Politics today
June 28, 2024
The world population was estimated to have hit 8 billion in November of 2022, and it is still growing at a steady pace. With a larger world population, each individual becomes more insignificant, meaning fewer opportunities and resources to share and more difficulty in standing out. This dilemma is exaggerated by the advent of artificial intelligence, the mental and computational aptitude of which even the brightest of us find it exceedingly difficult to match. Thus the most valued trait in today’s society, whether in education, the workplace, in the social world, or at home has evolved from the dedication to excellence to the exemplification of uniqueness and creativity.
In the realm of politics, the trend toward procuring elected officials who deviate from the establishment seemingly and expectedly began before the AI boom. The political world of the 2020s has been described, among many other pejorative terms, as polarized. The reality of the situation is far more complex. Although many longstanding political precedents and principles have been transgressed since the presidency of Donald Trump and the election of Joe Biden, much of the underlying political divisions and fundamental ideological differences have remained constant. The only major tactical deviation from centuries of American political norms the modern world possesses is the plethora of what can be described as colorful politicians.
For example, for the past few presidential cycles, the rank and file candidates hardly made it out of the primaries, and those who did never won the presidency. Let’s take a look. 2016 was what can probably be marked as the beginning of the current political era. Donald Trump was never supposed to be the Republican frontrunner. Even as he led the polls mere months after his announcement, people still viewed him as a dark horse or a long-shot candidate. It was only when the field slowly narrowed down to himself, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich did the Republican party finally came to terms with the real possibility of Trump being their nominee for president. Trump’s character deviated from previous decades of establishment candidates due to his flamboyant persona as well as his lack of political experience. The former factor proved to be the silver bullet to winning elected offices since then.
Elected positions hold significant influence in the public eye, but they do not necessarily make all of the specific policy decisions present in every bill and executive order; most of the writing and lawmaking is actually done by clerks and other workers shielded from the public eye. This is the most practical solution: the president can not read every piece of legislation sent to his or her desk and likewise, congressional representatives can not proofread every bill they send to the Oval Office. Therefore, the only necessary trait elected officials need to have is an ability to communicate with the people and the necessary vision to guide the policy-making their writers write. Thus, the need for establishment politicians becomes largely obsolete; the world has become too big and the voters don’t want to see another one of them. Jeb Bush didn’t lose because he was low-energy. He lost because he was just like everyone else. Mitt Romney and John McCain, although better than Bush, still lacked the charismatic appeal or popular sway both Obama and to a certain extent Trump possessed. In the eyes of a voter, it doesn’t matter who casts the vote on the Senate or House floor. At the end of the day, a vote is just a vote. However, if an elected representative can cast a vote for a policy they favor AND pick verbal fights with the opposing party, continuously keep their constituents in the loop on social media, and assail everyone else with lengthy tirades, the sheer entertainment provided by such a character provides the necessary emotional push to push them over the hump during election night.
Not all non-traditional elected politicians are trigger-happy performers. They may also possess certain intricacies about them which make voters more impetuously inclined to vote for them. A look at the 2020 Democratic Debates or 2024 Republican Debates will reveal that very little separates the policy platforms of the candidates, and voters care very little about the minuscule differences that set them apart. Thus more traditional candidates are perceived as “boring” and therefore less electable. Such is the so-called lovability problem. Voters operate on emotion, not reason. Thus, people are elected if they can keep an audience drawn in, build a public persona, and attract attention to themselves.
The world is too big, primary races have become too crowded, and the political dominion has no space for rinse and repeat politicians. Whether for the better or for the worse, politics has become a form of theater, and no individual culprit, not AI, not social media, not Trump, not Hillary, nor the Supreme Court is to blame. Together the myriad of actors aforementioned have molded modern American politics into what it is today.