Thoughts on Elections - A Short Conversation

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.”