Click me (please).
That name.
Oh, that name!
What is it about that name?
Whenever I see it,
I’m never the same,
Until I can click it,
Until I know what
Was the latest, the greatest, social media cut.
Some of us love it.
Some of us HATE it.
Some of us are doing our best to tolerate it.
All of us click it.
How else can we know,
How long and how low
That name’s going to go?
And the polls,
Oh, the polls!
How I love me some polls -
Those crafty little psychics peering into our souls.
Why do I love them?
Where to begin!
The polls tell me who’s winning!
They tell me who’ll win.
Polls tell me whom people tell them that they’ll choose.
Oh, I know we all know they’re more news-y than news,
And that, looking at them, there is something we lose.
But I still cannot avert my eyes,
Or stop myself clicking the latest surprise.
But, I am beginning to think, if we don’t — and fast –
Our singular experiment in freedom won’t last.
As that thought, for a moment, sinks in,
And before the next outburst and poll breaks in,
Let’s recall who we are,
And how we got here.
And maybe,
Just maybe,
A way out will appear…
When our nation first claimed its freedom, our founders rejected rule by a king, and chose, instead, self-government. Though knowing we are all human and flawed, and that governance by the people would prove messy and slow, they also knew we are our best hope for a more perfect union.
So, it is puzzling how we came to expect a kind of flawlessness from our candidates. Under the constant glare of media scrutiny, we watched as the most trivial of trip-ups — an ill-considered sigh, a glance at the time, a tear, a too-exuberant scream — sank campaigns.
If there is one thing, then, to be thankful for this year, perhaps it is the rediscovery of what our founders knew: our candidates are human and flawed. But this has not yet restored our attention to important things. Instead of debating principles and policies, their grasp (or ignorance) of issues, and their records of bettering (or battering) people’s lives — we are still clicking click bait, and tracking polls.
This is despite knowing polls, at the start, mostly gauge name recognition and, further on, remain error-prone graspings at ephemeral things like “favorability.” We know their claims are based on people who still have home telephones, and who, hearing a stranger’s voice on the line, say, “Sure, I’d be happy to answer a few questions.”
But, we can’t get enough. We can’t turn away. And, thanks to our media, we never have to. Tracking our eyeballs and every click, they feed us an endless supply of what we crave.
Where does that leave us? According to the latest social media skirmish, it appears to be a cartoon battle between demagogue and devil, between one asking for our faith in them as savior and restorer of better days lost, and another evoking faith in each another.
Setting aside the stark, and scrutiny-worthy contrast in these two frames, while we hateclick and puff up the cartoon, real people are struggling, challenges are smoldering and bursting aflame, the fate of our nation hangs in the balance, and we are mostly oblivious to the solutions our candidates are prepared to advance — or whether they have any at all.
And, rather than help us debate our fate, our media is optimizing for news-y click bait.
I know there are two in this tango. The spigot won’t turn off, if I don’t look away, and if we don’t demonstrate how deeply we want to have a different conversation.
The odds look long. But, we can do it. I know we can.
Yet, if we fail, the greatest casualty will not be the candidates who never got a fair hearing during the primaries. It will not be be the runner-up on election day. It will be the faith our founders placed in one other, and in all of us — a faith that, to keep democracy alive, every generation must reaffirm.
I’ll end this muse, as I began it, in rhyme.
Please click it. Please share it.
There may still be time.
