Let’s Get Political (Explicitly)
…Momentum and paths of least resistance
This Ruminations post is being written in mid-October with no foreknowledge of how political fortunes will unfold.
Apathy
Busy lives. Few have the time and uncommitted powers of attention to focus on happenings in the political sphere. Only when the actions of leaders have a direct and strong effect on some aspect of daily life do we take note of the policies with which we may have agreed or disagreed, if we were aware of them at all. The higher or lower cost of food, fuel, and health care tends to be noticed. Whether any particular leaders have had the power to affect those high or low costs, those leaders are praised or blamed as the case may be. Similarly, warnings in the abstract about threats to our security and quality of life fall on deaf ears until an extreme weather event destroys our property and injures a family member or friend, or until our children find themselves in a conflict zone.
In other words, if we are not ourselves affected, we have better things to do than agonize or awfulize over politics of the day. Apparently, most of us are also too busy to actively and enthusiastically promote, advocate, and campaign for the policies of a person or party that we suspect would improve and secure our lives. There is an American TV personality and psychologist who is often credited with asking the question, “And just how has that been working for you?” when questioning the choices and behavior of an on-air “patient.”[1] That’s a good question to pose to the entire electorate of every nation that has elections and to the citizens of nations that do not.
When not to worry and complain
This post is scheduled to appear on 11 November 2024 (the Veteran’s Day holiday in the US) by which time the results of the 5 November general election in the US will be known. That’s no accident. Worrying and complaining after that deed is done is pointless. Only making the best of the result makes sense, whether that be battening down the hatches or celebrating and supporting the new incoming administration. But note! This Ruminations post is being written in mid-October with no foreknowledge of how political fortunes will unfold.
Let’s call this a reverse spoiler alert. The normal spoiler alert is when I know how the story ends and you have yet to read it. You are asked to close your eyes and ears while I divulge the ending to others. In this reverse version, you the reader already know the result of the election while I am penning this post before election day and cannot know what you know. Please don’t travel back in time to spoil it for me.
My hope, perhaps futile but nevertheless is that all eligible to vote did vote, that before they did, they carved time out of busy schedules and devoted it to learning about the issues and candidates in sufficient detail, with rose-colored-glassed removed, and that we wound up at a well-considered endpoint. That said, I can list my pre-election concerns while being fully prepared to eat my words and my hat after the fact.[2]
My hopes, fulfilled or not
Qualities and qualifications: As I said, I hope every eligible voter voted and also that the ten or twenty fraudulent voters across the land were stopped in their tracks by legions of lawyers and poll watchers. Also as I said, I hope that all those legitimate voters had done their own research rather than relying on any of the noise on the right or the left. If they began with, for example, the Google AI, and followed the links from there, they’d have been off to a good start. The real candidate histories and stated policy preferences would have been there, unsullied by spin. Facts found there are called facts and opinions are labeled as opinions, with sources cited.
Just from that one deep dive, any voter could have synthesized a pretty accurate picture of qualities and qualifications. Perhaps exit polls have revealed whether most voters were well informed and chose their candidates based on how real data aligned with their personal circumstances and with their hopes for their city, state, and nation.
Momentum: I am a physicist by training. I know momentum. I know it just about as well as did Isaac Newton. People who use it in a political campaign context forget that momentum equals mass times velocity. Speed alone will not do. Size (or mass) alone will also not suffice. Both together form a force difficult to resist. But, both in physics and politics, momentum is a vector quantity. That is, it has not only strength but it has direction. I trust that to the extent the winner rode momentum to the finish line, the direction was a good one.
Recriminations: I don’t want to hear the sour grapes in after-the-fact analyses about how we were all bamboozled by clever but nonsensical promises to cure all the ills anyone can think of. This campaign should have emphasized that and that campaign should have emphasized this. Sorry, too late! We will live with the result and suffer through all of the terrible things that those who voted for the loser now fully expect to happen. Maybe they won’t be as bad as they feared.
Let’s get explicit: The Trump-Vance ticket proposed extraordinarily stiff tariffs on all imported goods. I say good. If they won, then on 21 January 2025, I hope the first tariff is slapped on imported golf clubs and on any components or alloys upon which such leisure devices depend, as well as on the bags and fancy shoes used and worn on the course. Prices will rise, but as a leisure implement, one need not buy them if one cannot afford them. Next, I suggest that we impose tariffs on goods manufactured overseas but bearing the personalized logo or name of a US resident. Men’s neckties come to mind. Come to think of it, tariffs on gold-plated commodes would also be a good idea.
If the Harris-Walz ticket prevailed, the first item on the promised agenda I want to see implemented ex post haste is help with elder care. I care a lot about many things, but I am no spring chicken. So this elder will cash that check as soon as it arrives. If it comes with a spoonful of joy, the next most important product promised by the campaign, I’ll take that too.
In either case, I do want to be protected from the hordes of “illegals” running rampant across the land. Those bison can trample people who do not stay in their cars. Oh, we also deserve protection from the tiny percent of immigrants of all stripes who commit crimes in the US, as they do so at a lesser rate than the rate at which native-born citizens crime.[3]
Finally, feeling really bad about feeling good or the many flavors of Schadenfreude
Lies are good if you believe them and they make you feel good.
Believing members of some innocent group are terrible criminals is good, if it’s not your group and it makes you feel good.
Making enemies of some countries and being laughed at by others is good if it makes you feel good.
Coastal flooding and devastation are good if you’re on high dry ground and it makes you feel good.
Illogical nonsensical answers to your questions are good if they’re delivered in pleasing dulcet tones and they make you feel good.
Social media algorithms that leave no ad-free pixels on your screens are good if the ads make you feel good.
Active shooter warnings in schools are good if your kids don’t go to those schools and they make you feel good.
Ridiculing the disabled is good if they are not your friends and it makes you feel good.
The elderly and the gullible being cheated out of their life savings is good if they are not your folk and it makes you feel good.
No doctors willing to treat the seriously ill is good if you and yours are healthy and it makes you feel good.
In general, pain suffered by others is good if watching it makes you feel good.
This list is top of mind for me in mid-October. When I re-read it on Veterans Day, I hope I feel much better about what I believe those veterans whom we honor and the rest of us fought for when we were needed and would fight for again when called.
Credit: The rearview mirror and “hoorah” images, aside from the text, were generated by openAI.com’s DALL-E image generator.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_McGraw
[2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/I’ll eat my hat &
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/eat-ones-words
[3] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/debunking-myth-migrant-crime-wave , and
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2024/03/immigrants-are-significantly-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-the-us-born/
Nota Bene: Others may ruminate differently. But be warned: In my case, seeing or hearing something quite trivial -- a saying, a store clerk’s mannerisms, or bad grammar on a food product’s label – triggers a stream-of-consciousness extrapolation toward grander notions and generalizations. That is what often happens in these posts. ADDENDUM: Those subscribers who have been here for a while will have noticed that at times ruminations have veered into diatribes. I make no apology. I just want my readers to know that it’s quite intentional. When events come close to making the ‘blood boil,’ that discontent bubbles up here.
Disclaimer: Any and all opinions expressed here are my own at the time of writing with no expectation that they will hold beyond my next review of this article. Opinions are like a river, winding hither and yon, encountering obstacles and rapids, and suffering turbulent mixing of silts from its depths and detritus from its banks. But just as a river has its clear headwaters and a fertile delta, so do opinions, notwithstanding any intervening missteps and uncertainties.
Reminder: You can visit the Cycloid Fathom Technical Publishing website at cycloid-fathom.com and the gallery at cycloid-fathom.com/gallery.
Forthcoming posts (unless life intervenes)
Sour Grapes or Sweet Lemons
…Let there be light: and there was light, but also, let there be noise.
18 November 2024
