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 pompous and elitist. Most of them don't care if it's nonsense or not: it gets us upset, and that's funny.
  • Some of them believe the nonsense, and then take it too far -- but they can convince themselves that this doesn't actually happen, it's just something we made up because they made us mad. Making stuff up is how the game is played, according to them, so of course that's what we would do.
• 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