Chapter 10: Politics.

i'll be the first one to admit that i don't follow politics as much as i should. unfortunately, this leads to the inevitable outcome of me not knowing who the candidates are come election day, and thus, me not voting for lack of sufficient information. don't worry, received enough lectures for this behavior from my politically-savvy friends.

as talks about the next presidential election arise, i again find myself not knowing who the candidates are. however, something did catch my attention: the following excerpt from an interview between sean hannity, of fox news, and mitt romney, republican presidential candidate.

hannity: word association game. you ready? one word, best adjective for a lot of the people that you’re competing against. just whatever comes to your mind.
romney: sporting. great guys.
hannity: all of them?
romney: it’s a good group. it really is.
hannity: senator mccain.
romney: friend. american hero. i’m not going to give you one word but friend.
hannity: rudy?
romney: strength in a time of real crisis.
hannity: newt gingrich.
romney: brilliant. wonderful idea generator.
hannity: fred thompson.
romney: you know, i don’t know fred terribly well. i watch him on “law & order”, but he always seems to have the right answer.
hannity: good answer. hillary clinton.
romney: misguided.
hannity: barack obama.
romney: inexperienced.
hannity: john edwards.
romney: two americas. and he’s wrong. there’s one america.
hannity: dick cheney.
romney: strength, resolve, maturity.
hannity: george bush?
romney: great heart. great character. a man of passion and integrity.

it's not difficult to see from this interview who the democrats and the republicans are. according to romney, democrats = bad, republicans = good. and that's it. there's no grey area to be seen. this instantly reminded me of the psych/sociology experiments done at harvard (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/, if you'd like to try them). the researchers are trying to figure out the implicit biases that people have by showing them an image, and then telling them to decide if the image is "good" or "bad." it seems as if romney has developed the same reflex mechanism when it comes to politics.

even for someone who doesn't follow politics, this is alarming. do candidates not have any complexity to them at all? or are they just everything that their political party requires them to be? i have always thought that is human nature to judge others. everyone does it, whether they admit it or not. but to judge someone based on such superficial methods seems a little drastic to me.

but i have done it. unfortunately. this makes me wonder, have others judged me based on the one characteristic they head about me? probably. but what was that one thing? it could have been physical: that my hair is straight and black, that i'm 5'5", that i wear too much black (as my mother says). it could have been my personality: that i'm ridiculously awkward, that i stare too intently at people when they're talking to me, that i laugh by throwing my head back (those who know me, yea, you've seen it). so what was it? what made that one person decide right then and there that i was either worth his/her time, or completely unworthy of their consideration? obviously, i can't control what people think of me and my ways, but i am worried that i will miss out on some great experiences in life because someone judged me too quickly. all i can do is try not to do the same to others, and hope that i'm not judged too harshly.

all of this talk of politics and judgement has led to me to just one question:
is there really a "law and order" actor running for president? wow.