why I hate politics

[truepenny]

The first presidential election I can remember is 1980: Reagan vs. Mondale. I was in first grade and not quite six. I don't know if my parents (life-long Democrats) explained it to me, or if we were doing something about it at school, or both, but I grasped the gist: Mondale was the good guy (his VP was a woman! in 1980!), Reagan was the bad guy. And on Election Day, the bad guy won.

[ETA: Alert readers have pointed out that the preceding paragraph conflates the 1980 election and the 1984 election. So the first election I remember is either 1980 (Reagan vs. Carter), when I was not quite six, or 1984 (Reagan vs. Mondale), when I was not quite ten. I honestly have no idea which mistake is the one I made, although the longer I think about it, the more I think I do remember the 1980 election. I just remember the 1984 election better. The sentiments in our household were much the same both times, and the point about my first impressions of American politics remains unscathed.]

Obviously, this is a child's understanding, and I'd like to be able to say that the twenty-eight years since then have given me a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of American politics. Really, I would love to be able to say that. But I can't. The Republicans are the bad guys, and they win. Reagan. Reagan. Bush. I wasn't old enough to vote for Clinton in 1992, but I was ecstatic when he won. . . . And then watched as the Republican Party threw an eight-year temper tantrum, whining and yelling and obstructing and scandalmongering and essentially doing their best to make sure government could not happen because their guy wasn't king of the hill. The good guys sure as hell didn't win that one.

I voted for Gore in 2000. I sincerely believed that he was the best candidate we had. I even more sincerely believed that a formerly dead cat would have been a better candidate than Bush.

The bad guy won.

In 2004, I voted for Kerry, although it would be more accurate and honest to say I voted against Bush. (I am a yellow dog Democrat. I would vote for a yellow dog before I would vote for a Republican. In the last election, if I'd known a yellow dog, I would have voted for him as a write-in candidate.) Didn't matter. The bad guy won.

Over the twenty-eight years of my political awareness, I've watched the bad guys win. I've watched with sick, impotent fury as the Democrats--apparently both desperate and stupid--become more and more like the Republicans, until honestly I can't tell the good guys from the bad guys any more. They're all bad guys. And they always win. And the people down here, the ordinary citizens of America, don't even matter to them. They don't care what we want or what we think, because somehow our government has become so self-perpetuating and self-protecting that they don't have to.

I hate politics. I hate the smug self-righteousness of our politicians. I hate the things they say and the things they do. I hate the way the things that matter to me (education, peace, women's rights, minority rights, GLBT rights, ecological responsibility) don't matter to them. I hate the way that even things where it looks like the good guys have won--Roe vs. Wade, for instance, or that whole freedom of religion thing--the fight's never over until the Republicans say the fight is over. And they never say the fight is over until they've got the outcome they want. I hate the way that American politics over the past twenty years has completely fucked up not merely our relationship with the rest of the world (come on, guys, can we AT LEAST pay our United Nations dues?) but has contributed significantly to fucking up the planet as well. I hate the way men and women who have well-paying jobs with all the benefits they need get to decide that other people don't deserve health insurance. I hate the way that I can't tell the good guys from the bad guys, or--when I can--the way I know, with a sick, sick certainty, that the good guys will never win.

I voted today. If you've read this far, you know who I voted for. And I hope like hell that he wins. I hope that everything I know about politics, everything I've been taught by twenty-eight years of watching it happen, is wrong.

I can't believe. But I hope.

Comments

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Right, almost exactly the same as me. :/

[technomom]

Are you sure that wasn't 1984? I was a freshman at Agnes Scott College, and we invited Ferraro to speak. Mondale accepted the invitation instead, which ticked everybody off (it's a women's college, and we wanted the WOMAN to come!).

I'm sure that Reagan was in office in the previous four years, because I asked him a question during a Close-Up trip (to which he replied with a total non-sequitur).

Geez, I feel old now!

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

You're right. I've conflated 1980 and 1984.

[technomom]

FWIW, my first political memory is a Weekly Reader article about the new first family in the White House, the Fords. I was confused, because I was sure we hadn't had an election--but the WR did NOT explain why we were switching presidents without one.

My parents claim that I saw a skywriter when I was 2 or 3 (we lived in Alabama then), and said, "Must be a Wallace sticker" because they were so ubiquitous.

And I hate politics for the same reasons you do.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

Psst: Reagan v. Mondale was 1984. 1980 was Reagan v. Carter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_1980) and I think you are just enough older than me that all I remember is watching the inauguration in kindergarten, but nothing of the campaign. My mother wrote Jimmy Carter a long letter about how sad she was that he lost, and she got back a hand-written thank you.

(I do not remember, but have been told many times by my older sister, that when Reagan was shot later that year, my mother blurted, "Good, I hope he dies." I think it is fair to classify my family as yellowdogs as well.)

(All I remember of Reagan being shot is how angry I was that all the after-school cartoons were pre-empted. Hey, I was five.)

[mevincula.livejournal.com]

When Reagan was shot I was in college. My dorm had a party. I went. If you knew me then, you would be shocked. I don't believe in violence, I don't believe in retribution, I don't believe in vengeance. I think those things are more dangerous to the practitioner than the receiver. But... everything that Reagan did and was filled me with soul-destroying hatred. I saw people die from AIDS (dated em even) and the federal government never even mentioned the disease. Reagan broke the unions - and you know that's why we don't have universal health care. Sure, Reagan also broke the Soviet Union - by funding Osama bin Laden and filling the Afghani caves with American munitions. I spent decades trying to find some peace in myself with people who destroy everything they touch. I was doing alright, until Bush was nominated. And elected. And again. I don't hope any longer. I wish I could believe the big O - but he's more about getting along than getting it right.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

He's still the best option we've got--or have had in a long time.

Which is another reason I hate politics.

[mevincula.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree with you. But I miss hope.

well said...

[themadblonde]

pretty much my feelings exactly (though better expressed, & it seems I've got 10 years on you in experience of voting & politics).

Personally, I think Bill the Cat might have made an excellent President, as long as he still had Opus as VeeP & Milo as a handler.

If there are ANY good guys left, it's time they won.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

The first election I remember was 1976. I clearly remember sitting in the dining room watching the Democratic National convention.

[splagxna.livejournal.com]

sounds very, very familiar. the first one i remember was 84, and i was in first grade. we had a mock election, and somehow i had heard of reagan but not mondale (bizarre, given my family) - so i voted for reagan.

i told my parents about it that afternoon and they had a very serious discussion with me about how reagan was bad, basically (actually, my dad was pretty shocked, from what i recall - i suspect now b/c he realized he'd failed to educate me, but i felt very guilty!). anyway, i never looked back!

i remember when the first bush ran, my dad called him a dirtbag in the kids' hearing. we thought this was hilarious. my mother was not pleased, saying it would teach us we could disrespect our politicians/leaders.

and in fact, it did exactly that. :)

[mithriltabby]

I feel much the same, which is why I am committed to fixing the system. I’ll send e-mail to my Congresscritters over any cause I like and send money to the ones I think are particularly significant, but what gets me out there in person to harangue my local city council is fixing the structural problems with our election system.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

And I admire you for it.

[gwynraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this post because I have found here an articulation of my opinion that I have never been able to get out clearly on my own. And I *love* the term yellow dog Democrat.

I only vaguely remember the 1984 election - I wanted my mother to vote for Reagan because I'd at least *heard* of him, and I'd never heard of that other guy (hey, I was 5). At the time I didn't even know what Democrat and Republican meant, but it was the last time I had complimentary thoughts about pretty much any Republican. By the 1988 election I was the only person in my 4th grade class (Missouri) who voted for Dukakis in our mock-election and that has sent the tone for the rest of my life. I was too young to vote in the 1992 or 1996 elections, and by 2000 I was living in the South, so I have never felt my vote was anything more than pissing in the wind.

All my life I have seen nothing but America backsliding further and further from what I was taught that America should be. My mother was in grade school during the Civil Rights movement, and while the very fact a struggle was necessary is an embarrassment in the supposed Land of the Free, at least she can look back and say we *won* that one. Or so it seemed. My own formative years have been punctuated by loss after crushing loss and a general return to the 'Good Old Days' of prejudice, fear-mongering, and theocratic sentiment.

Take all the amendments to state constitutions 'defining' marriage as between a man and a woman. Although both the states I have voted in have them, I can at least say I was not living in either state when the vote was passed (Louisiana passed theirs in 2004, the year before I moved here, and South Carolina, where I used to live, passed theirs in 2006, the year after I moved away). Every time the issue comes up, the idealistic child in me gapes in disbelief that so many states could choose to *write into their constitutions* a provision that has *no purpose* other than to deny a portion of the population their *basic rights*. Each time I have stared at the news in shock, the mantra in my head "This can't happen. Not in *America*". And nearly each time I am proven horrifically wrong. Whatever happened to "We find these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal"? I guess that only applies if you're white, male, straight, and a Christian. Well, shucks, I'm 1 out of 4 so I guess I only get a quarter of my rights, huh?

Wow -- this was meant to be a comment and look, it turned into a treatise. I'll have to cross-post this on my own journal :) Anyway, thanks for the inspirational (in a cynical sort of way) post.

[qnofhrt.livejournal.com]

But I hope.

And that's what I voted for - hope. Hope that this country will finally be able to move out of the black cloud we've been living in for the past 8 years and remember we CAN do the right thing, even if it's not the easy thing.

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

I hope, too! I'm only 22, though. Hopefully people my age can grow into politics being more hopeful, while also being critical?

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

I remember Johnson-Goldwater quite clearly, but not Kennedy-Nixon, but
I was 2 for that one.

We had a shaggy yellow dog hanging out in the neighborhood several years ago; she decided to visit the polling place in the community center across the street from my place during the 2000 election. The election workers had a lot of fun with her, checking to see if she held proper credentials as an observer, and so on.

[pnkrokhockeymom.livejournal.com]

The first election I remember in 1976. I was in first grade. I remember the Convention that year. I remember watching the coverage on Election Day with my grandmother in our basement, while she babysat me as my parents went to vote. I remember that my grandmother was very angry that my mom had apparently turned my dad into a democrat single-handedly (I think it was actually the UAW that did that).

The first I remember taking an interest in personally was 1980. I was in fifth grade. We had a mock election and I was one of only two people not supporting Ronald Reagan. I had made a sign that said "UAW" in a circle in the corner and "Reagan Will Blow Us Up" as a headline, with a picture of a building being broken in half and a mushroom cloud in the distance.

I hope. I hope, I hope, I hope. But it *is* hard.

[pameladean]

I remember 1960. I was seven. My parents hated Nixon passionately. Their ideal candidate was Adlai Stevenson. My mother still yearns after Stevenson or someone like him. So Kennedy won and started the space program and was assassinated. Robert Kennedy was assassinated, too. When I was in the sixth grade, my class held a debate about the Johnson/Goldwater election. The side I was put on argued that since Goldwater said he'd bomb North Viet Nam and Johnson said he wouldn't, it was better to vote for Johnson. A kid on the other side solemnly asked me if I thought that Johnson would "bring our country closer to socialism." Johnson won, and he bombed North Viet Nam. Then the reanimated corpse of Nixon shambled through Watergate, and Jimmy Carter was made fun of for having the temerity to put on a sweater and put solar panels on the White House. And so we come to the beginning of your awful 28 years. One of the first things Reagan's people did was tear the solar panels off the White House.

I'm going out to vote as soon as the lunch rush is likely to have cleared out. I'm actually feeling kind of happy. I always thought that the first black President would be a Republican, because the Republican Party has had most of the big racists since the Voting Rights Act was passed, and I figured their own party would stomp them if it wanted a black candidate, but let them loose on a Democrat. I'm really glad that I was wrong.

Pamela

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Oh jeez. I didn't even know about the solar panels.

::hates Reagan just that little bit more::

[pameladean]

Yeah, the elevation of Reagan as some kind of bipartisan icon has really made me incredulously furious, though compared to what else has been going on these past eight years it's comparatively minor.

*snarls at Reagan's grave*

P.

[gooddamon.livejournal.com]

I voted. My family voted. Everyone I know age 18 or higher has voted. The Democrats I know... voted for Obama. The Independents I know... voted for Obama. The Republicans I know... voted for Obama.

I don't believe. But I'm beginning to feel, for the first time in my political life, which matches yours so very well, just a teeny tiny bit of hope.

[stevenagy.livejournal.com]

I saw a post on Making Light (I believe it was last week) that looked at presidential cycles. Every ten elections, there's a grouping of 7 to 3, with Dems and Republicans trading off on who gets 7 and who gets 3.

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

I was 11 when JFK was shot, 16 when MLK and RFK were killed. I remember the photo spreads in Look and Life magazines of the civil rights workers who were murdered in the south for trying to register voters, the pictures from Viet Nam of dead soldiers and children burned by napalm. I remember sobbing over Kent State.

You're right, the bad guys have won way too often in my lifetime and in yours. The last eight years have been a nightmare. I won't say the worst of my life, because I don't think it quite compares to the gutted feeling of being an adolescent and seeing your heroes gunned down.

And yet every election I find myself hoping this time will be different, that just once the good guys will come out on top. Hope is harder to hold on to than belief, but hope is what this country needs.

I have a whole lot of hope today.

[etrix.livejournal.com]

As a Canadian, I am also watching with a lot of hope.

Historically, our 'right' has been somewhere close to what you'd call centre however that's changed in the last eight years to the point that a former Conservative Prime Minister endorsed the Liberal Party during an election.

If the Republicans fail massively in this election it could help erode the support the hyper-capitalist agenda. Without the political and economic ability to point to the neo-con 'success' south-of-the-border, hopefully more of us Canucks will rethink this 'big business will look after us' thing they chuck up.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Or at least Harper will have to kiss a different ass.

*cough*

Sorry, that was my outside voice.

[mmarques.livejournal.com]

The first election that I remember being discussed was when Nixon was elected. Luckily, I also remember Carter and Clinton being elected. But I understand where you're coming from.

[etrix.livejournal.com]

I found this on Icanhascheezburger. I thought it was appropriate:

(http://punditkitchen.com/2008/07/23/political-pictures-richard-nixon-todays-standards/)
see Sarah Palin pictures (http://punditkitchen.com/tag/sarah-palin/)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. That made me laugh in that sick-hyena way. Thank you!

[chikan4.livejournal.com]

I feel like a Boston Red sox fan (circa 2004); I'm watching the returns with my hand over my eyes.

I cannot for the LIFE of me remember my parents talking politics at home, and yet I remember a mock election at my school in 1980. I was BEWILDERED that Reagan won in a landslide. I was....8? and could not wrap my head around people voting for a Republican!

Still can't, really:-)

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Yet the weird thing is, in both the UK and the US, that while the Bad Guys are winning the elections, they are losing the their countries. Both the US and the UK have, in the teeth of hostile rhetoric, become more liberal places over the past thirty years.

This is not meant tho as a joyous comment: just before the US Civil War, the South dominated the legislatures and the Supreme Court. The feeling of "why do our wins not feel like winning?" was the eventual trigger for secession.

[lepusdomesticus.livejournal.com]

"In 2004, I voted for Kerry, although it would be more accurate and honest to say I voted against Bush. (I am a yellow dog Democrat. I would vote for a yellow dog before I would vote for a Republican. In the last election, if I'd known a yellow dog, I would have voted for him as a write-in candidate.) Didn't matter. The bad guy won."

Wow, do I know exactly what you mean here! I felt the same way precisely. Thank you for this post. I agree with just about everything you said, especially the paragraph that starts "I hate politics."

Here because of gwynraven's post, by the way.

[steppinrazor.livejournal.com]

I've felt that exact same way. Voting for the lesser of two evils. Never trusting either of them, or believing in either candidate.

This time, though, is different. Somehow he won me over. Somehow I'm not just voting for him. I'm inspired by him, and more hopeful for the country than I ever have been in my LIFE.

I just sincerely hope we, the people, don't forget OUR end of the bargain - that it's not just about him, it's about everyone. I would love to see a new era of dignity and respect, and responsibility for one's self ushered in. I think I'm setting the bar too high.

[lferion]

1980 was the very first election I voted in.

I'm holding fast to hope too.

[miintikwa.livejournal.com]

I have been volunteering for the Obama campaign (I live in Florida), and let me tell you, it has brought my hope and optimism to a whole new level.

There is nothing like going into a campaign headquarters and being among the OLDEST people there (I'm 33). There is nothing like going to a rally (http://miintikwa.livejournal.com/1414979.html) and seeing all kinds of people, from a little 86 year old man who served in the Air Force, and was delighted to tell his story, to a six year old girl volunteering with her mom, who thinks that Obama is just the bee's knees.

I was worried, scared, half-disbelieving and hopeless until I started volunteering. The people in this campaign have given me hope again. I just pray I still have it at the end of the day today.

[(Anonymous)]

Hmmm. I'm beginning to see from where your vision of Melusine politics stems. I hope for an Obama/Kennedy figure in Corambis : - )

Oh, and good luck with the election. For what it's worth, according to polls Obama would win the Australian vote if there was one for him. (He's more popular than our Prime Minister. True.)

Zaf

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Mélusinien politics are positively utopian; after all, most of the people at the top are genuinely trying to do their best.

[writegirl23.livejournal.com]

The first election I can remember was Clinton vs Dole in 1996 and my mom explaining that if Dole won, that would be bad. Or at least that was what I understood from her explanation. So when my kindergarten class had a mock election, I of course, voted for Clinton, but I remember some of the other kids voting for Dole because his name was shorter and I was absolutely furious that they would choose by such a stupid reason. I'm hoping that adult voters can choose based on better reasons than that one.

[klgaffney.livejournal.com]

to this day i have nothing to say about reagan--i remember distinctly being puzzled that the man has been raised to such a heroic stature.

i've been old enough to vote in 4 elections, i think, if i'm counting correctly. this is my first.

[(Anonymous)]

Hope can be a painful, painful thing. It's about 7:15pm mountain time right now, and part of me is starting to feel genuinely hopeful. The other part of me is ruthlessly beating the snot out of the optimistic part, because we don't want to go through that again....

I've got to get offline, and shut off the TV until this thing is over.

[jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com]

I would just like to agree with everything you said--I haven't been watching politics quite so long, but every time I start examining American politics I just get sick to my stomach. And I have trouble believing--but yes. I can hope.