Aggressive Political Lateral Movement
A trusted source unshackled by mainstream media got a couple of hours with Donald J. Trump this month and found him quite likeable. You can picture that, right? Even if your interest in politics depends on the extent you can feel outraged and virtue signal, and you’re pissed off about the assaults on democracy, decorum, a shared sense of reality, women’s rights, individual women allegedly, et al., you can see how the man can be charming in the right setting and astoundingly funny in bursts, right?
I am curious where Trump voters fall:
Like him, don’t care for/about his policies. In other words, if he were the Democratic nominee they’d vote for him.
Don’t like him, like his policies.
Like both.
No idea how the pie chart breaks down, but I do know it’s a huge freakin’ Costco-sized American pie. Seventy-something million people will vote for him in 11 days. It’s enough to declare a border — call it a figurative wall that Mexico figuratively will pay for — between a person’s voting preference and character. They are independent things when confronted with a decision between two parties that can’t agree on anything, yet paradoxically are indistinguishable in practice.
If a magic wand rendered you unable to consume news and media that don’t directly affect you starting Nov. 5, and you just lived your life, how long would it take for you to know definitively, based on the quality of your day-to-day, who won the election? You might not figure it out before the next one, especially with a split Congress.
The magic wand isn’t entirely quixotic. You can opt out of the unnatural must-be-within-arms-reach-of-the-internet-at-all-times state of being. Like, no one said politics has to be digested this way, waiting for the next scrap of non-news or whatever picayune gaffe or oddity the algorithms send viral. You can go exercise instead and look like this no matter who wins the election:
I told you I would shape up. In the 40-and-over fitness club, Tom Brady is president and I am vice president. LeBron will bump me down to speaker when he joins in December.
This Trumpian narcissistic digression continues with a story of triumph. My professor buddy got me into the main University of Texas recreation center, and we played full-court basketball with undergraduates half our age. I made some layups, missed some layups, and missed every jumper. So basically I’m still in my prime.
Despite a blister from aggressive lateral movement in running shoes and a cardiovascular deficit bordering on nausea, I felt euphoric. There is a last time for everything, and I didn’t know if mine had already happened in this category. I had my doubts after the first sprint up the court and discovering the kids play to 30 these days. However, they count by twos and threes, presumably so the latter isn’t overweighted like it was when we played by ones and twos to 15. Brilliant. The future of America is bright.
Future and present here are bright, certainly relative to any other country if you look at their numbers and struggles. Sucks to be them, respectfully. My surest prediction for November is life will go on. There will be no civil war or anarchy because polarization on the internet is a long distance from the type of conviction needed to risk families in real life.
The election will not radically change anything for the aggregate. This confidence comes from our government’s checks and balances and freedoms we take for granted. It makes progress slow, often imperceptibly incremental, but it also has a way of self-correction.
Trump ran on repealing Obamacare, tried, failed, and maybe inadvertently made it more popular — which the Democrats leveraged during midterms when they took back the House. Illegal migrant crossings at the southern border were high during President Biden’s administration, and then they plummeted. Roe v. Wade was overturned, and abortions have gone up.
I’m not encouraging apathy. I am discouraging being a blow-hard when there’s only hot air in the room. Vote for whichever party makes you happy, and then be happy.
To borrow one of Vice President Kamala Harris’s favorite words, we have agency in America. That’s one of the many reasons I love it so much. However inequitable the playing field, the baseline level of opportunity and quality of life are so high you don’t have to worry about who wins an election. People hyperbolize these days like we’re in Venezuela.
The effects on your life every four years are in the margins and close to zero relative to the impact of what’s actually in your control: how you treat your body, mind and other people, relationships you invest in, career paths you choose, places you live and see, important decisions and bets you make, in short — what you spend your time doing. If fretting about national politics under the guise of civic duty is your thing, consider the more direct efficacy of speaking up at a school board meeting or volunteering at a women’s clinic.
Life has been great for me during Biden’s term: new baby, new career, new house, new oblique abs appearing on any given day. All of it would have happened under Trump too. In fact midway through we moved from California, where in major cities if you dare mention Trump’s name you’re allotted a maximum of two seconds to say something negative before being canceled from things you didn’t even sign up for, to Texas, where a Republican has held every statewide office for 30 years.
Of course insulation from politics requires privilege and good fortune, and some folks don’t have it easy. But it’s not like they’re being offered dramatically different universes either. If the assumption is Republicans are only for the rich, well, Democrats have been in the White House for 12 of the last 16 years. Rich people have gotten richer, and poor people probably still feel pretty poor.
Oh and by the way, I only add this as a footnote to avoid being dodgy in such an intimate setting as a public blog. Harris will be my nominal vote in a red state, but I truly don’t care if you go for Trump. I’ll see you on the other side, which will look familiar.