On American political ideas..

An immigrant's perspective. A comparative non-study on the discourse, sentiments, and nonsense..

Dear reader and friend, it’s another American elections post hitting your inbox, and I’m sure you’re reveling in your excitement and thinking: “YAY!🥳”, until you get that subsequently instant second thought: “When will this end? 😖”. ¹

Let me preface what I think of here first: I’ll try my best to avoid mentioning names or incidents, as best as I can. The goal for these thoughts is to engage with the ideas from an ideological and philosophical perspectives, rather than from a “news” perspective. This also will be presented from the lens of an immigrant, observant of elections and political ideas in general across the world; Something that I have been doing for over 20 years now..

This is also not in isolation with how American politicians affect the world in general, which is something that is clearly absent from the political discourse of the main political branches here in the US, but I’ll get to that later. Anyhow, let’s get to the important part. This sounds good.

If you’re new here, these musings are meant to be reflections that are unfiltered, non-refined, and as much as possible, non-reviewed. The goal is to write authentically, achieve a state of flow, and not think too much about ‘audience’, but about ‘ideas’ both in the intellectual, and grammatical mistakes senses. :) Welcome!

I. Fascinating.

The politics in the US is special, and sometimes agonizing, in an unnecessary way. Special? We know how and why: “America is special”.

Unnecessarily agonizing? Ok. There has not been a political evolution from a legislative point of view for centuries, because politicians still argue about clauses which were introduced in the 18th century. This forces people to argue modern life from 18th century lenses. This is such a mind twist to get through, and I am still baffled by it. This is as agonizing as unnecessary it is to be an idea for a career for a politician, or a party, or to be such a consequential decider for people living in the 21st century as a whole. Imagine basing a life-long career on a law that was discussed and introduced in the 18th century. This is such a bizarre notion!

I also don’t see this level of discourse about 18th century laws happening in other countries, because generally, people amend their laws and move on. This is not the case in the US. Why? I don’t really know. So “special” isn’t necessarily a compliment here.

Additionally, as far as I know, the US is the only country in the world that uses the electoral college. Take that as you wish. You’d think the ‘biggest and most technologically advanced’ economy would have a parallel advanced legislative system, but no. The contradiction here is meme-inducing. Another interesting aspect is that both political parties, see no fault with this issue, and none of the politicians and the political theorists of these dominant 2 branches of the same ‘billionaire/corporate-owned’ tree find no incentive in serving the public, and championing a legislative development program for some place where it can take the country forward, a bit, maybe to the 19th century, from a legislative/constitutional point of view. Equally interesting is that the people have resigned to its absurdity, and accept it as a fact of life. They’ve been indoctrinated to accept this bizarre system, and it really is weird because most of my friends are at the graduate degree levels, and these things are not something they demand from their politicians. I’ll come to ‘demanding from politicians’ later.

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II. The Celebrity Politician & The Political Celebrity.

I mentioned this sometimes last week in a note. There is a grave and inherently destructive danger in politicians being highly regarded in society. Sprinkle in a celebrity culture that is so invasive and unhealthy, and your political discourse will turn into popularity contests, and personality wars. It turns the public discourse from ideology and policy to “he tells it as it is” or “vibes and joy”. This dumbing down of discourse not only obfuscates the shortcomings and weaknesses of any candidate, but it deceives candidates into believing into ideas that can hide significant harm.

When a political convention and the podium of the most consequential elections in the world becomes the station from which musicians, actors, sports people, and whoever has a following (digital or real), lecture us cluelessly and “tell us” who to vote for, then what do we leave to the specialists? This “Cult of Personality” emphasis is categorically American. Yes, we have seen parallels in the UK and other places, yet we have not seen it presented in such glamorous and celebratory fashion, and this is very harmful to both the politicians, the electorate, and the political process as a whole. This derangement of political discourse is no surprise then.

I don’t want “Beyonce” or “Hulk Hogan” to tell me why their politicians are better. They don’t have any credibility in helping me decide. This should not be an acceptable approach to any mildly aware voter. But are the voters aware? I don’t think so. Not even the highly educated ones.

Politicians are public servants, in every sense of the word. Not in this country though; They are celebrities. They get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to “speak” regardless of how good or bad they are. War criminals? Sure! Embezzlers? why not! Betrayers of Public Office duties? They’re the best kind. There is a sense of abandonment of accountability that involves the politicians in this country, unless you reach obscene levels of corruption (I live in Eric Adams’ world). Yet, the general public is clearly disenfranchised when it comes to holding politicians accountable. There is a sense of powerlessness I sense from people in holding their own parties which they are registered to account.

It has gone to such an extreme that politicians don’t have to ask voters for their votes, but the voters are the ones who chase the politicians. I don’t hear from this country that the voters ask for this or that, and then demand their politicians to listen to them. Instead, the dominant political parties have adopted the playbook of cults to the extent that people assign a political party to their identities. They have convinced the electorate that “being from my team is enough for you to vote for me”. This loyalty is unfounded to such a degree in other societies. It also harms the voters themselves more than anyone. It incentivizes lack of ambition of political parties to actually present something convincing, worthwhile, or even helps improve people’s live to a significant extent.

I can take the recent parallel example in the UK where people voted for Brexit in 2016, and after 8 years, they punished their party so hard to an extent that 40% of the parliament seats went to smaller parties within the system. The ability to see politicians based on a proposal, rather than based on ‘identity’ is a mind-shift that needs to take place. How? I don’t know.

The question is posing itself clearly in the number of terms some politicians serve in the political offices. How is it possible for someone to be re-elected again and again for 4 decades? I used to joke and say: “Americans laugh at the Arab monarchs and African dictators, but they have Nancy Pelosi, and Hal Rogers.” But the joke isn’t funny, and the political monarchy in the US is something as strong as the Mugabes, Musevenis, and the Gulf monarchies.

In fact, this question of holding politicians accountable is so absent from the public discourse that most of the justifications we hear about why the Democrats lost the elections were all deflected to outside reasons. This is a symptom of this phenomena of grandizing and idolizing of the Political Class, that they’re infallible, and able to instantly deflect the blame towards the people (not showing up, not being educated enough, racists, ignorants, etc..), rather than the politicians being abject failures. And I say this, and I mean both sides.

In every corner of the world, Politicians dig with their teeth to gain votes. Not in this country. The easiest thing one can do is refuse to vote. If this collective action took place, politicians will come to your door.

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III. “This is not an Endorsement”.

Americans are probably in the top echelon of the most politically conservative societies where there is a democratic² process. I’d go a bit further (and possibly harsher) and say that American political discourse is built on cowardice, at least in the last 2 decades. There is a lot of fear and self-justification in the political discourse that fails to point out the main cause for this fear: the lack of actual political discourse in the realm of ideas.

The ideas vacuum has been so big that you hear people say: “This is not an endorsement” because the lack of representation (both in ideas and people) is so immense that generally the electorate do not feel represented by the politicians. What is baffling to me is people will still vote for ideas that they don’t endorse. Drawing from the UK example I mentioned earlier, UK voters were able to demonstrate some sort of political courage, and an ability to hold their own parties accountable on numerous occasions, sometimes to extreme extents. We can argue about the validity of the choices that were made, but what we can’t argue about is that when presented with the ability to hold politicians accountable through voting, demanding, and abandonment of such politicians, Americans are not able to reach this political maturity to demand and impose a political discourse that represents them, resigning to political elites “telling” people that “this is who we are” and people nodding in agreement. The challenge doesn’t exist.

I drifted a bit, but going back I say: I guess this inability to demand politicians to listen is such a prevailing thought in the American discourse that people were gaslit and lied to from the “honest” party for over a year, and yet it still guaranteed people showing up in millions to defend a party that broke its own national and international laws. All in the name of fear of the other team. It’s actually astonishing because intellectual and educated people saw their own politicians break every human, moral, and legislative law, yet they went with their heads down to vote to them. This is how much each party is in control of its masses; no ideas presented, no manifestos, no plans of action. Just fear.

This cowardice towards abhorrent behavior from parties is justified by the utilitarian: “This is not an endorsement”. I’m drinking water, but I’m not drinking water. :)

The push towards individualism & utilitarianism that everyone is fed in the American society pushed people I know to say: “I do have a moral compass, but I am also ‘pragmatic’”. I find this oxymoron astonishing really. The definition of a moral compass is anti-pragmatic, and saying someone is both, means one of these characteristics is absent at the expense of the other. Morality in itself is inherently anti-pragmatic, because it prevents you from the pragmatism needed to reach your goal. But in the world of “the ends justify the means”, pragmatism and morality can exist perfectly.

In addition to that, the individualistic nature of American society is at odds with collective action. There is an incentive to “get married, buy a house, get a good job” and go on with your life. This imaginary picture does not include community, which is an essential component of our survival not only as species, but also as social beings. The voters are addressed as individuals, their aims are individualistic (“raise my minimum wage, give me healthcare, provide me with a job,” vs. “increase fairness, protect communities, enhance our education system”). This fragmentation and the direction of the political discourse not only isolates voters as singular units, but it strips us of the power to see that we all can move towards something. This is why unions are and have been struggling and targeted and attacked. This feeding of the voter issues as individual issues pushes the voter to think of “themselves”. It is definitely by design, a cleverly evil design. The amnesia towards history is not a strange phenomenon in this society too. Politics doesn’t exist without the people participating in it, and if we’re not active, then someone will be active on our behalf.

“If you 'don't do politics', trust me – politics will do you.” ~ Christina Engela*

I’ve been thinking of “This is not an endorsement” that a lot of the liberals specifically were saying to themselves and everyone around them to justify voting for a genocidal party. Americans in general want to change their dominant systems, but they don’t want to deal with the consequences of having a choice, which poses the question: “If you want to be free, you have to be responsible. Without the responsibility to bear consequences, how are you attempting to gain your freedom?” But maybe I am asking too much. I also remember this³:

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.” ~ Frederick Douglass

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IV. Estrangement.

If I can describe how I visualize the American political discourse it will be the same way I visualize two people in the same room, with each one of them wearing earplugs, facing the opposite walls, and playing the telephone game, or “Broken Telephone” as other people recognize it. Forget that people in New York City can even begin to understand how people in North Dakota think, or how they even feel. This definitely extends to political experts, advisors, and everyone else in between. It’s very clear that Americans don’t know each other, or about each other.

How does a political candidate expect to win votes by calling people on the opposing spectrum “weird and creepy” or “racists” or “garbage”? This is an insane discourse and strategy: “I’ll insult you til you vote for me!”. This is also inherently American/European, where the European ancestors toured the world “telling people how to behave”. Oppressive discourse is not ruled out when people show the slightest resistance to the dominant class.

I work in an environment/industry that is full of the “liberal elites” and I definitely engage with the rhetoric of liberal ideology, and the more they say: “these people are being lied to” or “they’re complete idiots”, the more I realize how out of touch with the reality of the general public they are.

One team kept vilifying the other for so long with insults on intelligence, intellectual ability, and the lack of political acumen, until they alienated them completely. Forget alienating people in different parts of the country, they alienated people in their own party, by making sure that emotional blackmail becomes a common behavior in their party. “If Muslims vote for someone other than our candidate, then I think it’s a very stupid move” with complete disregard to how a different community thinks, feels, or behaves. This is a behavior that is so out of touch with the political intelligence, it requires a deep examination. A new one I heard was “low-information people”. I mean this is not serious anymore. If you can’t win people with “low-information” amounts, then who and how can you win?

What Americans fail to see about themselves is that they really are not that great, be it in political knowledge, awareness, and even in basic understanding of political participation. California voters are poised to keep slavery legal in their state. Yes. Slavery in the form of forced labor of prison inmates. California rejected that proposition. Americans (liberals, conservatives, and whoever else) should look at themselves hard in the mirror, and be honest about how “great” they are.
If Italy’s fascist government recognizes that another government has gone too far, but the US government decides to be on the right of a self-proclaimed fascism, you know the issues run deep.

David Graeber said:

The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something we make and could just as easily make differently.

If only political participants realized this..

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I’ll leave it here. Maybe I can come back to it later, and lay out where I see the solutions or “ways out”.. Thank you for reading this far.. Much love, and free Palestine. 🇵🇸

📷: Delaware Water Gap was beautiful last week.

📖: David Graeber says “It does not have to be this way”. He also talked about the possibility of political pleasure, and how do people develop politics which they can enjoy.

🎵: When political theory becomes music, it turns into your “Mum does the washing”.

1. I started writing this before the election days, but didn’t finish until it was done.

2. Democratic is a stretch here, because I genuinely believe that the US democracy is a very deformed democracy. It’s been hijacked by the corporate class and corporations that it leaves very little room for people to choose/affect the way they choose their politicians. There’s a great book called “Silent Coup” by Claire Provost and Matt Kennard on the subject.

3. For the full speech, click here.

* It could be many other people too.