America, Fuck Yeah

It's come to my attention that I suck at blogging.

I've also had several conversations recently about the tendency for American voters to cast their ballot for someone as much like themselves as possible. This tendency, it seems to me, is absurd.

At some point elections shifted from principles to issues. Rather than voting along the lines of whichever party one identified with - Federalists, Democrats, Whigs, Republicans, Bull Moose, Progressive, whatever - Americans began choosing their elected officials based on where they stood on the key issues. Abortion, gun control, free speech, taxes: these became the things that mattered for distinguishing between candidates, because in their constant appeal to typical Americans, the principles of government on which political candidates stood collapsed into each other.

What we have witnessed in the past ten years or so, I think, is another collapse: these issues that candidates still claim are so important have not gotten any closer to resolution, but political candidates have realized that their approaches to these issues must be safe. Instead of differences of opinion, then, we, the electorate, are presented with theme and moderation. (That's my clever play on theme and variation.)

Wonderful. In both cases, centrism is the name of the game. But if principles and issues are no longer at stake, what's left?

I'll tell you what's left: pathos. Emotional fucking appeal.

Emotional appeal, it's true, has always been present in American elections. But it's never been a matter of such urgency. A political candidates' job is now, first and foremost, connecting with the American people. Letting them know that s/he is one of them.

This is what we want. An ordinary American - a reality television loving, Nascar supporting (in the middle of an oil crisis, no less), individual first, leave me the fuck alone ordinary American - to make decisions on our behalf. Fuck the best and brightest; fuck the collective; we want someone we can identify with, who is going to protect our interests.

I'm terrified.