I Just Can’t Get Into Politics

Dan Regester9 years ago

I like to think of myself as a pretty well-rounded, cultured individual. I’ve traveled abroad to third world nations like Greece and Italy, tried strange and exotic cuisines of the West Coast “animal style,” and have read a chapter of some Malcolm Gladwell book. We all got it after the eighth analogy in the second paragraph, dude. No need to continue writing another 300 pages.

As a privileged, affluent white male in my line of work, I have a responsibility to the public to offer up a unique perspective and voice that otherwise wouldn’t exist on the internet. We’re just too few and far between. This requires me to be plugged into a broad spectrum of current events ranging from sports, entertainment, social media trends, and yes, politics too.

There’s no denying that our bread here at TFM is buttered by a Republican fan base. The majority of you reading this right now most likely identify as an elephant (where’s your bathrooms, amiright?) and look up to Ronald Reagan as a personal hero of yours despite being born in the mid to late ‘90s. It would be advantageous for all of us involved if I just pandered my schtick to the right and reminded you to pick up some GOP gear at RowdyGentleman.com. And you should still certainly do that and pay for my lavish lifestyle of wasteful spending and mocking the poor. But, for the life of me, I just can’t get into politics.

Now make no mistake, I’m cognizant of the newsworthy affairs that happen on a daily basis with this election. I’m probably even more knowledgable than most of your politically active acquaintances from third period Biology class you forgot to unfriend until they popped up on your Facebook feed, but there’s not a passionate bone in my body when it comes to either side. Politics are the one night stand of my material. I’ll try to get a few laughs, use its body to masturbate, and want to get out and shower off the shame immediately after.

You couldn’t pay me to go to one of these national conventions. They’re the extravagant, uninspiring pep rallies that the socially inept band kids and color guard from high school throw to finally feel accepted by others and validate getting stuffed into lockers all those years ago.

Attending the RNC or DNC is a lot like going to a family reunion every four years — sober — where your only drinking options are banana flavored Ensure, prune juice, or a bottle of apple cider vinegar. And rather than catching up with your cool cousin that flies fighter jets and rides bulls for a living, you get stuck talking to your racist uncle who may or may not have diddled you as a child or your batshit insane aunt that knits her own clothes, pickles all of her food, and looks like she houses a flock of seagulls in the nest atop her head.

I fundamentally can’t grasp that the people that take time out of their lives and off work to seriously be a part of these sideshows are real, breathing human beings, and don’t get me started on the enigmas that go solely to protest the events. Your guy that promised change lost and is now spinelessly bowing down to a person that spent the better part of the last year dragging his name through the mud like every other failed politician before him? Who saw that coming? And no, Paul Ryan, sports fans don’t support their in-state rival school or team just because they lost. That’s not how it works. Unless, of course, you’re in the SEC.

Just talking politics with anyone that’s really into their party is a fruitless endeavor. You’re never going to have a civilized conversation with someone with opposing views and actually hear them out and listen to what they have to say. Nope, you’ll just sit silently trying not to spontaneously combust in anger waiting for your turn to talk. That’s just where we’re at nowadays. Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Black Lives Matter, the NRA — it’s all the same tribal mentality. They know what they want and they refuse to settle for anything less, stifling any type of progression or advancement by our society. We’re actually devolving back into Neanderthals. Neanderthals that now have access to nuclear weapons. That’s a comforting thought, huh?

But maybe that’s on me or the countless others that would rather sit by apathetically watching the show unfold before us instead of intervening. The “it’s two sides of the same coin” crowd who honestly don’t give a damn because our day to day lives really aren’t affected. Besides, we’re too busy debating real issues like “Would LeBron take Jordan in a theoretical one on one matchup where they’re both in their prime?” or “Should steroid users be elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame with an asterisk?” You know, things that matter..

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