Politics as Entertainment

I saw a headline this morning, on CNN's site, that indicated that a majority of young voters now leaned Republican.  I looked hard but can't find it now; manybe I was still dreaming.  It was early.

This makes no sense at all in the rational world of democracy, since the Republicans are devastating these kids' futures, destroying much or most of what is good about their country and, by extension, their world.  They, and their children, will grow into a world where the environment is plundered, public health is devalued, culture is disappearing, and freedom is a thing of the past.  This is all because Republicans have had power, have more power now, and will have power for a long time into the future.  I can't imagine how they envision the opposition; however they do, it's wrong.

But this is not the rational world of democracy any more, and hasn't been for a long time.  Ever since the long decline of the fact based world in the 1990s, and its disappearance in 2016, politics and political factions have become, in a word, entertainment.  Our culture and our media have taken on the mantle of both-sider-ism, obscuring the different between the forces of empathy and the forces of greed, turning the art and practice of democratic debate and moral judgement into a zero-sum game that can only be won one way:  provide the masses with the most entertainment.  Circuses without the bread.

The Republicans, and especially the Donald, are entertaining.  There's always something new, something outrageous, something to laugh at, something to shock us.  We love it.  We love horror movies and action thrillers and comedies, and we enjoy them without bringing any moral judgement to the death, destruction, fear, shock, and disgust that they evoke.  We laugh, without really thinking of what we're laughing at.  We leave wanting more.

In the same way, we enjoy the Republican and Trumpian hijinks and outrageous capers without worrying about whether that's the way we want to be.  Judgement, truth, value and honesty are lampooned in our culture, and we do not dare bring them to something as peripheral as the way we are governed and, especially, the long-term results of how we are governed.  We're having fun now, so what's your problem?  

This must be what is happening with young voters; why else would they gravitate to the part of the political spectrum which is most dangerous to their future?  "The danger isn't here, isn't now; I don't have to worry about it!  Keep the laughs and the thrills coming!"

How will we look back on this era of American history?  That's worth thinking about.