Get Off Your F**king Hobby Horse...and VOTE

So I heard an interesting piece on NPR the other day about “political hobbyism.” It was an interview with political scientist Eitan Hersh, who argues that all too many people become involved with politics as if it were a game. They are eager to post to social media. They never miss an episode of The Daily Show. They exchange snarky images on Instagram. They bash one another for being insufficiently committed. They consider themselves politically active.

But there’s the rub. They don’t do anything else. They don’t volunteer to work for candidates for local office. They don’t talk to people with opposing views, and try to convert them. They don’t build coalitions. They don’t try to get people to the polls. They may not even vote.

And that’s really scary. Because it doesn’t matter how pure your opinions may be, or how often you post to Facebook, or how much you laugh at the witticisms of late show TV hosts...if you’re not voting, and you’re not getting other people to vote, you’re just not doing anything. You might as well be working for the other side. In fact, passively, you are.

So, please...

Keep watching John Oliver and Trevor Noah. Keep posting to social media. Keep exchanging witty memes on Instagram. Keep on debating one another. But...for Heaven’s sake, for the nation’s sake, and for your own sake...

Get out there and work. Do something for a local campaign, even if it is only donating a few bucks or a little time. See if your irrational Trump-supporting Uncle might be brought over, even just a little, to the light side of the force. And most of all...

Vote.

This is not a drill. This is not a hobby. And it is not a game.

This is, alas, all too real. 

Stop Horsing Around

About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

I don’t like Biden Either...VOTE for him ANYWAY

I am troubled by the number of people I’ve encountered of who late tell me that they cannot vote for Biden. They point to this less than stellar performance in the debates, to the (as yet completely unproven) accusations of sexual impropriety, and to his connections with the wealthy and the powerful. And they say that voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for an evil.
But here’s the thing. The alternative to voting for Biden, is to passively support Donald Trump. 

To skip voting, or to throw away your vote on a hopeless Third Party, or to write in Bernie Sanders’ name on the ballot...none of those is helpful. They just give that much more power to the Deplorables who will line up obediently and vote for their orange glazed Führer no matter how obviously it is not in their own best interests to do so.

Oh, and have you noticed? The Right is actively attempting to suppress voter turnout...particularly of the young, of liberals, and of minorities. For Heaven’s sake, don’t do the Right any favors by suppressing your own vote...that is, by staying home on election day.

So, yeah, I would really rather be voting for Sanders or Warren. But Biden is what we’ve got.
If you must, think of him as a broken leg. Not great. But that is a hell of a lot better than having a broken neck.

Lesser of two evils, indeed.

Please?

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About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Save Yourselves...VOTE!

Just in case you missed it, today Trump halted U.S. funding for the World Health Organization. Why? Mostly (as near as I can tell) because it gives him a way to (yet again) somehow blame someone else for his own appalling response to the Covid-19 crisis...and because it plays well to his base, who have always regarded American involvement with multinational organizations as somehow unpatriotic ... and because the pseudo-Libertarian elites who support his administration see money going anywhere except into their own pockets as blasphemy.

So, in other words, a whole lot more people are going to die and American prestige will continue to plunge, because the bloated, orange-headed moron in the White House decided to play politics and be petulant.

I have only one suggestion. Vote. If you possibly can, vote in November. Vote Blue. You may not like Biden, you may detest him...but the alternative is four more years of that horrible, disgusting, repellent creature in power.

And neither we, nor America, may be able to survive such a thing.

Trump And The Virus

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About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.