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I really liked that quote, because for me, it touches on what I find the most disturbing about the Obama election and presidency. It seemed, during the original

by ufmace 13y ago

I really liked that quote, because for me, it touches on what I find the most disturbing about the Obama election and presidency. It seemed, during the original campaign, that there was a critical mass of supporters who were entirely sucked into a vision of Obama as a miraculous figure, able to right all of the perceived wrongs of the Bush administration and heal all of our radial divisions. Stuff that no politician could ever really do, especially one with such a short record and so little experience. But nobody paid attention to that stuff, it was all just the "hope and change". And now they're all mad that this is mostly more of the same. It tends to make me rather cynical about politics here, and likely to ignore it entirely. And what are the odds that I've just started a huge political argument...

tunesmith 13y ago
Usually the antidote to that kind of fatalistic discouragement is the effort to actually try and dive into policy, and understand and analyze the various bits of tradeoffs one has to make to get policy invented and passed. It's possible it would be no less discouraging, but at least it would illustrate that the people actually involved in fighting those fights are people that care very deeply and work very hard. To me, that kind of discouragement - that it's hard - is different than the kind of discouragement that comes from feeling like the whole system is pointless and useless. Another point that may help with that is to read one of the recent descriptions of the career of the recently retired Henry Waxman - someone who was responsible for a ton of change in the long term even if it probably never felt like it in the short term. If that's not the left/right side of change you like, I'd imagine there are other congresspeople on the right side that are equally skilled at quietly affecting slow but effective change over long periods of time.

by ufmace 13y ago

tunesmith 13y ago

Usually the antidote to that kind of fatalistic discouragement is the effort to actually try and dive into policy, and understand and analyze the various bits of tradeoffs one has to make to get policy invented and passed. It's possible it would be no less discouraging, but at least it would illustrate that the people actually involved in fighting those fights are people that care very deeply and work very hard. To me, that kind of discouragement - that it's hard - is different than the kind of discouragement that comes from feeling like the whole system is pointless and useless. Another point that may help with that is to read one of the recent descriptions of the career of the recently retired Henry Waxman - someone who was responsible for a ton of change in the long term even if it probably never felt like it in the short term. If that's not the left/right side of change you like, I'd imagine there are other congresspeople on the right side that are equally skilled at quietly affecting slow but effective change over long periods of time.