Against the "Totalizing Political Worldview"

Not everything can be neatly categorized into two opposing categories. It's exhausting.

I’ve been interested in politics for a long time. In fact, this is an annoying thing to reveal so I don’t usually talk about it, but I majored in political science as an undergrad (groan! I know! whomp whomp!)

At the time, politics was simply the thing I was most interested in. Though I was always critical of power and analytical, I never cared about politics at all until we invaded Iraq.

I was 18 years old when that happened, and at the time it made no sense to me. Invading a country because they had weapons? That just seemed so dumb! I remember watching the news about it horrified. But there was nothing I could do. I went to a protest on the invasion day, which was kind of pathetic honestly.

Over the years, I cycled through various phases of being more or less obsessed with politics. Once George W. Bush was reelected it all seemed pretty hopeless. Then Obama sailed into the picture and at the time it seemed completely miraculous. What a time to be alive.

My whole adult life, I followed all three branches and they all managed to (mostly) depress me, or occasionally make me hopeful, but also kind of insane. Looking back, during these periods where I was more tuned in, more dogmatic, I’m CERTAIN I was driving my friends, family and acquaintances NUTS.

More recently, after getting mildly cancelled for complaining about extended covid-era school closures a few years ago (my whole political tribe basically going off the deep end imo), I feel this detachment from it all. This feels like such a gift in a way. And I can see very clearly how that can become so negative for people on an individual level, obsession with politics. How it can become semi religious. How it can be so isolating. How many times, it might be people who are vulnerable, mentally, socially, who get drawn into a kind of fundamentalism, much like a religious conversion. How many times the political “influencers,” podcasters and writers or television hosts, especially really partisan ones, are just as hacky and self-interested a the characters in the Righteous Gemstones, like fire-and-brimstone preachers who fly around in jets.

As a result of all my life decisions up until a few years ago, however, I still spend a lot of time, online and in my personal life, around people who I think subscribe to a more political worldview. I notice it sometimes, kind of distorting perceptions or experiences, mostly for the worse, IMO.

Here’s the most salient example I can think of what I have started to think of as a “totalizing political worldview.” I had traveled to Austin, Texas, a few years back for work. I had never been to Austin and I had a great time. I got together with a work friend I genuinely love, who showed me a few things around town — nerdy transportation/city stuff — that he knew I’d love.

I’ve always liked Texas, if I’m just being honest. I tend to like most places. Texas is so different from Ohio. I love the Mexican influence. Where I stayed on this particular trip, I was in this kinda trendy area for one night, and I went and saw some live music. People at that venue took it so seriously. Sat around and listened to this woman singer and her little band with tremendous respect. I loved the culture around music in Austin, the way it gave the community a place to gather together.

Sometimes when I travel for work I will get a bite to eat at a restaurant, and I will sit at the bar. And people will be friendly to me. I met these two Texans, I think they were just ordinary dudes. And they struck up a conversation with me, and they were so cool and encouraging. They asked me, why are you here from Ohio? I told them I wrote this book. They said “what’s it about?” I said… ha “pedestrian deaths, why so many pedestrians get killed on the roads”. They genuinely thought that was so fascinating. It’s funny. Normal folks do kinda “get” it. Especially in Texas, where damn near 1,000 pedestrians get killed on the roads every year. These two normal Texas dudes complimented my nails and took down the title and said they would buy it. (Just unbelievably nice.) Also the food at this place was 🔥.

I love to travel and so I came back on this kind of high. I was talking about it on Twitter (which big mistake to talk about anything you genuinely like on Twitter). Of course, this one person I knew on Twitter, this wasn't even a super annoying person who I tried to tune out, couldn’t just let me say something nice about Texas. They were all into this “why do you think Texas is conservative?” ie bad or something along those lines. Like, “ah it’s so sad how wayward that state is, blah blah blah.”

It was just a little thing, but it was annoying. Sure, Texas votes for Republicans, on balance. But there’s still millions of Democrats who live there. And also millions more people who don’t vote at all. A whole state with 30 million people can’t be boiled down to a single identity and then dismissed. I mean, yeah Texas is more right leaning, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a huge and diverse place. The impulse to take a whole state and bill it down to “blue” or “red” ipso facto “good” or “bad,” that is an example, I think of the “totalizing political worldview.”

I remember one particularly deranged case of this. This NYTs columnist named Zephyr Teachout, who at the time was seeking statewide office in New York, wrote on Twitter that she “was scared” to drive in the South because she thought people would see her New York license plate and… I don’t know what. It seemed so paranoid to me. People in Kentucky do not care that much about you and your license plates ffs. The “new south” is booming and diverse and full of people from the north. New York really sometimes is its own little world with its own weird political issues (ahem Eric Adams).

Anyway, I prefer people more like those guys at the bar in Texas to people like Teachout. People who are friendly, proud of where they are from, and open to learning. It feels good to be more back in that category again, much healthier. I think it’s really benefitting me in my relationships. It makes it easier to listen without judgement when you don’t have some AGENDA you are always prioritizing over what the person you are speaking with is really trying to communicate.

On my side of the political aisle, especially over the last few years, I think this idea emerged that you were supposed to SUFFER for your values or politics somehow. That was most evident in the way people reacted to, messaged around covid. At the time I found it kinda weird, and some people said it maybe reflects our puritan roots. IDK. That made sense to me though. I know people, especially older folks being from Ohio, who act like it’s a sin to enjoy your life. That every moment not doing something hard and tedious is wasted.

Mike White really nailed his core audience with this character.

Especially right now, this kinda mood pervades a little. You’re supposed to be depressed or something. Because somehow that hurts Trump? I just totally reject that idea. You only live once. There’s enough suffering without people inventing additional reasons. Why would you give this bonehead political guy that much power over your life?

I think good politics should help people live good lives. It shouldn’t interfere with their personal relationships, which are so important to their health and well being. It shouldn’t isolate people, it should bring them together and offer them support. Subscribing to an ideology that does that, that’s a red flag, imo. There is an impulse, on both sides right now, to crudely stereotype everyone, and everything they say, and try to see what category it fits into, right vs. left, which is so deranged.

We saw it recently when the NYTs said being into weight lifting was right coded. I feel like it’s getting to the point, weird and concerningly, on Substack and the internet where just having kids is considered “right coded.” All the middle ground, which is what really interests me, and what really spins the wheels of national politics, gets imagined away.

Anyways, the world, and the U.S., is so much bigger and more interesting than our gross, two-party politics. There are so many beautiful places. There are so many interesting cultures and subcultures, industries, all of which have huge influence, which is sometimes independent from politics and sometimes big enough to impact it.

The problem, I sorta think, is the really ideological dogmatic people exerting undue influence (JD Vance, the Vice President, using juvenile and insulting Reddit manosphere insults like “Cat Lady” was a really gross example of this.) But all the mechanizations of the internet — and incentives for political folks — are sort set up to facilitate that. Tech companies make money on it. Political grifters make money on it. But ordinary people are not well served by it. I don’t know what the answer is exactly, and I need to wind up this dumb post anyway, but I think the best answer is to treat these kinds of things with the appropriate skepticism, hold tight to the good things in our lives and culture, most importantly, the people we are closest to in life.