User:Woozle/2024/12/23/politics as entertainment

I keep coming back to the idea that one of the main underlying differences between how Left and Right think about politics is that the Left takes it seriously and the Right sees it more as a form of entertainment.

To us, electing someone to high office is like choosing a surgeon for a necessary operation, or choosing who will continue to fly the plane you're currently in.

To them it's a sports match, or a late-night talk-show. It doesn't really matter who's got the better ideas; what matters is who can make the whole thing more entertaining and engaging. Winning the game is all that matters; the policy-decisions that will result aren't worth thinking about. The point is the show.

• When we get upset at the terrible logic they use to justify their positions, they think we're being sourpusses with no sense of humor -- we can't laugh at ourselves. Most of them know that what's being said is nonsense, but it gets us upset and that's funny. (Some of them don't, and they take it too far -- but, you know, boys will be boys.)
• When we get upset because they elected a guy who has openly promised to be a dictator and end democracy, they think we're just sore losers and we're taking it far too seriously.
• When they say "he doesn't really mean it", that's what they mean -- on some level, they think it's all just part of the show, like the scripted battles between wrestling champions... or the drama of "reality TV" like "The Apprentice", whose carefully-edited presentation of Trump to make him appear more competent and coherent than he ever actually was may be why so many people find him credible as a leader.

in progress