Honey Clusters of Votes

This week, the thesis process involved partnering up with a class peer and analyzing each other’s image clusters from the previous week. These clusters were meant to represent our current state of mind regarding our respective topics. The cluster for my thesis topic centers around politics and voter awareness and is rather dense with imagery. To me, it exemplified how vast and overwhelming this topic feels to me. It was interesting that my classmate was able to distill the variety of issues that I am contemplating for a topic that can certainly be overwhelming when I think too long about it.

“I think the overall message of the cluster depicts a very concise, comprehensive overview of what you are thinking when diving into this topic for your thesis.”

I keep veering from the thought that politics is too complex for me to tackle to the idealistic notion of creating something at the end of this thesis journey that confronts this exact complexity issue head on in a coherent user-friendly way. My classmate provided me with some reassurance by stating that she was able to understand the central themes illustrated in my image cluster that I have been thinking deeply about.

“I really enjoyed reading your thought process and one reference in particular that is my favorite is your starting conclusion which states that “Great design simply works well, is intuitively easy to navigate and produces results that keep users coming back.” I will absolutely be thinking of the same thing as I begin exploring my thesis topic. At the same time, I really appreciate your passion towards this very complicated beast of a problem.”

From the beginning, I have tried to draw some correlations between fantasy football and politics due to some recent observations on how crazed my very own friends get about fantasy sports and realizing that this passionate fanaticism is sometimes present in politics but more often than not, completely missing. My classmate commented about it:

“…comparison photos of the fantasy football league is a very useful insight as well, so we know how serious people take this activity and also its relation to the idea you are working on in regards to the solution.”

The stats and analytics, the competition and match-ups, the handicaps, rising stars and fading incumbents, how the team coalesces around each player or candidate, the bitter divide between rivals, the joy of winning and the crushing agony of defeat. All of these can describe both politics and fantasy sports. I am loathe to make this correlation too literal in the fear of trivializing politics, in which real issues affecting real lives are at stake. But I do believe there are far too many things in common to dismiss as simply coincidence. What about make believe sports teams draws so many people in yet politics turns so many people off?

Having the primaries occur only a few weeks ago and the mid-term elections right around the corner has afforded me some very current experiences to draw upon, allowing me to think about the struggles that not only my close friends and family have when trying to decipher politics, but looking in the mirror, I see someone who is deeply troubled by the current state of our country and primarily its ‘leaders’ but perplexed by the true understanding of what each candidate stands for. I know that I am not alone here. The more articles I read and podcasts that I listen to, the more I am convinced that every election counts, whether they be local or national, primaries, mid-terms or general. I listened to one of my favorite podcasters, Michael Rapaport: actor, podcaster, fantasy football expert analyst, shit-talker, Trump-take-down artist amongst his many roles. What he said was this, when discussing politics to Jon Heileman, host of Showtimes ‘The Circus’:

“A lot of times I feel like with the news, people like myself have sort of caught up but there’s so many terms, so much language…mid-terms..this one..get the House…All of us need to go back to a basic political course in it.”

And another interesting podcast that I listened to, ‘It’s Been A Minute with Sam Sanders’ when he spoke with political science professor and author Dan Hopkins from UPenn, summed up what many people go through:

“Based on the conversations I had before the California midterms, we were in the 48th, 49th districts over there. We knocked on some doors and asked people to talk to us and there was a little bit of shame. People kinda didn’t want to admit that they didn’t know who was on the ballots or some of them said the ballot book this year, in terms of all of the candidates running in the primaries is just so long it’s impossible to get a handle, get a grip on who’s running and what they stand for because there are just so many candidates in California this year. But all of them had an opinion on Donald Trump…”

Most people, if they care at all, only vote for general elections. Most progressives liked or even adored President Obama as a public figure. But the tragedy of Obama’s presidency was that he was hamstrung by the fact that he didn’t have total control of the Senate. (The Republicans won back the House in 2010 (and assumed control in January 2011), and won back Senate control in 2014 (assuming control in January 2015).)

The loss of the House greatly diminished President Obama’s ability to push things through. A quick refresher: Legislation does not become law without the Senate. There are 100 Senate seats and you need 60 Senate votes to even get a piece of legislation to the floor for amendments and a final vote. Without these 60 votes, the legislation is DOA. There was a confluence of circumstances that led to the Democrats continuously coming up short with the votes needed. Here is what some people don’t realize. Obama had “total control” of the Senate from September 24, 2009 until February 4, 2010. A grand total of 4 months. So without control of the Senate, no matter how great of a president you are, things will simply not get done. This is where the importance of the upcoming mid-term elections comes into play. From 270towin: the U.S. Senate currently has 51 Republicans and 49 Democrats (including two independents). The 2018 Senate election takes place on November 6, 2018. There are 35 seats up in 2018*, of which 26 are held by Democrats. That party will need to gain 2 seats to take control. Re-gaining control of the Senate from the Republicans is not yet a foregone conclusion. Control of the House could prove catastrophic for President Trump. Simply put, impeachment or at least a shit ton of oversight hearings are very much in play if the Dems take control. So a lot is at stake. Much more people need to vote.

I just tried to break down the simple math that it takes for a party to be majority but does the average person care about or understand these things? If they even care about politics, it’s safe to assume the following:

• They want their side to win.
• They want their legislation to be enacted.
• They want things to get done.
• They want to back someone whom aligns with their values.

I have yet to decide whether my thesis project will be non-partisan or strictly for the party that I personally prefer. Is there validity in helping people on both sides fully understand what their candidates stand for? What are my responsibilities as a designer? Do I need to be fair to both sides of the aisle in order to be most effective? Or is it ok to focus on helping the party I believe in most?

As I further my research and interviews, this will become more apparent to me. For my party, I do know that there is hope as evidenced by the many recent local and national elections. Go way back to the year 2016 during the Democratic primary, there was a general divisiveness amongst Democrats about what to focus their battles on, issues reflecting an increasingly diverse party or how far left to take its economic agenda. Diversity seems to have taken center stage. From Vox: More Democratic women have been nominated in 2018 than ever before. The party is also embracing young and progressive emerging stars like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York and Andrew Gillum in Florida, who back progressive policies such as Medicare-for-all. Democrats have nominated candidates likely to become the first Muslim women and the first Native American woman in Congress. They also count among their ranks some more long-shot candidates who are historic firsts in their own right: The first transgender woman nominee for governor is a Democrat in Vermont. This is exciting for progressives but does it leave the party vulnerable to defeat? Is there a function to my project that will take into account strategy (i.e. lesser of two evils) rather than just aligning you to your idealistic candidates?

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Obama became President in 2008 on a platform of Hope. People on the left became complacent and did not vote during the less hyped mid-terms. Republicans sneakily gained control, shooting down every bit of legislature Obama tried to push through. The Tea Party was born. Trump became President. The #metoo and #timesup movements became a defining part of our era. People on the left became fired up, vowing to #resist. Record numbers of women and minorities are running for office. Republicans fear losing the House and Senate. It’s a hard truth that politics tends to be severe in its pendulum swings of momentum. I hope to create something that can engage potential voters for every election, whether times are good or bad. A tool that will assist voters so that when politics perplexes them they can use it to gain clarity.

Despite all of the similarities between the two, politics and fantasy football cannot be equated. The stakes are decidedly different. If you lose in fantasy, it’s usually $50 in the red, being the brunt of some harmless bragging rights by the winner and then there’s always next season. Modern politics has become a shocking reality show that even Aaron Sorkin couldn’t have penned. Whom we elect locally and nationally to power can affect an endless variety of real life issues, everything from school zoning laws to how we take action as a nation to fight climate change, infrastructure legislature, trade wars affecting the price of goods, to how much debt we pile up. We are witnessing firsthand the horrors that the federal government has bestowed on to immigrants fleeing their homelands in search of safe refuge. Despite the rosy outlook on the economy, it even looks like the de ja vu lack of oversight from the government may spawn the inevitable bad sequel to the 2008 Great Recession (Happy 10th Birthday!). Too Big To Fail Part Deux? Football may be an entertaining and brutal modern gladiator spectacle, but it is very apparent that politics has emerged as the true blood sport. I may have to enter a concussion protocol after it’s all said and done.

*Includes Minnesota and Mississippi special elections