These days it seems I can’t read or write about politics without wanting to explode into a tornado of expletives, erupt into a Vesuvius of vulgarity, or maybe just scream and cry into a dense memory foam pillow.
Most cynics and libertarians have been saying for a very long time that voting doesn’t really matter: yours is one solitary voice lost in a sea of tens of millions of votes. It hardly registers as grey noise in the background.
Even worse, just about every aspect of individual autonomy and local governance has been dumped into the moloch that is the federal executive branch. What your local municipal or county government does is inconsequential. They are bound to implement rules that come from the federal bureaucracy. It’s the same thing at the level of state government: The states are just administrative units whose job it is mainly to implement federal policy. The only vote that matters is the one you cast for the presidency, and that vote is so severely watered down as to be pointless.
There is practically nothing you can do to stop the Leviathan from continuing its steady grinding along until it has pulverized the last granules of human liberty.
I don’t really have a solution to this, apart from the aforementioned temper tantrum. That does appeal to me, since I’m temperamentally choleric and grumpy.
In some ways it’s helpful to reflect on the powerlessness, because it’s a reminder that politics is ultimately just permanently frustrating. Thinking you can do something about it is about as effective as thinking you can push over the Empire State building. Might as well find better things to do, better answers to the existential question: Why am I here? It isn’t to fix politics, that’s for sure.
Maybe one way out is to reflect on the four humors and the four temperaments as a bit of ancient and discarded pseudoscience. It’s something that appeals to my sense of symmetry, I think, in a way that modern Freud-initiated psychological theory and science really doesn’t satisfy so much. The Wikipedia rundown is a good enough starting point for a generalist like me—and doesn’t make me angry.
Yesterday went well in our precinct. I spent the day with kind, interesting and "diverse" people (3 women, three men, 3 black, three white, 3 Democrats, 3 Republicans, 3 born in NC, 3 not, 5 "older", 1 young). Voters were pleasant, there were many "Hey, good to see you!" greetings and we all enjoyed talking to the "Voters in Training" (who got their own special stickers). I even took a couple of boys outside to run around so their mama could focus on her ballot. It was good.
And then I got home to the news. Why do we let national conversations about and between people we will never meet take precedence relationships with our neighbors???
Saw this moving story on X Monday, thought of y’all.
In 1986, Peter Davies was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University.
On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Peter approached it very carefully.
He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Peter worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.
The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Peter stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away.
Peter never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.
Twenty years later, Peter was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son.
As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Peter and his son Cameron were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Peter, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.
Remembering the encounter in 1986, Peter couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Peter summoned up his courage, slipped past the "WARNING-DO NOT ENTER" sign, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder.
The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Peter's legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.
So, this probably wasn't the same elephant.
H/T Mike Havas and (((hugs))) to the irrepressible @AHMalcolm from whom I stole this.
https://twitter.com/Judianna/status/1753045930591314197