash and kerosene.
One thing is certain…. it’s not just us. Britain has its own 35 percenter crisis. The world’s oldest democracy is zombie walking toward disastrous economic dislocation. Brexit would lose by a landslide in a redo, but nihilists are even less likely to admit a mistake than they are to consider the facts which condemned their assumptions from the start. Former Prime Minister Teresa May did her best to make the insanity more palatable, but it was like telling a healthy patient, don’t worry we’ve decided to only take one of your kidneys. So Parliament has been suspended by a Trumpkin with a taste for tea, the better to keep those bothersome truths at bay….. take em both. What’s a little renal failure when safeguarding national sovereignty we convinced you was in danger?! And who will accept responsibility for Britain’s ills once the damage is done? Clown question.
In Israel it’s even more dire. An entire national identity is at stake. The security state vs democracy choice is upon the Jewish homeland. Annexing the West Bank is something it could have done 50 years ago. Likud OG Menachem Begin could have done it 40 years ago, Ditto Ariel Sharon 30 years ago. Why didn’t they? They understood it wasn’t so simple, and the national interest would suffer. Militarism is not Zionism, or shouldn’t be, anyway. Netanyahu clarifies the difference between hardliner and corrupt politician as much as Trump does. One would think a clean Mediterranean Sea is in Israel’s best interest as much as anyone’s. Yet thousands of gallons of untreated sewage spews hourly into a natural resource praised for thousands of years – by the Torah and Bible alike – because treatment plants in Gaza can’t afford to operate due to the chokehold Israel exerts. Who loses in that situation?
Fact is, we can make this thing as easy or hard as each of us wants to, but the results won’t discriminate. Florida Trumpies have a Cat 4 hurricane barreling toward them the same as those who despise him, even as the Donald’s EPA mindlessly relaxes methane emission standards, essentially trusting big oil and gas to police itself. It may be fitting and just that Dorian has Mar-A-Lago dead in its 135 MPH sights, not to mention Rush Limbaugh’s compound, but, even if each is wiped of its stilts, will Fox/AM change it’s tune?
When the brand is wanton stupidity there is no such word as modification. One either treats it with the disdain it deserves, or offers it credibility that discredits the offerer. Nothing but poison flows from this well, and a sip is as toxic as a gulp. Whether one marches in the streets or takes another selfie, that’s not changing. What’s rotten in Denmark is half the discussion. Is Chuck Todd any better than Martha McCallum when the issues he wants to preen about are framed by the gibberish she aims to normalize? It’s the narrative, stupid! BC