Curb My Enthusiasm
Here’s a really basic human question: how responsible are you for how you feel?
Is it your fault if you are no longer attracted to your long-married spouse? Is it your fault if you find your mother’s funeral to be slapstick-hilarious?
Is it your fault if you don’t find a political candidate to be exciting and inspiring at all? Is it your fault if you feel deliberately marginalized by the contemporary political process?
I asked myself these questions as I sat in a union hall during my first-ever major-party organizing meeting. I voted for Hillary and did my earnest best to convince others to do so as well, though I felt far more animated by disgust with Republicans and Trump than by affection and affiliation with my party’s nominee. Irrespective of my actions, was I wrong to feel that way?
The meeting, along with party-affiliate discourse following the election, has painted a picture of a perfect candidate with a perfect platform and a perfect campaign, undone by narcissistic rats like Bernie Sanders and James Comey and basically anyone who didn’t recognize Hillary’s impeccable splendor on her own terms. The campaign lost because it wasn’t racist and sexist enough to appeal to American voters, or because of the petty greed of those who disagreed— not due to any missteps or poor positions or any problem at all within the party itself.
In the union hall whoops and moans coursed through the crowd at the mention of Hillary’s qualities and defeat respectively. Party players were introduced with minimal introduction or justification to congratulate everyone on local electoral success and to announce their candidacies for various upcoming positions. Half of it I found frustrating and half of it I found boring.
I don’t know if this is all just some sociological law, that group proceedings are necessarily going to be frustrating and boring to outsiders no matter what, but it seems to me like political organizations should at least try to be different, especially in a democracy — and double-especially if ‘democracy’ features rather prominently in your group name.
Or is this my fault? Is it basically *wrong* of me to not *feel* excited about the current state of the party? Is my frustration and exhaustion the product of some insidious corruption, on my part or the part of the world? Should I be strong enough to overcome it and wave my party-disseminated flag with just as much strength and sincerity and urgency as everyone else?
I wondered this as I watched people take their turns on the microphone — are they basically like me, inside? Are they maybe not that enthusiastic but are just making the necessary noises to get a taste of power? Do they have a secret and unspoken master plan? Is some 11-dimensional chess going on here? Or are they really what they say they are — partisans to the core, bearing an uncomplicated loyalty to the party line no matter what it is?
I also wondered if the frustration and boredom I felt earlier was deliberately engineered, designed to weed out all but the empty-headed herd-animal cheerleaders and the sociopathically ambitious who flatter themselves with their own inhuman cunning. I had to put on the mental brakes as I felt myself becoming uncharitable, even cruel — my political irritations were never addressed or even acknowledged as a possibility, and the emotion found a way to express itself inside since that was the only place it really had to go.
I got through the two hours without incident and left feeling no different at all from when I went in. As far as what I saw was concerned it was impossible for frustration to exist and be worthy of recognition. My presence at the meeting filled a chair and that’s it — no real direction for newcomers was given beyond encouraging you to fill out the swear-party-loyalty paperwork and await instructions. My lifeless corpse would have been just as welcome there and probably would have had a better time.
Is that just how politics is? Is that how it has to be?
It seems to me like acknowledging success and admitting failure are not mutually exclusive things, that you can congratulate your winners and console your losers and admit to broader problems at the same time. Maybe not my particular vision of those broader problems, but just admitting that something went horribly wrong seems like the place that you have to start.
The alternative, which I fear just as much after the meeting, is that we’ll see a party in which people maintain their status within the party at the expense of the party in general, where people who acknowledge failure are crushed and thrown out by people who are too cunning or too pure to do so.
Or, maybe everything really is going well on the Orange County level and I should take my frustrations elsewhere.
I guess we’ll find out!
