A thing I've found which helps sanity, is that I view all people as being of good will. Costs me nothing.
I assume both Democrats and Republicans are supporting what they think best for the country, and I refuse to dislike them for their beliefs.
I refuse to succumb to extremism nor occupy the safe center. I take each issue as it comes, some I think one way, others I think the other way, and I'm always susceptible to changing my mind. I'll vote for anyone or no one.
Many fine points here. But I don't think just not paying attention to what is going on is the right answer.
Perhaps a better way to frame it is definetly tune OUT the politics, but tune INTO the governing. And do so at the local and stare level especially.
Meaning stop treating government like a spectator sport. Two partisan teams dissing each other, talking heads yammering on about polls, optics, base voters, focus groups, etc.
And start paying more attention to actual governance and public policy issues. Likely too much to ask of the harried and increasingly ADD American public.
A major reason for the increase in incivility over the past 40 years, along with social media, is the politicization of everything. Not everything is, nor should be, "political." We see it from the rush to ascribe partisan motives to mentally ill mass shooters to corporate advertising. This is a valuable post that should be widely shared. . . and the advice followed.
I keep telling you guys. You don't listen. The silly phrase about Trump saying "false" things. Nope.
This is another reason Democrats are getting killed in voter registration. People intuitively KNOW that transoidism is bad, that Trump has worked a miracle in securing the border, that we cannot borrow as we have and thus gubment must be cut huge, that we have no role in a Uke war, that no nation can function when 25% of its GDP goes through its capital city. People know this.
Every one of those USAID boondoggles (fraus?) are real. Every one of the Social Security examples are real---SS admitted it yesterday. Any historian will tell you that the US BOOMED under our two eras of tariffs and I can give you a very, very good reason that the post-WW II period was a "golden accident."
But, keep it up John. And I'll keep posting the whopping ROP voter registration gains cuz they know everything I just said was true as well.
If I tuned out of politics, you would lose a subscriber. Seriously though, two major escape routes from politics-sports and entertainment-have themselves been politicized even though it is pretty clear that they have damaged themselves doing so. Even family is threatened. Blow-ups at the Thanksgiving table are a recurring theme.
I would like to say that the goal should be to make political disagreement less existential but this probably means Establishment politics which has been been a conspicuous failure not only here but throughout the West. Thus we have assaults on the Establishment coming from both Left and Right which ratchet up conflict further.
Some good points, but let's follow the math and illogicof where tuning out could lead.
If you implore both sides to "tune out" politics, and accuse both sides equally of political extreme and excesses, doesn't the side that "tunes out" lose? Aren't our nutty politics being driven by an even smaller number of the zealots engaged 7/24 in winning the day at any cost? Elections can still be decided by one side or the other after record-low voter turnouts. It also ignores the treacherous and very dangerous legacy of open borders, gender nullification and identity politics that Democrats implemented during the past four years under whomever was in charge of the White House, as we discover more by the day that it was not the cognitively AWOL Joe Biden, an apparent victim of ghastly political manipulation.
For all his likely honorable intent, I fear John Halpin has provided a glaring example of the "false equivalence" the Democratic Left repetitively accused conservatives of during their past four years of mischief.
The rapid unscheduled disassembly of the federal government will cease once elected Republicans in the Senate wake up and realize it is their constituents that are being hurt.
Ironic, I just posted on another site I’ve had enough. Don’t know for how long.
But the best news of the week was my lump sum back pay from the cancelling of the grossly unfair WEP. It was a lot bigger than I thought and my monthly SS payment is actually worth something now. I guess we shall see how long this lasts.
I think Slotkin (whose speech was great) was trying to stress a more old-fashioned kind of tuning in to politics, like gathering in person to push a cause. There are still good political causes out there: affordable health care, housing deregulation, unionization and workers' rights. And it's still important for candidates to knock on constituents' doors. But I agree that tuning out is better than following politics obsessively.
This post might have been fine for, say, 1995 or 2005. But to suggest what we face now is just the usual partisan (or even unusually hyper-partisan) bickering over mere policy differences misjudges the gravity of the moment we are in. If anything, that moment calls for more attention, not less, though I agree with Sen. Slotkin that the quality of that attention matters. It's not a question of tuning out versus tuning in, so much as fine-tuning to separate signal from noise.
John, you say, "Want to help American democracy? Try tuning out politics and forcing the two parties to tune in to what normal voters want and need." I guess I need to reread your essay. How are we supposed to force the parties to satisfy the public needs and, simultaneously, "Tune Out" of politics? How do we know whether they are working without getting involved?
Democrats are like the wife, after the husband tells her that yes, if fact, her butt does look fat in those over-priced jeans, loses it in an emotional tantrum and screams for a divorce... and then when he agrees, she burns their house down. And then looks for a feminist man-hating attorney who navigates the case to a feminist man-hating judge to blame the husband for causing all the chaos and destruction demanding alimony including the value of the house that he caused her to burn down. And the judgement goes to the wife. And all the feminists applaud this decision by the judge as righteous and justified because, you know, the patriarchy.
A thing I've found which helps sanity, is that I view all people as being of good will. Costs me nothing.
I assume both Democrats and Republicans are supporting what they think best for the country, and I refuse to dislike them for their beliefs.
I refuse to succumb to extremism nor occupy the safe center. I take each issue as it comes, some I think one way, others I think the other way, and I'm always susceptible to changing my mind. I'll vote for anyone or no one.
Many fine points here. But I don't think just not paying attention to what is going on is the right answer.
Perhaps a better way to frame it is definetly tune OUT the politics, but tune INTO the governing. And do so at the local and stare level especially.
Meaning stop treating government like a spectator sport. Two partisan teams dissing each other, talking heads yammering on about polls, optics, base voters, focus groups, etc.
And start paying more attention to actual governance and public policy issues. Likely too much to ask of the harried and increasingly ADD American public.
Agree so much about local level, esp. Local taxation for schools, libraries, arts. also state reps to state government.
A major reason for the increase in incivility over the past 40 years, along with social media, is the politicization of everything. Not everything is, nor should be, "political." We see it from the rush to ascribe partisan motives to mentally ill mass shooters to corporate advertising. This is a valuable post that should be widely shared. . . and the advice followed.
I keep telling you guys. You don't listen. The silly phrase about Trump saying "false" things. Nope.
This is another reason Democrats are getting killed in voter registration. People intuitively KNOW that transoidism is bad, that Trump has worked a miracle in securing the border, that we cannot borrow as we have and thus gubment must be cut huge, that we have no role in a Uke war, that no nation can function when 25% of its GDP goes through its capital city. People know this.
Every one of those USAID boondoggles (fraus?) are real. Every one of the Social Security examples are real---SS admitted it yesterday. Any historian will tell you that the US BOOMED under our two eras of tariffs and I can give you a very, very good reason that the post-WW II period was a "golden accident."
But, keep it up John. And I'll keep posting the whopping ROP voter registration gains cuz they know everything I just said was true as well.
If I tuned out of politics, you would lose a subscriber. Seriously though, two major escape routes from politics-sports and entertainment-have themselves been politicized even though it is pretty clear that they have damaged themselves doing so. Even family is threatened. Blow-ups at the Thanksgiving table are a recurring theme.
I would like to say that the goal should be to make political disagreement less existential but this probably means Establishment politics which has been been a conspicuous failure not only here but throughout the West. Thus we have assaults on the Establishment coming from both Left and Right which ratchet up conflict further.
Great post John.
I wish I could get the hyper-partisan members of my family to just relax and not be laser-focused on literally everything Trump does or doesn't do.
Some good points, but let's follow the math and illogicof where tuning out could lead.
If you implore both sides to "tune out" politics, and accuse both sides equally of political extreme and excesses, doesn't the side that "tunes out" lose? Aren't our nutty politics being driven by an even smaller number of the zealots engaged 7/24 in winning the day at any cost? Elections can still be decided by one side or the other after record-low voter turnouts. It also ignores the treacherous and very dangerous legacy of open borders, gender nullification and identity politics that Democrats implemented during the past four years under whomever was in charge of the White House, as we discover more by the day that it was not the cognitively AWOL Joe Biden, an apparent victim of ghastly political manipulation.
For all his likely honorable intent, I fear John Halpin has provided a glaring example of the "false equivalence" the Democratic Left repetitively accused conservatives of during their past four years of mischief.
Problem is people not thinking for themselves.
If my job didn't require me to be paying attention then I wouldn't.
The rapid unscheduled disassembly of the federal government will cease once elected Republicans in the Senate wake up and realize it is their constituents that are being hurt.
Ironic, I just posted on another site I’ve had enough. Don’t know for how long.
But the best news of the week was my lump sum back pay from the cancelling of the grossly unfair WEP. It was a lot bigger than I thought and my monthly SS payment is actually worth something now. I guess we shall see how long this lasts.
I think Slotkin (whose speech was great) was trying to stress a more old-fashioned kind of tuning in to politics, like gathering in person to push a cause. There are still good political causes out there: affordable health care, housing deregulation, unionization and workers' rights. And it's still important for candidates to knock on constituents' doors. But I agree that tuning out is better than following politics obsessively.
This post might have been fine for, say, 1995 or 2005. But to suggest what we face now is just the usual partisan (or even unusually hyper-partisan) bickering over mere policy differences misjudges the gravity of the moment we are in. If anything, that moment calls for more attention, not less, though I agree with Sen. Slotkin that the quality of that attention matters. It's not a question of tuning out versus tuning in, so much as fine-tuning to separate signal from noise.
John, you say, "Want to help American democracy? Try tuning out politics and forcing the two parties to tune in to what normal voters want and need." I guess I need to reread your essay. How are we supposed to force the parties to satisfy the public needs and, simultaneously, "Tune Out" of politics? How do we know whether they are working without getting involved?
Democrats are like the wife, after the husband tells her that yes, if fact, her butt does look fat in those over-priced jeans, loses it in an emotional tantrum and screams for a divorce... and then when he agrees, she burns their house down. And then looks for a feminist man-hating attorney who navigates the case to a feminist man-hating judge to blame the husband for causing all the chaos and destruction demanding alimony including the value of the house that he caused her to burn down. And the judgement goes to the wife. And all the feminists applaud this decision by the judge as righteous and justified because, you know, the patriarchy.
Great advice, but tuning out is difficult when the main stream media is forever opinionating and not just reporting the news.