On Election Day a companion for Cindy canceled, leaving me no opportunity to vote. As my last post makes clear, this hardly bothered me. As a student of our social systems since 2005 I knew better than to think our system would change drastically with either one in office. You want real change? Let’s get some Constitutional Amendments going that will constrain the corporate lawyers on the Supreme Court, changing their often times oxymoronic jurisprudence in the process.
In an emotional and polarizing election year let me get this last dig in about how our system works before returning to the more practical considerations of brain health and caregiving. Corporations are individuals? Yeah, sure. Liberty of contracts? There’s some doublespeak for you. Money is free speech? No wonder campaign financing has outpaced GNP, and virtually everything else, since 1976. Makes you wonder what corporations could possibly accomplish on their own, or if they could even survive, without the Supreme Court and other branches of government doing so much on their behalf. I guess we’ll never know, since there never has been a time when government hasn’t catered mightily to a corporate economy, which leads us to the ultimate double speak, using the terms free market and corporate economy in the same sentence.
We followed the same evening routine as always on Election Day. I tucked Cindy in around 10:00 p.m. then puttered around on the Internet for an hour or so before turning in myself. I did check in to see who was winning before calling it a night; too close to call was what the headlines were saying. I was not motivated enough to stay up beyond that. The next day I saw who won and shrugged my shoulders. I would have done the same had the candidate that embodied our political system won, rather than the candidate adept at fueling the emotions of voters that has helped to create our anger-infused system.
Back when Sanders and Trump both were doing surprisingly well, I was intrigued by an article in the Guardian that lumped the two together as appealing to angry citizens. At the time I thought the article was a thinly veiled stab at these two mavericks who were critical of the system. Now I see the truth in that article.
The DNP machine got the candidate they wanted because they marginalized angry citizens when they threw their muscle behind getting Clinton nominated. The RNP machine got a candidate they did not want when their strategy to fuel angry citizens backfired on them to nominate Trump. The result was an election where 61% of voters did not approve of the very candidate for whom they voted. Wow!
Now, a week later, an angry citizenry still rages. Now I see Facebook posts directing anger at protesters directing anger at the president-elect that directed anger at, well, everything. Angry citizens apparently are not capable of detecting irony, with anger being a problem only when it infects the “other side.” There must be some middle way that lies between the DNP marginalizing voter anger with our political system and the RNP fueling it. Instead of directing my own angry response may I suggest a way out of this whirling vortex?
Turn your anger into kindness. After all, that is proven to be better for both your brain and emotional health. If you are not angry enough to act, then don’t. Go about your daily life and turn away from the anger raging from those that agree with you, or those who don’t. If you are angry enough to act, then act where it will do some good by turning your anger at the nation’s problems into the local kindness that will counteract those problems. You will do the right thing by directly improving the quality of life for others around you; you will do a good thing by improving your own.
With that advice I will return to the original purpose of this blog. May you all, and the people you look after, be well today and tomorrow.
Very good article Kirk. I’m praying that all this pent up anger on both sides can be turned into something more constructive. I’m usually pretty optimistic in general, but the mood of the country that I see on the news makes me nervous.
Take care, and God bless us all.
Thanks, Kevin.
Kirk
I have never really disagreed with you before but I think you are way off on this one. Hillary is so much better than Trump on so many issues that her shortcomings look puny in comparison. And now there is absolutely no chance for a change in Citizens United at the Supreme Court level. Yes we should get all the corporate and dark money out of politics but NOT voting ensures that you will not get what you want for years to come.
But keep up your heroic work with Cindy. Say hello for us.
I was actually wondering what your reaction to this was going to be. Citizens United (or Buckley v Valero, etc) was not going to get overturned regardless of who got elected to the Kegislative or Executive Branches, that was sort of my point. What evidence of such initiative do you have, aside from campaign speeches, to the contrary? As long as the Supreme Court is an unelected branch with no term limits, dominated by corporate lawyers, the wealth disparity that has increased for five decades no matter who was elected in the other branches will not get better. I’ll bet you two extra large pizzas on that. 🙂
Say “hi” to Fran. Be well, my friend.
Yikes, it makes all the difference in the world who appoints the Supreme Court justices. And I would have come over so you could vote!
Did you see my reply to Marty? From a social perspective it matters, from an economic perspective, not so much. As long as the Supreme Court is made up predominantly of unelected corporate lawyers with no term limits, the oxymoronic jurisprudence will continue. You disagree? What is your evidence? For five decades wealth disparity has increased regardless of who was elected to legislative or executive branches precisely because of the ever building jurisprudence that began with defining corporations as individuals in the nineteenth century.
I’m assuming you didn’t like the outcome of the election. With our marketing culture that attempts to acquire things, including votes, by plucking emotions and short circuiting logic, I’m not surprised that we’ve come to a point where voters don’t even approve of the candidates they voted for. Something inside of them is telling them that, despite what emotion and duty is leading them to do, they are not enthusiastic about the outcome of their vote. What if everybody who didn’t approve of who they were voting for simply didn’t vote? I predict that the candidate you favored would have won and you would be feeling pretty good right now … all due to people refusing to vote for the problematic candidate of their choice despite what their emotions or duty tells them. Plus there would be an even more dramatic indication that the system is broken. In a broken system such as ours be careful what you think constitutes democratic duty. When logic guides decision making in a democracy you want as many people voting as possible to benefit from the “wisdom of crowds” phenomenon. When emotion guides decision making in an oligarchy that markets to voters you will get reinforcement of that oligarchy the more voters participate in that “market,” as academic studies have proven with our country.