A question often asked of me by friends, acquaintances, lovers, family members, pets, painted rocks, and online dates is:
Why do you care so much about politics? Why? Why? Why?
As if politics is a dirty word, or a bad habit like gambling, drinking, or a chronic porn addiction. Listen, I get it. Politics as currently manifested in the United States and basically every country on earth IS dirty. It’s a dirty game, usually zero sum, where one side wins and the other side can go fuck itself. It’s easy to get fed up with politics when 95% of our politicians are easily-corrupted Gollums who either are striving to steal Frodo’s Ring and all of the power, influence, money, and other delights it provides — doing anything they can to get it, short of fingerbanging Sauron — or they’re already wearing the thing and will do whatever it takes to keep it.
To assist them in their journey for the Ring, The Gollums have their 24-hour Talking Points, which are handed out the day before by an undisclosed authority, a PAC, other similarly-aligned Gollums, or a political lobby. The purpose of The Talking Points is to drive the next day’s news cycle. 99.9% of what the American public hears from The Gollums on a daily basis comes from The Talking Points. To depart from The Talking Points presents a number of unacceptable risks to The Gollums, including, but not limited to, independent thought that might tickle a Gollum’s conscience, resulting in a shunning by the Gollum’s political party, and quite possibly, a surrendering of the Ring.
What does a political shunning look like in the 21st Century? Let’s see. It could manifest itself in any number of ways. One might have their station downgraded in Congress or a state legislature. One might be removed from an important congressional committee. One might get a bunch of middle fingers when one is trying to scrounge up a party vote for something one deems important. One might get party leaders to cut one’s political legs off for a couple of weeks on mainstream media. One might not get party funding, endorsements, or cameos for one’s next political campaign. One might get primaried by someone who is a TEAM PLAYER. One might be encouraged to leave the party. (I see you, Justin Amash).
There are lots of risks when a Gollum goes rogue and forays into independent thought. The Ring is a compelling prize indeed. Once obtained, it’s hard to let go of. Which is one reason this is so rare and why we have the shitty system we have. A shitty system, I should add, that is still exponentially better than most of its competitors on the Big Blue Marble.
But what of the Fourth Estate, you say, our independent journalists who muckrake and investigate and dig and report all the news that is fit to print to keep The Gollums honest and accountable? What of them? Surely they serve as a bulwark against corruption and graft and self-dealing by The Gollums, right???
ErrrrrNope. Our current POS criminal President* is the most stark example of how badly these people are failing at their jobs. So is the Iraq War 17 years ago. A few diamonds in the rough aside, most American journalists and news organizations, and virtually all MSM journalists and news organizations are NOT independent and are awful at performing what should be their sole purpose: informing the American public with the facts and truth. I’m not just talking about bias here. Everyone on the planet has some kind of bias. Journalists are expected to leave their bias at the door, but I see that as virtually impossible due to human nature. So I can accept some amount of low-level journalistic bias if the facts and the truth are being reported. This is why I have always exempted people like Chris Wallace, Bret Baier, and (formerly) Shep Smith from my criticism of Foxycontin. They lean right (not sure about Shep, honestly) and work for a state propaganda channel, but individually, they ask tough questions of people whom their employer favors, so they have my respect. Same for Anderson Cooper, Chris Cuomo, and Scott Pelley most of the time. They’re biased but lefties on their shows get tough questions too.
But let’s not kid ourselves. This is like removing a few dunce caps from a class full of dunces for a couple of days a week. All of those people — every American journalist employed by a for profit organization — works for a corporation that seeks to benefit from the current state of our plutocracy. All of those people I mentioned work for corporations who make money from AD REVENUE generated from OTHER corporations that benefit from the status quo. If that ad revenue ever dried up, if people stopped watching and ratings cratered to the point of unprofitability for 3-5 years, maybe even less, CNN, MSNBC, and Foxycontin wouldn’t exist. Give or take Jeff Bezos’ deep pockets, The Washington Post and The New York Times might not even exist, and they’ve been around for decades.
Money drives mainstream media today. Mainstream media is where most Americans get their news are told what to think and are indoctrinated with The Talking Points. The Talking Points are repeated over and over and implanted in viewing brains so that viewers can repeat The Talking Points to others and hopefully vote accordingly. The Talking Points are really important. We bite into them like Flintstones chewables, enjoying that first burst of chalky/fruity goodness before swallowing them almost whole into our tummies. The Talking Points are gasoline lit on Twitter and Facebook, circling the globe millions upon millions of times, hitting millions of eyes and brains, regardless of truth or accuracy. In fact, when it comes to The Talking Points, truth and facts are irrelevant. It’s all about the SPIN. It’s all about the party, influencing hearts and minds by any means necessary so that The Gollums can stay in power and keep all of the money, perks, and influence that go with it. This means keeping Gollum Donors happy, whether it’s The Koch brothers, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, or Pick Your Union Organization, so that sweet money keeps flowing into Gollum political coffers. Without Gollum Donors, The Gollums would be fucked. Well, not completely. They’d have to become consultants or lobbyists, i.e., second-tier gollums, Gollums with a small “g.”
Because money drives our entire political system, people like Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper and Chris Wallace and Lester Holt and Chuck Todd and Maggie Haberman may rock the boat, but they’re never going to flip it over. They’ll sometimes ask difficult questions, but they rarely follow up, call bullshit, or deliver a knockout blow (President Trump, can you point out Iran on a map? How about Iraq? Idaho? Nevada? The Atlantic Ocean?). Their purpose is to give the ILLUSION of real journalism so that people keep tuning in, the clicks keep coming, and their employers keep enjoying that tasty corporate ad revenue so stock prices stay up and corporate insiders hit their bonus targets. It’s all about the grift. It’s all about maintaining continued access to political leaders.
If these people ever asked real questions and refused to allow The Gollums to dodge, duck, dive, and dodge by repeating the same gotdam question until they got a real answer that wasn’t a Talking Point, they would lose access to The Gollums. They’d be cut off. They’re not going to risk that. Quite the contrary. On CNN, we see this ridiculous dog and pony show of appearing “balanced” by having party shills like Rick Santorum who are secretly PAID by political campaigns and/or organizations that have an agenda. The purpose of the Rick Santorums of the world is to PROVIDE A POLITICAL POSITION AND NOT DEPART FROM IT. There’s no honest debate. There’s no factual exchange. It’s a fucking joke. CNN should be disclosing exactly who is paying each and every “political pundit” who appears on its show every night, so that the American public will be made aware of this critical conflict of interest, and will understand why, every time that person opens his or her mouth, they say something that ONLY BENEFITS THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION PAYING THEM. Instead, we’re led to believe that these people are expressing “The Other Side” and “facts are debatable.” It’s complete bullshit, and they are doing the country a massive disservice by failing to disclose this information.
To be clear here, I am NOT talking about news personalities like Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, or festering ass pimples like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. They fall into their own category. They aren’t journalists. They are branded personalities. At least their slant is more obvious than with the paid “pundits” on CNN. Now, in my admittedly biased opinion, two of these four provide more facts and truth than the other two. But those facts are cherry-picked and packaged each night, which is a bias, and there’s also a slant to their presentation. But lifting up the layers, with Maddow and Hayes, you at least find facts underneath the presentation.
Not so with Hannity. His bias and slant are based on lies and propaganda 99% of the time, because his sole purpose, apart from maintaining his brand and keeping people tuning in to Foxycontin, is to help the current President* hold on to his base as long as possible. Hannity and Fox and Friends could not give two shits about truth or facts. As Malcolm X famously said: By any means necessary. Tucker is a less egregious ass pimple than Hannity, but an ass pimple nonetheless. They must be paying him a shitload of money as the heir apparent at Foxycontin, because I used to watch him on CNN, and he was nowhere near as out there as he is now. It got so bad a couple of times after TC made some outlandish statements (even for him) that Foxycontin had to give him a short vacation when corporate sponsors got pissed. Same with Fraulein Laura Ingraham. The apple from her Nazi-sympathizing father didn’t fall far from the tree with that one.
But I digress. Back to my original question:
Why do you care so much about politics? Why? Why? Why?
Why indeed. The temptation is to flush all of the above down the toilet, stick one’s head in the sand, and go about one’s life. Watch football. Drink wine. Fuck. Play with one’s kids. Write a blog that no will read. The temptation is to believe we can’t change anything, and we’re stuck with this shit, with The Gollums. And that is precisely the problem. This giving in. This apathy. That’s exactly what those self-interested pigs want. That’s how they stay precisely where they are, by encouraging this defeated mentality and tranquilizing us with happy distractions like the NFL, Christmas, Black Friday, Twitter, Facebook, and pinot noir.
The nightly civil wars on CNN, MSNBC, and Foxycontin are also tranquilizers, in a negative way. They keep us firmly entrenched in our political tribes, separate and apart from each other, happily swallowing The Talking Points without questioning their accuracy for longer than 20 seconds. When we already are told what to think and our bias is confirmed on a nightly basis, we come to believe that we don’t have to do anything else. We already know it all because That Guy or That Lady Who Surely Knows More Than Me just said it. So…. back to my Playstation.
There literally is a Digital Civil War occurring right now, whether we recognize it or not. Trump didn’t start it. This fire has been growing since the early 90s. But he’s thrown gasoline on it, appealing to people’s fears and racism and inherent bias to get elected and line his own pockets. He’s not a partisan. He doesn’t care about his own current political party. He was a registered Democrat for much of his life. He donated to Hillary Clinton and was pro-choice until he decided to run for president. (You mean a zebra can change its stripes on abortion at the age of 71? Fucking please.) He blew up the deficit, which Republicans used to care about. He cheated on his CURRENT wife with a porn star and a Playboy model, which “family values” Evangelicals used to care about. He’s broken laws, which “law and order” Republicans used to care about. During the GOP primaries, he put the shriveled testicles of Rubio, Cruz, and Graham in a MAGA bag and beat them over the head with it on a daily basis.
(Confession: this is when I liked him the most.)
Now? Now they’ve all fallen in line like a bunch of dominated eunuchs because they’re afraid of him and his 80% approval rating in their party. They’re not stupid. Gollums that they are, they want to stay in office, and as crazy as it may have sounded in 2015, they now believe that embracing Trumpism forevermore is the best way for them to do that. They have yet to be proven wrong.
Why care about any of this?
Because politics matter to all of us. It impacts all of our lives and the lives of people we care about, our parents and kids. More importantly, the system we have exists and remains in its current form precisely because too many Americans are tranquilized, uninformed, and apathetic. Their cousin or brother or sister or nephew or niece might get sent to Iraq or Afghanistan, but they couldn’t find any of those countries on an unlabeled map, much less have they bothered to familiarize themselves with the conditions and players in those countries so they can ask a very simple question: Why is my cousin/brother/nephew/niece being sent there, and is this cause worth his or her life?
Okay, that’s two questions, but you get my point.
Every law that gets passed has an impact on you, me, and the people we care about. Every political decision — from impeachment to a tax cut to a decision to assassinate an official from a foreign country — has implications for all of us. Every day that passes without stalking, domestic violence, voter suppression, climate change, and gun safety legislation (to give left-wing examples because it’s my fucking blog and I write what I want) has implications for all of us. Every appointment of a self-interested lobbyist to head organizations like the EPA, USDA, HHR, and Energy Department has implications for all of us, on the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. Every dollar that goes to pay for corporate oil and agribusiness subsidies is a dollar that’s not being used for something else, or put back into our pockets.
Here’s one small, easily-digested example of the graft that the American Sheeple are choosing to ignore during their comfortable slumber: Trump’s costly golfing excursions during his presidency.
Trump has been President* for 1085 days. During that time, he has stayed at one of his own properties 1 out of every 5 of those days. He has spent 114 days of his presidency at Mar-A-Lago and 75 at Bedminster alone. He has visited golf clubs (usually his own) 242 out of 1085 days since he’s been President.* We’re likely to hit a year of him visiting a golf club — a full quarter of his presidency — by the time the November election gets here, which is fucking insane!
Who cares, you say? All presidents play golf! Obama played golf a lot!
Sure, let’s compare him to Obama (who Trump eviscerated for playing golf when Obama was president). During EIGHT years of his presidency, Obama played golf 306 times. Trump will hit that mark after FOUR years. 61.5% of Obama’s golf visits were to military golf courses (saving taxpayers money) and 18.6% were to public courses (saving taxpayers money). Only 20% of Obama’s golf visits were to private clubs. By contrast, 100% of Trump’s golf visits were to private clubs, predominantly his own.
The taxpayer cost of Trump’s golf trips to date? He doesn’t want to tell us until AFTER the next election (how convenient!), but the GAO estimates that Trump’s golf club jaunts have cost American taxpayers $121,000,000 in a mere three years. $121 million. Trump’s golf car rentals for the Secret Service alone have cost $588,000. All/most directly into his pocket because most of Trump’s golf visits are to his own clubs.
That’s a lot of fucking money. And it doesn’t include the $86 million his daughter and son in law, both of whom are officials in this administration, have earned while in office. Assuming you don’t care about Trump’s egregious laziness and hypocrisy (which is par for the course among his supporters, pun intended), American taxpayers are paying for all of this, and the money is going directly into Trump’s pocket. That wasn’t the case with Obama, Bush, or Clinton. Fuck, even Hunter Biden didn’t screw us like this!
Why care about politics? Because it matters. To not care about it, to ignore it, to sleep through it, has a cost for all of us. Regardless of who you vote for, to not inform yourself about the issues by reading and talking to people and vote accordingly has a cost. Too many American people express support for a politician whose voting record and views they don’t even know apart from speeches and soundbites on television. People like this guy:
This is the cost of ignoring politics. There are myriad others. I have always said that we get the system, the politicians, the policies, the judges, and the laws we deserve. There’s a cost to ignorance and tranquilization. To not recognizing propaganda when you see it. To Whatbouting and falsely equating everything instead of actually listening to what someone else is saying.
I’m not willing to accept that cost for myself, my daughter, or my country. I would hope that my compatriots would not either, but I’m a realist.
And for those people who say one person can’t change anything, that the powers that be are too powerful, that “they’re all the same,” and we can’t change a damn thing, to those people I say:
Fuck you, stop rationalizing your ignorance and laziness, and read some history.
If dictators can be overthrown by comparatively powerless populations in places like Iran (that’s what the 1979 revolution was, guys), Egypt, and Tunisia; if everyday Syrians can courageously risk their lives with NO foreign help for 8 years, being massacred by the thousands in the process; if women and African-Americans and homosexuals could achieve some semblance of equality and civil rights in the United States, imperfect and incomplete though they may be, by fighting for those rights for decades instead of continuing to accept the status quo; if everyday Americans could help force a premature end to the Vietnam War, saving lives in the process, by protesting and getting arrested then:
Surely everyday Americans in the year 2020 can get off their fucking couch, walk to their desk, pick up their iPad, lie back down on the couch, and do the BARE MINIMUM by reading the news online from any number of available sources and familiarize themselves with the policies and positions of political candidates who are running in our next election. Surely they can do the BARE MINIMUM by staying informed and recognizing propaganda when they see it, fact-checking dubious statements on social media and out of the mouths of friends and relatives. Surely they can do the BARE MINIMUM by VOTING during each election.
The above requires turning off the TV and not relying on The Talking Points you see and hear from paid pundits on CNN, MSNBC, and Foxycontin. It requires not using MSM as your sole news source. It requires keeping an open mind, one that can be changed with facts, not farted opinions. It requires not being lazy. It requires following politics and current events not as an option, but as a necessity. Unlike Russia, where dissent is squelched and journalists who get too close to the truth are murdered (if they exist at all), we still have the freedom to inform ourselves, dissent from our leaders, and vote them out of office. There is no excuse to be uninformed. Everyone cares about something. R.E.A.D.
The alternative is more of the same. Bad policies that impact everyone. Unnecessary foreign wars that cost us blood and treasure and people we love. Self-interested politicians who answer to no one except their donors and gerrymandered voters. A plutocracy that favors the wealthy and throws a few crumbs at everyone else to keep them pacified.
On the extreme end of apathy, we find 1930s Germany, Italy, and Japan. 1970s Argentina and Chile. 1980s Guatemala and El Salvador. 2010s Russia. This history used to seem far-fetched to me. It couldn’t happen here. The past three years of incredible hypocrisy and self-compromise by an entire political party and the cult-like devotion of Trump’s core supporters has changed my mind. It most definitely could happen here. We’re not special, and we’re not immune from the impact of effective propaganda, especially in this age of social media.
An apathetic and uninformed citizenry is easily led to folly by self-interested people who most definitely are NOT apathetic, uninformed, or asleep. They know exactly what they’re doing, and they are counting on our continued apathy and ignorance to keep things exactly the way they are.
That’s why I care about politics, stay informed, and won’t shut up about the things I care about. First, I’m still lucky enough to live in a country where I can do this without being thrown in jail. Second, with this good fortune, with this power to speak out, comes a great responsibility to speak out about injustice, inequality, and be a voice to the voiceless. (Shout out to Peter Parker). The cynical would call what I do “virtue signaling.” But the phrase “virtue signaling” is just another rhetorical weapon to try and shut people up and keep things the way they are. I don’t give a fuck what I’m called. At least I know I have virtue and care about people besides myself. It’s easy to throw stones when you only care about yourself. It’s easy to criticize someone else’s standards when you don’t have any, apart from maintaining the status quo. Besides, racism, xenophobia, hating on refugees, supporting a selective Muslim ban, and opposing any and all forms of gun safety legislation, no matter how modest or reasonable, are their own form of “virtue signaling.” The shitty and deplorable kind. So please, fuck all of the way off.
But hey, I’m reasonable. I could have posted this diatribe on Facebook. That’s progress, people. It’s a sign of personal growth. Wait, did I just virtue signal again?
This is a must read.
Thanks for giving a shit.
How to give this a wider audience?