Make Politics Bland Again!
In the fall of 2012, I was in eighth grade, and I was on a sleep-away field trip. If memory serves, it was early October, and my history teacher gathered my class, plopped us in front of a TV, and made us watch the second presidential debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. Chiefly, I remember being bored.
Fast forward four years and I was a senior in high school. I was sitting in my living room, surrounded by my parents’ friends who had gathered to watch the gladiatorial spectacle that was the second debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. As the debate wrapped up, I found myself longing for the boredom of yesterday’s election. I missed its boring civility, when the sharpest campaign jabs were about the Romney Ryan logo looking like the Crest logo. And I think America did too. I think we need to make politics bland again.
In the thick of the political apathy epidemic, it might seem foolhardy to say that politics should be less interesting. It may seem counterintuitive, but boring politics is correlated with higher voter turnout. Here’s a thought exercise: The ten countries with the highest voter turnout are Belgium, Turkey, Sweden, South Korea, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Israel, New Zealand, and Finland. Excluding Turkey and Israel, in how many of those countries can you name the current president (or prime minister) and any opposing candidates? I could name approximately zero. Yet all of those countries, which have far more boring political situations than that of the US, eclipse America in voter turnout. Each country has a voter turnout well above 70 percent, and the top five all exceed 80 percent.
In those countries, political involvement is not a hobby, but rather a responsibility. It’s less like being a football fan and more like paying your taxes, or going to the DMV. A healthy democracy is not necessarily a vibrant one, but rather a consummate one. Voters don’t have to participate enthusiastically, but rather widely. A moderately interested majority is better than an obsessed minority. This might be a bland political environment, but it is ultimately one whose participants are more involved, and one that is more democratic.
Let’s take a look at this election. It was interesting and entertaining, sure, but it was also vulgar, polarizing, and nasty. Between the candidates and their supporters, common courtesy and politeness flew out the window. In the months leading up to the election, (and the weeks following it), I knew that any attempt to bring up politics could become a shouting match within minutes. There were many times when my friends would make me promise I wouldn’t bring up politics. I, along with them, represent the two camps that this particular election created. The first camp is people like me, people who love talking politics, people who are perfectly willing to jump into intense, unpleasant arguments wherever they go. The second camp is made up of people who, in the face of such a political sort of sensory overload, simply check out. They don’t want to dirty their hands with such filthy political matters. At first, this bothered me immensely. But a few weeks after the election, I could empathize. I didn’t want to go on wearing my Hillary pins. I didn’t want to make calls for other Democratic candidates. I just wanted to unsubscribe from Blue Wave and Emily’s List and think about something else. I wasn’t bored, I was exhausted.
People weren’t bored of politics this election, they were sick of it. They were nauseated by it. We need politicians that are boring rather than revolting. Because America wasn’t bored this past November, it was exhausted. As silly as it may sound, let’s talk about mom jeans. Let’s make politics bland again.
