What is the purpose of being a high-information voter?

 I have been actively aware of politics via the internet since the 2000 election. I could have voted in 1996 but didn’t because I was driving around the country, so I think the first election I may have voted in was 2000, in California. 

The candidates I voted for lost—which felt right for a life-long Cubs fan. I also was working for a newspaper at the time and wrote a funny editorial about the aftermath of the election. I think I anticipated that people would forget that the election was disputed and move on with their lives. I was right, in a way, though I think they’re remembering more now. (Is it possible for something to become more clear and memorable and consequential 20 years later—like i didn’t punish your sins until I could recount them, and I couldn’t recount them for 20 years? There’s a rub there.)

By 2004, I was fully engaged. A lot of my writing took political engagement for granted, and I was sure that Bush’s adventures in the Middle East were both practically and ideologically and morally wrong. When John Kerry lost, I was shocked, and I remember vowing to find out who and where these people who didn’t see the world my way lived and how I could talk to them.

I didn’t do a good job of that as a project. I have always had ambitious interview projects in my head that have never fully come to fruition.

Obama won the Presidency in 2008 and though I was still reading about politics with the same appetite as in 2000, I honestly can’t say that my life changed a great deal. “The soul of nation” seemed better somehow though. Though I was living in Minnesota, where the soul of the nation always seemed pretty good. The state has its problems, don’t get me wrong, and those problems cause suffering but they are also largely problems of omission, lack of imagination, and complacency. Which, as problems go, are at least not as immoral as evil, predatory immorality and corruption.

2016 was crushing. Stunning. And the country seemed crueler all of a sudden—though again, not really to me specifically. And that cruelty seemed to have been building up for a while—and it’s hard not to blame the internet for it in many ways.

Someone once said to me at a cocktail party that the media is at least 5 years behind reality. So 2016 would have been 2011–and I suppose that would track with the accurate reaction to the financial crisis. That we were left to fend for ourselves and no one was punished and everyone is horrible. Then 2020 would track with 2015–which may track with getting used to Obama and competence and kindness, etc. Which would mean that 2023 is going to be a very strange year. I doubt that this truly tracks but the idea that what we see or feel through the “soul of the nation” is a little bit behind the actual soul of the nation is an interesting one. As above, we aren’t able to remember what is happening until years later. It may take the racists years to remember that they were racists.

The point here, after 20 years of paying careful attention, is that I’m not sure that paying attention has been useful to me. As a drama of human experience, as a show to watch, it hasn’t disappointed. As an arena where my talents can be applied and can benefit people, less so. 

But here I am and I can’t really go back. What happens next?

I started to write this blog post because I realized that Trump supporters have no real interest in engaging in disagreement. They love to talk to people who disagree with them because they believe they can dominate those people, but they have no interest in being wrong. They have no real interest in finding out what other people believe that they might adopt. This kind of closemindedness exists on all sides of a political spectrum but progressives, by definition, at least encourage learning and change. Conservatives and Trump supporters. never praise change. So, there’s actually little point in engaging with them. The world is the way they want it to be. The conflict is not the problem. The problems that need to be solved are not their problems. The problem is the people who want to change anything. 

The dialogue is the problem, not the method of solving the problem.

I feel some relief recognizing that. They will never be allies. But, they still live and they fight. What do you do about them? Create a system where they feel they have enough ability to be heard—then don’t listen to them. Make the world better for them, give them an outlet, then actually ignore the shit of them. No. Don’t ignore them. Actively leave them alone. Except. That’s how we got into this mess.

Circles.

I’ll come back to it.