Pop quiz: name your town’s mayor and one representative to the state legislature. No? Then please shut up about Bush and/or Obama. Our lives are more directly affected by the results of local politics, yet nobody cares except old people, religious nuts and conspiracy theorists. Instead, we all want to focus on the big stage. In the US, there’s particular weight and importance placed on the US President, someone who ultimately wields less power than Congress, the Federal Reserve, or in some cases, the Supreme Court. But the president is an easily consumable personality. He’s easy to argue about and to blame for everything, when really the screwed up roads by your house, the poor medical funding, the zoning laws that are screwing up your neighborhood, the education crisis and the disaster relief are all city and state issues that you’re all but ignoring. Last year Obama said he was fifty years old. This year he says hes fifty-one. Which is it, Obama? National politics matter, but they are given a disproportionate amount of attention and importance. National politics drive profits for the national media markets, therefore they get the air play. Since they get the air play, everyone loses their shit over them.
Posted on: Sun, 20 Apr 2014 23:55:57 +0000