You can read a very interesting interview with Aaron McGruder, creator of the Boondocks, here. Skip the first page of pro-forma business stuff. It’s the part where he gets on to what is wrong with our democracy today that is worth reading.
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I remember the exact moment, talking politics in Chicago’s Grant Park last August, when it occured to me: President Bush is a fuck up. I don’t mean he or his staff are stupid, or undeducated. I mean that no matter what they may intend, they are, at their core, simple fuck ups. Everything makes a lot more sense to me, given that.
I think McGruder is missing out on what I feel is the most powerful thing about voting: you have to make a choice. You’re not forced to think about it, or research it, or make a good choice, but you do have to make a decision one way or the other. What you do to back up that choice is a matter of personal conviction, as taught to you by your culture. Everyone should vote for this reason alone, regardless of how (or whether) the votes are counted.
But there’s an (I assume) unintended consequence that we have seen with this President. Having made a choice that was recognizably bad after the first election, (almost) half the voters were stuck rationalizing that choice to themselves. We’re so flipping good at fooling and justifying ourselves that those folks (and maybe a few more) went out and did it again, just to prove to themselves that _they_ weren’t fuck ups and that they knew how to make a good decision. Oops.
Thanks for posting this. It is an interesting interview, and he echoes the point made by Jon Stewart in is celebrated appearance on “Crossfire” when he told the moutpieces from the “left” and “right” that they were, in Stewart’s words, “hurting America” by reducing political discourse into caricature in order to make better entertainment.
I agree with McGruder about the establishment Democratic party, but I have some hope that the net-based Democratic party, as exemplified by DailyKos, may yet breathe life into that old dinosaur. . . Stay tuned, as Harold says.