A Web of Impossible Politics

“Jackson 2024!”

That’s what people said in my bygone high school days. There’s been a lot of mental mileage since then.

Back then, I thought that I would like to be president. I wasn’t crazy or on drugs either; I really was aiming for a career in politics. With an interest in history and government, a penchant for rhetorically thumping rival school debaters, and a spirited idealism reminiscent of, probably, a young Woodrow Wilson or a more effervescent Lincoln, a life in statecraft seemed to fit. What’s more, I turn 35—the minimum age for an American president—in 2024, an election year, so providence was bringing the pieces of the divine jigsaw together quite nicely, yes?

Yes.

And then, I don’t know what happened, but my aspirations for portrait-filled rooms and getting behind the wheel of the legislative backhoe slowly dwindled.

As is typical, disillusionment was partly responsible for assassinating my Pennsylvania Avenue dream. The gridlock and venom of American politics wore on me. Also, the importance of money, lobbyists, and spin played a tranquilizing role. The realization that it is written into a politician’s job description that he be disliked, or, better, reviled, by half his constituents, got me down on the whole thing, too. Did I really want to enter a profession where, seemingly, little is or can be accomplished; you spend a lot of cash and influence not accomplishing it; and whether things are accomplished or not, the majority of people would happily see you impeached?

No. That’s the correct answer there.

So I parted ways with my congressional chimera.

Still, my interest in politics as a dark art hasn’t really waned. As a journalist, I maintain the privilege of observing Clout Street. And in recent years my interest in the game has come back a bit. I don’t know whether I love to hate it or hate to love it, but the confusion seems to evidence a certain passion.

Disillusionment, aversion, and concern for reputation still factor into the equation, but it’s a new question that sticks in my present political craw. On the political spectrum, where do I fit in?

In this country, the question is made to sound ridiculous. “You’re a democrat or a republican, silly goose!” This is, after all, a two-party country. The rise of independents can hardly be called a rise—there are two independents in the Senate and none in the House.

And yet, I know I’m not alone in feeling sort of relegated to a political no-man’s land. Do you ever feel like a Perry-esque plastic bag, blowing in the wind of pop political hurricanes, but feeling all the while they don’t gyrate quite the way you’d like? Do you feel like neither Jeb nor Hillary, Bernie nor Ted, Martin nor Marco really represent you? I don’t just mean represent you specifically—of course they don’t, and it would be unfair to expect them to—but I mean represent you even broadly.

This came home to me in a funny way lately.

I took one of those dumb tell-you-which-Harry-Potter-character-you-are type tests on Facebook. This particular exam was supposed to match you to the political party with which you most closely align. It posed a series of statements befitting a variety of hot-button political issues. For each statement you were meant to indicate how strongly you agree: strongly agree, neutral, not at all, and so forth.

I went through this process and, ultimately, the test said I belong in the sparse, well-sandaled ranks of the Green Party. This, of course, seems ridiculous, not because I have much or anything against the Green Party, but simply because I know the Green Party doesn’t represent many of my views. Also, frankly, I don’t want to be in the Green Party because I don’t want to be in the Green Party.

Helpfully, one’s test results can be broken down into smaller pieces, whereby you are informed which party most closely matches your perspective on an issue-to-issue basis. You can find out which party you most fluidly mesh with on things like the economy, social issues, the environment, foreign policy, education, health care, and immigration.

Here is the problem: Among the seven main platform issues, I fell into five different political parties—Green Party, Republicans, Libertarians, Democrats, and the freaking Constitution Party. It’s not like these positions are all ideologically friendly. They’re not making a lot of political love, nor, necessarily, political waves. I didn’t even know what the Constitution Party was—I had to look it up. (They had a presidential nominee in 2012. His name was Virgil Hamlin Goode, Jr. We could have had a president named Virgil. But of course we couldn’t have, because no one votes for the Constitution Party, which is just one of the many reasons I can’t join them.)

The point of this is not so much that you might get a sense for the political kaleidoscope that we’re dealing with here; the point is the inevitable difficulty in aligning oneself with any party or politician at all.

Inevitably, each of us cares about some issues more than others. Our priorities must dictate our ballots, but even so, many of us are incapable of satisfying our priorities at the ballot box. We ought not have to rearrange our priorities in order to be well represented, and yet in a coldly dualist political climate where the two chief parties are, in effect, the only two parties, those of us whose political, economic, social, and spiritual convictions do not fall neatly and completely into one of two categories—Blue or Red—seem destined to be disappointed in our options.

I believe voting is the most important act of democracy. We should do it and be thankful that we can, but we also need to ask: how can I regain a love of politics when politicians represent parties instead of people? How can anyone be expected to throw in with a candidate who only represents them on a handful of issues in a world flooded by them? How, in a country that self-identifies as a melting pot of cultures and perspectives, can we be satisfied with only two real parties to supposedly represent scores of political permutations? The answer, I think, is not anarchy. Nor is it, perhaps, bi-partying, as is the current rave.

What, then, is left?

And then a voice whispered, as though the salt of an American Carthage had blown off the once-dead field and awakened lost life there buried in the ground, “Jackson 2024.”

Griffin Jackson

After a few years spent correcting grammatical errors and writing subtle, clever headlines in a Chicago newsroom, Griffin Paul Jackson (’11) now does aid work with refugees in Lebanon. He writes about that, God, and, when the muse descends, Icelandic sheep. Read him here: griffinpauljackson.com.

A Web of Impossible Politics

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