It's here! One of my LEAST favorite days! The morning after elections... Not quite as bad as the months leading up to elections when everyone is forced to watch uncomfortable, scathing, childish political commercials that contain only droplets of truth but buckets of empty promises, but still... I went to bed last night watching NBC's "Decision 2014" election coverage, but I eventually had to turn it off. It makes me SO mad. First of all, it is just another example of the terrible 24 hour news cycle that we've become accustomed to (I won't even get into that...). It's just HOURS of watching people speculate on what the outcome MIGHT be and what the implications of that supposed outcome MIGHT be. And then secondly, they have the most uncomfortable interviews I've ever heard... "So, [Generic Politician], it's REALLY looking like you are going to lose. The polls are 36% counted and it's not looking good...Thoughts?" Just brutal. And unnecessary. These news sources just thrive on any sort of drama that they can cause/find/report on. So yeah, **CLICK**, let's just switch the channel to this rerun of "Property Brothers" on HGTV....I woke up this morning feeling good. I got 8 actual hours of sleep, actually drank enough water and ate a few vegetables yesterday... So far, so good. Then I popped onto Facebook. And there were all of the political statuses and almost all were containing an air of disappointment, sadness, anger or fear. And how can I blame them? I tend to lean to the Democratic side of things for the most part, and so do many of my of my Facebook friends, so I understand those feeling. And I, too, feel the disappointment and helplessness...but I don't only feel those things because of this year's midterm outcomes. The entirety of it all really bums me out. The general apathy bums me out...and I am a part of it. How do you make a decision that you feel passionately about and put your push behind someone that you truly believe in when there doesn't seem to be a good choice to be had? Every option is just 2 sides of the same shitty coin. True, I like some candidates' promises more than others, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are going to follow up on them or that they COULD even if they wanted to. The system is so broken. Even the "good" politicians seem to have their hands tied by political parties, by campaign contributors, by their own career ambitions...it's like one big traffic jam. And Congress is the worst! Back when our Founding Fathers were setting up our new fledgling government, there was a much different outlook on being a public servant. A PUBLIC SERVANT. It wasn't a career. Many of those men didn't want to be in office for long periods of time. They had other vocations and ambitions....inventors, lawyers, farmers, teachers... Now, I'm not naive enough to think that those men were perfect by any means. It was just a different outlook and they didn't anticipate the advent of the era of political parties. These days, everyone is a slave to their party. They have to tow the company line or else. There is no option to mix it up and there is less and less grey area to be found.
And let's get back to Congress just generally being the worst. I mean the Congressional recesses and vacations?? I mean, I get it...they need time to meet with their constituents etc., but do they really use it that way? Or do they go to the Bahamas? And who the hell gets to set their own six figure salaries? PUBLIC. SERVANTS. No wonder they are so out of touch with ordinary citizens. They quickly lose interest in serving and start worrying about their careers. But the worst part? The worst part is that so much of the time, they are more worried about making another member or political party look bad than actually trying to fix the problems of the country.
I didn't mean to make this in a rant. I just have to shake my head on days like this day. The days you realize that the outcome could have been different, but not different enough. I know it's not easy, this is a huge country and always has been difficult to bring together and unite. But no one seems to be trying to do anything but polarize, tear down and finger point. And EVERYONE is disappointed. Because nobody wins.
-e
