In the United States we ridicule, talk fiercely, and poll boldly, but when the time comes we vote for the people who look and sound like our parents. Thus did the hippie generation bring Ronald Reagan to power. Thus did power over all three branches shift steadily to the right. We talk about wanting nice things, but then the grownups tell us how that's not realistic, and we believe them.
Bill Clinton represented a re-assertion of youth. A residue of the Baby Boom recalled the energy of the 1960s and the '60s part of the 1970s, and went for one of their own. But the Democrats had made their unholy alliance with corporate money. It helped them get elected, but owned them afterward. The Republicans could vilify him as a socialist pervert and be at least half right, while still benefitting from his devotion to personal wealth and the health of Wall Street.
Barack Obama was not a pervert, and decidedly not a socialist. The Republicans could still call him a Marxist and do little to quell the rumors that he was actually Kenyan, but their investment portfolios remained secure.
The catastrophe in American politics came down to the Republicans losing control of their religious fanatics and the Democrats never ever having control of their corporate financiers. So here we are. It was a series of honest mistakes on the part of the voters. There's a good bit of racism and sexism mixed in, and it's not all from the right, but I'd be willing to bet that most voters thought that they were voting for genuine improvements in national security and the overall standard of living. Father knows best. So does mother.
So how do younger politicians get their start? Mostly under the wing of older politicians, and by sounding parental. That can be tricky. You don't want to utter your mature-sounding pronouncements with a cracking adolescent voice while you stroke the fine peach fuzz of what may one day become your beard.
People who are willing and able to assume leadership and administrative roles are a genuine resource. Unfortunately, the talent pool will include a large percentage of blowhards and con artists. That's why we have to keep paying attention. Politics has always included elements of theater. Since the coming of broadcast media, it has become more and more a part of show biz. However, the current cast in the executive branch clearly demonstrates the difference between truly qualified officials and mere television characters. No one with even a casual familiarity with the responsibilities of government would have voted for the current occupant of the Oval Office or approved of any of his cabinet and other functionaries. We will be lucky to survive this epic blunder.
The further you get from the top job, the less influence a parental demeanor seems to have. This is why we have juvenile shit like the Free State Project and other libertarian fantasies. Down to the local level you may actually know a candidate personally. You have to face the consequences of your vote at the store, the post office, your kid's school, or your local homeschooling group. Just a couple of months ago, the wife of a Republican candidate for state representative came into the shop and was delighted to find out that it wasn't really owned by the family of the Democrat who had defeated her husband for the position. She had been boycotting us on a misunderstanding before something forced her to have to seek our services. This is local politics in action.
As a business, we try to remain apolitical, but you can't control the rumor mill. I am the shop's woke liberal commie, but the ownership is entirely true-blue Reaganite. None of this influences our customer service. Our work represents us as people.
Ultimately you have to judge policies on their own merits, not on the party of origin. You have to choose a candidate based on the balance of good and bad they seem likely to bring to their office. You have to think of the wider effects of what seems like a purely local decision, and the local effects of actions taken in a distant national capitol.
When the 1980s saw a return to militarism that had taken a few years off after Vietnam, the country seemed eager to reassert itself against the Communist threat. What few observers noticed at the time was that the shift toward military and policing was building the control systems that the wealthy now exploit so well against all of us, not just the dark-skinned people and totalitarian foreign governments they used to scare us all into thinking it was a good idea. Funny, too, how all of that posturing, and our rapid victory in Desert Storm gave us a false sense of invincibility that led directly to getting sucker punched on 9-11-2001.
In all aspects of life I am occasionally surprised to find out that someone I trust as an advisor is actually younger than I am. Experience in one or more fields creates an effect of age. My trusted auto mechanic is one example. He might be as much as ten years younger than I am, but the combination of deep immersion in his area of expertise and some lifestyle factors aged him in my view. Also, I forget how old I actually am a lot of the time. It's not because I don't have aches and pains. If anything, I wonder why I feel so decrepit when I'm still an idiot in my late twenties. Memories of past stupidity are always close at hand to undercut any self congratulation at being older and wiser. When I was an eight-year-old kid I related to our year-old cat as if he was an adult, older than me and worthy of that respect. He was that cool a cat throughout his life. As old as I ever got, he was always older.
In human affairs, the smart ones transcend age on both ends of the scale. I don't mean the cunning predatory ones. I mean the ones who understand public service and the cooperation we owe each other as we each find ourselves existing for our brief time in this crazy universe. Think how it feels to be alive, aware of your own death and of all the things that may befall you to the way to that. Are you someone who stares into the abyss and wants to hug the people around you, or at least offer them a railing, or are you one who would push as many of them as possible into it ahead of you?
