Elections Are Hell, We Can Do Better

Election season always pulls me in two directions at the same time – I get more frustrated with radicals who refuse to acknowledge important differences in degree of evil. But I’m also yet more convinced that the state as such is evil. I’m thinking like a liberal Karl Rove, knowing exactly how the electoral politics sausage gets made and taking on the psychopathic mentality it takes to pull that lever in this trolley problem. And I’m also thinking who keeps tying people to tracks? Why are we as a population that will say por que no los dos about having both a cinnamon bun and a breakfast burrito for breakfast not stopping to think that maybe we can care about all persons everywhere without any exceptions or qualifications?

“Power is alright as long as the right people are in power” is not the pragmatic idea everyone assumes it to be. It’s the thing that will be the death of our species. If you play Russian Roulette enough times, you eventually die. The Democrats aren’t even wrong when they say that this is the most important election of our lifetimes but don’t reflect on what it means that that keeps being true for every subsequent election. They understand that this is a worrying pattern when it comes to weather records reflecting long term climate trends (though for a long time the left has behaved like AGW denialists).

These increasingly important elections take a real psychological toll. 2020 took a lot out of me. Yes it’s my fault for being obsessive but that’s how my brain is. The psychological angle also means that people upset about losing will lash out, not just at the people who vote for Trump but any marginalized group who might have allegedly scared away swing voters. The side that’s supposed to be pro-LGBT rights will have many people in it blaming trans people for existing. Knowing this of course also represents a psychological toll on trans people!

It’s one thing to say that we all have to play this game. But it’s another thing, which I reject, to say that we have to like it. I think humanity can do better than this.