At some point, it will be a matter of self-preservation. I get so anxious, so edgy … it’s impossible to ignore the physical toll it takes. For no reason. These people are clearly not speaking to me … why worry about what they say? If we have learned anything over the past few years, it’s that the entire game is rigged … we can push the needle a bit (which can net a lot of good for a lot of people), but in the end, the House always wins. Whoever the House is. Probably some white-hooded kabillionaires in an underground temple, sacrificing virgin kittens to some long forgotten deities. So why fret?
Inevitably, though, some thread from the coverage sinks its hooks into my gut – and I drag its toxic energy with me throughout my day and into my head at night. This year, there is so much to choose from. An all-you-can-tolerate buffet of bile and vitriol. Anti-intellectualism, attempts to revert women to second-class citizens, race-baiting (now with plausible deniability!) … and that’s just the Right. It might even be more painful to look at the Left and remember how I felt on November 4, 2008.
So I try to laugh at how backwards the Right is … but I stew over their semiotics and their Woe-is-Wall-Street whining. And I hope against hope that My Team can accomplish something instead of complaining that “they won’t let us!!” … satisfied in their small, perceived victories.
Sometimes the sidelines feel like the moral high ground.