Celeb Shot
Tuning Out vs. Turning Out
American Political Strategist, Donna Brazile, shares insights on maintaining positivity during the 2024 U.S. elections, despite stressful rhetoric.
Do you find yourself dreading the interminable year and months leading up to the next US presidential election? Endless campaign commercials, rising tensions, and senseless rhetoric coming from all corners?
Do you have a case of Trump-fatigue or find yourself worried of Biden’s age?
Do gridlock, obstruction, hyper partisanship feel as persistent as long-term COVID?
Do you sometimes feel like you’re experiencing PTSD from the endless culture wars? Are you worried that book bans, drag queen show hysteria, or don’t say gay” will come to your friendly neighborhood?
Politics can be noisy, boisterous, messy, and trivial but it also plays a major role in our brand of self-government by the people. Running a democracy entails stepping on toes as surely as an omelet involves egg-cracking.
Here is a quick survival plan: Don’t give up politics. Don’t give in to the constant drumbeat of bad news. It’s time to give yourself a break.
These feelings of exhaustion and exasperation exist even in those who are the most politically engaged and well-meaning. In fact, they seem to especially plague those who are most politically engaged and well-meaning. After all, people who don’t give a crap… well, they don’t give a crap. Either by their nature or their choice, they remain blissfully unaware of all the things that keep the rest of us awake at night.
I’m tempted to say “Ignorance is bliss,” but the sad fact is that the most intensely ignorant among us are the least blissful of all, mostly because they’re also among the most fanatically engaged people around. The problem is that they’re also engaged on the wrong side of everything, including reality.
For whatever reason, it seems that those among us with the most hateful, angry, and retrograde attitudes and opinion also have an almost limitless supply of outrage. They just don’t stop, which is baffling. Even a colicky baby eventually yells itself to sleep. But not the people who are invading your town’s school board meetings. Blind rage turns out to be one hell of a motivator.
Irish poet William Butler Yeats nailed it when he said “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.” That makes it hard on anyone who is earnestly striving to be among “the best.” How can you go toe-to-toe with people who can work themselves into a frenzy over the gender identity of the talking M&M’s mascots?
And it’s not like their high-octane lunacy doesn’t have pernicious effects. Just one example: all of the anti-gay, anti-trans hyperbole has resulted in this year’s Pride Month events being deluged with threats and pullouts by corporate sponsors.
So, well-meaning people are forced to wade into a cesspit of angry rhetoric, or else be made to feel like they are shirking their duty by not responding to every highly motivated partisan with a platform. We all know the guilt-inducing quote attributed to 18th century Irish philosopher and statesman Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” You have enough on your plate without being guilt-tripped by 18th century philosophers.
It turns out that Edmund Burke wasn’t nearly the scold that the quote makes him out to be. He never said that line. Burke did say “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle,” which is somehow even more disheartening. But he did NOT say that “the good” have to do everything, everywhere, all at once.
What I am saying is that it’s OK to tune out a lot of the political noise that is going to be permeating the universe until the 2024 election (and beyond, but let’s not even think about that now.) Even more importantly, for the sake of your mental well-being, don’t work yourself into a helpless tizzy over the deluge of lunacy that the tireless angry people so continuously spew. They’re motivated by fear. We must remain hopeful, upbeat and even point out the good news so that we are not all drowning in hatefulness.
My final piece of advice is to stay engaged. Stay aware. But don’t listen to all the crap. The only reason for much of it is a psychopathic desire to “own the libs” anyway. Well, that and a lot of other psychopathic desires.
It’s OK to tune out from time to time—that will make you more focused when it comes time for you to really pay attention and prepare to listen to the debates and finally, to vote. You can’t do everything to make this a more perfect union, but voting is so important in our democracy. That is the most vital thing you can do. The rest is just unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. A struggle to spread the good news and live in freedom.
Events aren’t easy, but working with WSB is. WSB works with thousands of respected influencers, thought leaders, and speakers each year and our experienced sales team is committed to the success of your event. For more political speaker ideas, please contact us.