Two men sit in a sparsely furnished apartment. A black futon
serves as the central seating location. A laptop is perched atop a stack of
books on a coffee table. The remains of dinner sit in unwashed dishes on the
kitchen table.
“Anything yet?”
“CNN says they’re not ready to call Ohio.”
“Yeah, nobody wants to make a mistake like in 2000. Nobody
wants to jump the gun.”
“I feel like I want to turn it off but I just can’t. It’s
like some kind of televised train wreck.”
The indistinct drone of the live-stream washed over the
room, lurking beneath the surface like some predator scouting its prey.
“I know I’ve said this in the past, but I really don’t feel
comfortable voting for either candidate. I know I said that in ‘12 but I feel
like its truer now.” The younger of the two men leaned forward and furrowed his
brow.
“There’s never going to be one complete candidate.”
“I know.”
“Unless Jesus returns.”
“That’s an option right? The scary thing about this year is
that everyone seems afraid.”
“I understand that. We’re living in post-9/11 America.”
“I know but it seems like we’re not afraid of the right
things.”
“How so?”
“I mean I understand that there are legitimate reasons to be
concerned over terrorism. Everyone has the desire for self-preservation. I get
that. But it seems like it’s morphed into something different.
Self-preservation is supposed to be one
aspect of the way we view the world, not the only one. Right now I feel like it
trumps everything else; it trumps mercy and forgiveness and understanding.”
The ticker on the bottom of the screen announces that 46% of
reporting districts in Arkansas are voting Democrat. A grey-haired man appears
on-screen analyzing the geographic, economic, and racial make-up of the state for
an audience that for 99.9% of their lives might not know another thing about
the state, or even that it existed.
“Who would ever think we’d care so much about Arkansas? That
anyone would care so much about
Arkansas?”
“Who would have thought we’d ever care so much about
Florida? Or hanging chads?”
“Politics and elections in general seem so self-sustaining.
It’s almost like the act of electing someone is divorced from the process of
actually governing. That’s why it scares me when congressmen and senators spend
so much of their time campaigning. I mean, what would happen if I spent even
10% of my time at work looking for a new job?”
“You’d probably get promoted, right?”
“It’s scary.”
“Yeah.”
“What I was saying is that I feel like we’re so afraid of
what might happen to us, to our families, to ‘our’ people. What does that say
about us? What kind of people are we if we only care about ourselves? Shouldn’t
there be some consideration of others? Even if it doesn’t positively affect us
personally? Take the immigration issue: people are so afraid of immigrants or
refugees or whatever person you’re talking about. They’re afraid that they’ll
take jobs, afraid that they’ll create crime, afraid that they’ll erode the
moral fiber of America (whatever that is). Where is humanity in that? I mean if
you were walking down the street and saw a refugee standing there homeless and
hungry, what would you do? Would we be
able to speak in the same strong words that we do on Twitter or Facebook? “
“There’s no accountability for our words.”
“Yeah. And that’s super dangerous too. All of us do it, but
with candidates it’s so much worse. You can just talk and talk and talk and it
doesn’t ever have to go anywhere. I mean you don’t have to do anything. You can just say outrageous things or make obscene
demands and there’s no accountability. I mean we all do it though. That’s
basically what social media is. ‘Don’t judge me by how I live my life; judge me
by what creedal statement I can fit in 140 characters’. “
“Is the medium the problem?”
“Partly, I think. I mean the medium does dictate what can be
communicated in a way, but we’re also responsible for the content. I can’t
solely blame the news cycle for the opinions of a candidate, but we’ve created
this sound bite and headline culture. I think it’s a byproduct of the internet.
We’ve got so much access to information, news or otherwise, that we don’t know
what to do with it all, we don’t know how to filter it or analyze it. So we get
overwhelmed and reduce it down into headlines and screen crawls. Yeah, we could
look up someone’s voting record, but that’s so much work. We’d rather just see
someone summarize if for us.”
“We’re abdicating our power.”
“Exactly.”
“Tea?”
“What?”
“Tea. Do you want tea?”
“Oh. Sure. Earl Grey?”
“Classic.”
“I try.”
The younger of the two (it is, in fact, his first election
as a registered voter) rises and sets a grimy kettle on the stove. The stopper
has broken and the steam pours out as the electric stove creates strange music
as it contacts the bottom of the silver kettle. He brings over a bag of chips
and pulls it open. Neither one of the men takes from the bag and it sits
untouched.
“The scary thing about people being afraid is that people do
dumb stuff when they’re afraid. Like cornered animals. One time when I was a
kid we went to Sea World. We were sitting on a, I don’t know what do you call
it? An Embankment with a tree and woodchips and such. There was this shrew. I
don’t know why I even knew what it was called. Maybe my parents told me.
Anyway, it was backed up against the tree. It couldn’t get back to its hole or
something. It was making the most angry and un-shrewlike noises I had ever
heard. That’s what we’re like when we’re afraid. And these candidates seem to
be focusing in on making us afraid. Afraid our rights are being taken away. Afraid
that some ‘other’ people are coming for us. Afraid that the other side are
Nazis or something. It’s always Nazis, by the way. Afraid that the other side
are racists.”
“But scared people are scary.”
“Right. Or maybe being afraid just shows how selfish we are,
how little it will take for us to revert to some sort of self-focused
narcissism.”
“Isn’t that exactly what we are though? We live and die by
our own experiences. Politicians are just capitalizing on what we truly are
down deep. We claim to be enlightened and to care about others but at the core
of it all we’re just selfish children. We’re broken.”
“Yeah. “
A silence fell and their eyes both drifted toward the screen
displaying colorfully outlined states in red and blue and (rarely) a purple.
It’s amazing how they eyes are naturally drawn to an illumated screen, the
older man briefly thought, isn’t that scary. Still they stared on. The younger
reached into the hitherto unmolested bag bringing forth a handful of greasy and
mostly broken chips. As he crunched merrily, crumbs fell onto his sweatshirt.
So many tiny morsels.
“It feels like the worse than it’s been,” the younger man
finally spoke. “but I imagine everyone feels like that.”
“”I wish the Ring had
never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.” “So do all who live to see
such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what
to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in the
world, Frodo, besides the will of evil.””
“Really? How long did it take you to memorize that?”
“My mind is a vast resource of useless information. Bow in
awed wonder.”
“I’m not sure that counts as useless info. Tolkien had
something there.”
“Was that Tolkien or Peter Jackson? At this point I can’t
really remember.”
“I have to hope that there is some other force in the world.
Something bigger than mere chance or simply the will of the people. The will of
the people can be wrong. My own will can be wrong. It is wrong--- a lot of the
time.”
There was a pause. The younger man spoke again.
“I imagine that every voter throughout history thought that
their election was the worst. I mean maybe the colonists were stoked at getting
George Washington to be President. They wanted to make him King right? But even
then there were factions and disagreements. Every generation thinks it’s the
worst. I know that should make me feel better but it doesn’t. It just makes me
feel like we’re constantly making the same mistakes. Constantly giving in to
the same fears, the same pride, the same self-centeredness.”
“There is nothing new under the sun.”
“Solomon must have been pretty depressed.”
“Something like that.”
“So what’s the difference between me and some guy in 1967
thinking that Nixon was the only way to redeem the country from utter ruin and
despair?
“Netflix?”
“I mean I’d like to think that I --- that we, are not so
blindly loyal in the face of reason; that we evaluate and vet our leaders but
look what’s going on now? We’re not, we’re just repeating the same mistakes
like some democratic Groundhog’s Day."
“You sound vexed.”
“Yeah. I’m vexed.”
“If it helps, and I’m just talking here, I think you’re
right. I don’t think that there is one and only one political messiah that’s
going to save us. And yes, I do think that we’re never going to find one candidate
who perfectly aligns with our personal beliefs, especially if we’re following
Jesus. Ultimately we must be true to our convictions, our worldview. That might
never align with a candidate. At the same time, voting is a blessing.”
“It certainly doesn’t feel like it.”
“Still, it’s a blessing to even be given the choice. Now
that choice might not be the best. But I don’t think that that we are morally
condemned if we vote for someone who might disagree with our convictions on
some issues, even major issues. I don’t mean to sound wishy-washy, but we’re
not choosing between black and white here. We’re choosing between lighter grey
and darker grey.”
“That leaves me incredibly unsettled.”
“I know. But these are the choices we have been given. And I
think while we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves in this regard, we also need
to not be so hard on people who we see as making horrific, even morally
compromised decisions. They’ve got the same options we do. There are certainly
positions I share with the candidate I didn’t
vote for.”
“Also, unsettling.”
“I think too that we all need to realize that we are all
broken and all selfish and all prideful. That’s the root behind all of this.
Pride cloaks itself behind blind loyalty and fear. Unless we can admit that
we’re all flawed and incomplete, we’re going to be apt to fall in line with
whichever politician tells us the things we want to hear.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a pop-up ad of a
stressed housewife touting the cleaning effectiveness of some brand of detergent.
The ad seemed to ratchet up the volume ten-fold and the thoughts of both men
were lost in the fray. When the stream returned, the well-dressed moderator was
talking to the governor of South Carolina. It was 9:53pm. The younger man
drained the contents of his mug and set it down on the coffee table. He threw
himself back against the cushions.
“Honestly, I don’t even understand how you can govern at all,
actually,” the younger man broke in. “I mean: do you represent the collective
will of the people or do they simply appoint you as their representative and
your opinions are your own? And if that’s the case, how does somebody go about
affecting change without seeking to legislate obedience out of others? That doesn’t
seem to be part of the American democratic ideal.”
“I guess it depends”
“On what?”
“On the individual, it always comes down the individual.
Does Joe Senator sincerely have the good will of his constituents in mind or is
he simply intent on representing himself. If it’s the latter, then he or she
will say whatever it takes to get elected.”
“That still makes me feel not super confident.”
“I’m not sure we can ever have confidence in another human
being. Elected officials are just us. Just as we have often sordid motivations,
so do they. The truly well-intentioned official can only act as best he knows
how; legislate as he knows how, with an eye toward the good of his constituents.
They do elect the man or woman, but the man or woman then speaks and acts for
them. “
“Quite idealistic don’t you think?”
“I guess so. But what else is there to rest upon? That’s why it ultimately comes down to whether you believe that there is something bigger than this world, bigger than chance, bigger than simply humans behaving as humans for good or ill. Otherwise, you end up much more apt to fix your horse to the politician or party who can bring you personally the most good. Political hedonism.”
“You’re saying that it comes down to whether you believe
that there more than just this world.”
“Absolutely. If not --- if not then we’d better only look
out for number one.”
“That makes me draw some conclusions on where these
candidates have laid down their stakes.”
“Indeed. If this world is all there is, then this,” the
older man waved his hand at the screen, “is the best you’re going to get.”
“I know myself. I don’t even trust myself to run my own
life, let alone a country.”
“Probably best.”
“Thanks. Appreciated.”
“Always.”
They fell back into silence, opting to let the broadcast
fill the void in conversation. The race was incredibly close, as if the country
wallowed in as much ambivalence as they. Certified analysts were brought in as
the hours wore on. These experts painted in conjecture and speculation as if
their lives depended upon it. Perhaps each was hoping that by prognosticating
enough something would be accurate. Maybe stuff like that looks good on a
resume, the older man thought. They looked like hometown weathermen dressed up
in their parents’ fancy clothes. Their eyes were pools of desperation.
“So, who did you vote for?” the young man asked.
“Don’t worry buddy, I wrote you in.”
