I'm sitting on a couch in a living room watching television in my home. On the surface this is no different from what I've done a thousand times on a thousand nights before and what I will do a thousand times hereafter. This night, however, is different, it's November 6th, 2012, election night. And because it's election night, that warrants an amendment to my initial sentence. I'm an American sitting on an American couch in an American living room watching an American television in my American home. Perhaps I overdid it on the "American"s. Then again, maybe that's the point I'm trying to make. During election cycles, particularly in presidential elections, I notice an excessive amount of just about everything, but most notably, an excess of enthusiasm. Now I'm not trying to say that people should not be active in the democratic process nor am I deriding those who view it as the emotional experience that it is. I am merely saying that America as a society is particularly susceptible to overreaction.
No matter who wins there will be people who overreact. Some will gasp in horror at the unfathomable turn of events that has culminated in this moment. Others will shriek in exultation because their hero has prevailed and therefore all evil will be expunged from the land. When our candidate wins it means that the economy will go up, our military will be unbeatable, evildoers will be punished, gas will go down, and chocolate rivers will runs through through the backyards of our candy houses. On the other hand if our candidate loses it signifies the beginning of the apocalypse and society will crumble.
The truth is that not much will change no matter who wins. In fact when one studies the positions of the candidates and the issues that they hold dear, there's is not much difference between them. The President of the United States is not a totalitarian dictator with absolute power over the state and government. We have branches of government specifically to prevent such concentration of power. Yet we still hold to the belief that the President is the leader of America. This is evidenced by the fact that the office receives a disproportionate amount of credit for when things go well as well as blame for when things go wrong. I'm not sure what this says about the intellectual capacity of American society as we tend to do this in so many areas.
One such example is sports, especially team sports. We see the same disparity in blame and credit. Take football for instance, when a team is successful fans and analysts tend to single out a few standout players and oftentimes the head coach for praise, and for the inverse, when a team is performing poorly, there are calls for the coach's head. this could be attributed to marketing. It's hard to put an entire team on a poster, or have a commercial featuring the entire team. How would we shout in unison the entire roster? We wouldn't. Same goes for politics. How could a candidate hold a rally where everyone shouts praise for the Government Services Agency? Or imagine the inverse of a protest in which people burn images of non-descript government buildings? It all seems somewhat anti-climactic, there's no drama.
The mass of men yearn for simplicity in their drama. It's easier and neater to consolidate all of our praise and and displeasure in concentrated and directed beams. And in a way this also makes it easier for those other people. The offensive lines of the government don't have to worry about people's opinions of their job performance and therefore are able to just focus on their jobs. Americans exaggerate. That's what we do. We are the greatest country in the history of countries or histories after all. And if we were to actually be reasonable and rational and assign blame or praise proportionately on all of those who deserve it, our government would probably cease to function as a whole because no one in government would want to stay in it. That being said, no matter who wins this election, the world will not end, nor will it represent the emergence of a halcyon period in world history. The Earth will continue to spin and will continue to be a messed up and beautiful place.
