Polyticks

When I was nineteen years old, my Political Science professor told me that the best way to understand politics was to look at the two words that make up politics: poli (or poly, meaning "many") and tics (or ticks, meaning "blood sucking leeches"). Over the last few weeks, I've found out that there's substantially more to it than that.

Apparently our system of government is not as simple as I thought it was. Take something simple, like electing a mayor. I thought that the process was that everyone votes, and whoever gets the most votes wins. Apparently this is not the case, at least in New York City. Now, I don't know what the exact process is, but surely it can't be the simple voting that I thought it was, because according to popular news programs (and even more popular fake news programs that people don't seem to understand are full of jokes), everybody in New York City was irate at the mere notion of Mayor Bloomberg running for another term. Yet somehow he was chosen to be our Mayor yet again. I don't understand the intricacies of how, but if the entire city was against him, as the news would have me believe, then surely he couldn't have been elected democratically. Come on, what's more likely: the media being wrong or misleading about popular opinion, or secret plots that subvert democracy? Clearly something shady is going on here.

Presidential elections are more complicated thanks to the electoral college (which is a lot like the Queen of England: if it tried to exercise it's true political power people would revolt, and it's mostly around for sentimental reasons at this point), but I thought I had a handle on those too. Apparently not. See, the other day I tried to get onto a crowded subway, but people just stood there by the doors and didn't move back toward the middle (if only Phil, the former SLO transit bus driver were there), until a guy finally said something and people started to move. At that point he informed me, "You gotta say something sometimes. People don't say anything anymore--that's how Bush got elected." Really? That's how Bush got elected? I always thought it was the 271 electoral votes (or 286 if we're talking about 2004). You mean all people have to do is say something and it negates 50 million votes?

People don't seem to know about this option. What we need to do is have one big, publicized day where everyone "says something" in an orderly fashion. People should go to a specific place and say (or maybe just write down, to save time) who they think should be President. Or if they can't make it on that particular day, they can mail it in. Then we can have people whose job it is to look at all of that and see who should be President. Hm... this sounds vaguely familiar.

While I'm on the subject of politics, let me share with you another wonderful nugget I heard this week: "The thing about politics is that it's very, very political." I'll be honest, when I read that, it sounds like a pretty dumb thing to say, but that wasn't the case when I heard it. No, when I heard it, it sounded like an incredibly dumb thing to say, because the guy who said it had that obnoxious "I'm better than everyone and I know everything, so come and listen attentively to my wisdom" tone that scene kids get when they talk about music or my old boss Nelson gets when he talks about anything. And the best part was, the context of it was him explaining to his disciples what people on my side of the political spectrum believe. Yes, please tell me what I think about healthcare, taxes, and guns. Had I not been working at the time I would have set him straight. Okay, I probably wouldn't have, but I at least could have gotten out of earshot.

So what's the moral of the story? Vote. Or don't. Tell me what and whom you are going to vote for, then I'll tell you whether or not you should.

Just kidding. Vote.