I actually tried to sit down and watch a little bit of the DNC convention last night. OK, that’s not quite true. There wasn’t an active attempt on my part to watch it. More accurately, by the time I had a chance to sit down and watch TV last night the DNC convention just so happened to be on the channel that the TV was tuned to. So I decided to stop a minute and see what it was about.
My take away: lunacy, pure and absolute lunacy. I don’t think I’ll watch any more of it and I find this a little bit troubling. I can’t stand to watch the actual event, so I’ll most likely rely on a 3rd party to watch and report on it for me. Who knows what sort of accidental or intentional bias I’ll pick up from the 3rd party? If I’m at the least bit interested shouldn’t I be willing to watch the actual event and judge for myself? Hell no. I don’t think possible to be moderate and enjoy watching a convention, DNC or otherwise.
The problem with any convention is it’s a room full of the most devout and fanatical members of a party. By definition it pretty much represents an extreme political viewpoint. Anything that can make a crowd like that hoot and holler will likely be insane partisan blather.
The part that kills me is they act like there is this big lever. If you pull it one direction it helps the constituents. If you push it the other it hurts the constituents. Naturally their party only wants to selflessly pull the lever to help the constituents, and the other party selfishly wants to push it for their own gain at the expense of the constituents. Really, who (besides Dawn) would even think about founding a party on the “hurt constituents” model?
Am I too jaded and skeptical or does what pass for public discourse really just boil down to unreasonably deifying one party so they can get into power while demonizing the other. The reality is neither party is going to make too many changes to upset the status quo. Either candidate will accomplish both good and bad resulting from combination of happenstance and deliberate governance (I suspect that happenstance plays a larger role than governance).
I find listening to all the campaign promises during an election season to be profoundly depressing. Does anyone really believe any of them will come to pass? If history teaches us anything - very few administrations accomplish what they promise…partly because it’s impossible to deliver all that they promised and partly because they have to work with a bunch of people who need to see them fail in order to get their own turn in power. Yet there are those who keep the hope alive that their candidate will pull the big help constituents lever. How do the faithful do it election after election? Are they like goldfish with short memories, or is hope just a better option than resignation?
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1 comment:
Ah, to live in a democracy! It reminds me of when I was younger my parents used to make me go to "revivals," which are like the Christian version of the DNC. A bunch of fanatics haging around in a tent listening to some guy on a pulpit demonizing everyone else. I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now. I will have to get my info third party as well. At least there is still project runway to watch, or I would go crazy.
Andrea
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