Well, it's taken me a while, but I'm finally back here. I'm blaming the kid. Last night he stayed with his Yaya, and the wife and I didn't go anywhere, so I finally have time to sit and write (well, type). So, here I am drinking my third cup of coffee and trying to figure out how I want to go about putting this important topic out there.
I have been wanting to write about this for a long...long time. It's been so long now and I've thought about it so much that it's really become a bit of an albatross around my neck.
Like most of you, I'm tired. I am terribly tired of the internet these days, and I've been avoiding it. I don't do the Facebook much at all anymore. Twitter is barely a second thought. Linkedin sends me too many notifications in my inbox, otherwise I'd have probably forgotten about it. I don't know what other socials are out there that the kids are using these days, but I certainly don't want to be a part of them.
Even podcasts have become annoying. I've switched to listening to podcasts that are not supposed to be political, like parenting podcasts, history podcasts, self help podcasts, etc, but many of them have devolved lately and I don't want to listen anymore.
I can't get a break at work because COVID and the election are basically all anyone wants to talk about. I'd much rather talk about my son, the family of the person I'm speaking with, etc, but conversations inevitably come back to COVID and Trump.
I'm tired.
I'm tired of listening to arguments. I've long since given up on participating in them. It's not a productive use of my time. When I get on social media or chat with friends, family, and coworkers, I don't want to talk about Black Lives Matter or the efficacy of wearing a mask. I understand the importance of these topics, but we've reached a point where lines have been drawn and no one is really going to change their minds, so I'm unsure the point in discussing them anymore.
Let me do what I do best and illustrate what I'm trying to say with a quick anecdote. My wife has not quite given up on politics, so a few weeks ago she posted a fairly innocent comment on Facebook that R and D aren't the only options on the ballot and people who are unsatisfied with the current options presented by the R's and D's might consider researching some of the many third party candidates. No specific race, or person, was referenced in the post. The vitriol of the response was staggering. The first comment was something along the line of "This is not the time to make a political stand. We have to get Trump out of office." Which of course led to an argument between that person and another who was an avid supporter of Trump. Which inevitably led to the original poster blocking both my wife and the person who was arguing with her. What I don't understand is why. Both of these people are known to each other and have been friendly with each other in the past, but suddenly the topic of a presidential election comes up and people can't be associated any longer because they disagree with which bumbling old white man will be sitting on the throne our next president?
I've listened to plenty of podcasts about how the nation has always been divided like this. Whether I agree with that or not, I don't agree that this is acceptable. Why should something that affects our lives so little make such a big difference to who we can associate with?
Let's start with the thing no one wants to admit: Who is sitting in the oval office has made very little difference in our lives in the past twenty years. Does anyone really think Al Gore or John Kerry would have done any differently than George W Bush? Was Obama really that different? Have things really changed since Trump has been in office? I can think of maybe two or three major things in my life that the national politics have affected in the last twenty years, and, honestly, I'm unconvinced they would have gone a different way if a different person had been in office. I know we call it Obama-Care, but if it had been Hillary Clinton in office instead of Obama, we'd have the same program, we'd just call it Hillary-Care or Clinton-Care. Even if by some miracle John McCain had managed to beat Obama in 2008, I still think we'd have had a major overhaul to the healthcare industry. The support was there. The pieces were in place. It was going to happen. Same with everything that happened under Bush; the attacks in 2001 would have happened and we would have gone to war and passed all the Patriot Act legislation whether Bush was in office or Gore was in office.
None of these people are any different. Trump is more repugnant on TV, but that doesn't mean the federal government is running any differently than it was running under Obama, or Bush. Why do we have to follow his Twitter comments with such fervor?
When I go to the coffee shop, I usually order an Americano. I like black coffee, and the Americano gives me a good espresso flavor and jolt and has a tendency to be fresher than the drip coffee. The people I go with get other drinks, but I don't hate them because they ordered a Pink Drink. I don't make fun of my friends because they order a cappuccino or because they put cream and sugar in their coffee. When my in-laws come over, I provide cream and sugar for coffee, even though I don't use it. They don't think I'm a psychopath for drinking my coffee black, and I don't give them a hard time for using the sugar that's usually reserved for baking.
When I go to the bar (well, when I used to go to the bar), I don't yell at people who drink IPA's even though I think they're terrible. I sip my brown ale or porter and have a good time. We chat and drink together, even with people who, gasp, order a hard seltzer or a fruit flavored cocktail. Even though lately it seems like all the restaurants stock is IPA and domestics, I don't get angry with the people who prefer IPA's even though all their demand is the reason I can't get a good brown ale with my meal.
I know politics are a bit more high risk than coffee and beer, but the point remains the same. We're all humans. We are all individuals with different ideas, opinions, and tastes. I have no expectation that we will all "get along" all the time, but do we really need to demonize each other just because we disagree on something? Voting for one person or another doesn't make anyone a bad person. Disagreeing with a political movement doesn't make someone evil. Hating someone who doesn't believe exactly what you believe isn't the path toward anything but pain.
This didn't go exactly how I wanted it to. I might come back to it later. In the meantime, maybe stop and think what you're saying before "slamming that lefty" or "sticking it to that racist POS" on Facebook/Twitter/whatever. Try to remember that there is a human being about to read whatever horrendous comment you're about to post, and maybe consider what it would feel like if someone said something like that to you. I don't think we need to stop talking about politics, but I do think we need to stop screaming at each other about it. It's not healthy, and we're all tired of it.
