This morning, I turned off my usual Amanpour&Co and Yang Speaks, to go check out a site called “Citizen Free Press”. I had never heard of it before yesterday, but a conservative guy I’m good friends with sent me the link. “Spend 15 minutes perusing,” he said. Like it was some 50% off sale, or something (oh, who am I kidding; I’d need wayyy more than 15 minutes for that.)
I wholeheartedly clicked on the site link, with a fully-open mind. I hadn’t researched what CFP was beforehand, to see what it was about. Actually, that thought never even crossed my mind. My friend had seemed super amped about it, declaring it the place where citizens submit the stories, stories “news networks don’t report on”. (That notion wasn’t really that surprising to me; let’s be real, most news is the same five clips over and over, the way late night television is the same five jokes over and over.) So, I was curious to see what a site like that might hold, being seemingly so desperate to get the full scope of what’s going in our country into the hands of the people. (And, in a foolish, almost naïve way, I read “Citizen Free Press!” and thought – ooh. A press that’s not biased by the media or profit-driven board members! I’m here for it!)
No.
No.
Not even a little bit.
I can’t fully explain the feeling I got, reading some of the links posted there, and even more so, the comment sections below those articles and videos. “Nausea” is probably the closest word to encapsulate how I felt. The hatred there literally took me aback. This wasn’t some source for all citizens, this was a source for, and by, extremely right-wing ideologists, a place where hatred towards the left, democrats, and liberalism reigns supreme.
But politics aside, all I could think of in the several minutes I managed to spend on that site, desperately hoping to find rationale, reason, or any semblance of curiosity or intellectual thought, was: why? Why are so many of us so drawn to politics? And what is it about politics that brings out the ugliest parts in us?
2016 was a political awakening, for many people. I know I’m not alone in being one of the millions who nose-dived into politics after election night. I had watched the results come in at my parent’s house, and I distinctly remember turning to my mom at one point and saying with a nervous laugh, “What the fuck is going on?” I felt…unsettled, baffled, and even – though I couldn’t say why – afraid? Like I knew some real uncertain shit was coming.
The natural response for me, almost immediately, was a daily routine that included news-watching in the morning, pod-cast listening on my bike commute and at the gym, political subreddit scrolling, facebook-posting, and of course, watching every single hearing the Trump administration went through. Which, if you know, altogether probably adds up to a full fucking year. I mean, lord, the time spent…but it didn’t feel like time lost. There was a comfort, in seeing online strangers who felt the same way I did. There was a thrill, in the emotions that were palpable through the typed words I would read. I couldn’t look away, I couldn't tune out. I was fully invested in every news story, every moment, every latest scandal…but why? What was the allure, and what did I gain – outside of a daily emotional upheaval and general sense of helplessness?
After a while, particularly given the job I have and the vastly different views many of my customers express, I stopped being outraged. I stopped watching hours of news in the morning, and I started listening. I became more curious. It wasn’t about right and wrong anymore, or even right and left, it was about understanding people, and understanding the cores of issues. I'd ask things like: Why do you feel the way you do? What happened in your life to shape the views you have? You’re mad about (x), but what’s the answer? You’re spitting rhetoric, but what’s the actual root of the issue, and what’s the action needed to fix it? You hate policy (x), but what’s the better policy then, and why? And – inevitably - what’s the source on that? (lol…but really, though.)
The point I’m trying to make here, is that
politics, from
what I can gather, seems to fill something in us that we need filled. It
could
be a sense of belonging to something, whether to a group of like-minded
thinkers
that provide you with confirmation-bias, or being a part of that
oh-so-colorful
online community that posts hate-comments all day long. It could be
having a
susceptibility to feelings of anger and fear. It could be a fascination
with history, with
how our country was formed, and the brilliance of the ideas our nation
was built
on. It could be frustration that there are problems in your community
that seem
to forever fall on deaf ears, and a passion to have yourself heard. It
could be disgust over classism and corruption. It could be a constant
need to discuss the finer points of policy and ideas (lol...but really,
though.)
For me, politics provided something endlessly
captivating, that steadily
held my usual fleeting, ADD-level of interest. It was human, it was
theater. It
a stream of personality, and it was debate. It was learning about
systems I
knew so little about, and diving into a world I had never explored or
even been
remotely curious to. It was rooting for humanity, feeling despair when
wealth
and title won out, and realizing how out of touch and broken so many
aspects of
our government and people in charge truly are. All of that indeed gives
me
something – something to think about, something to talk
about, and even more so, something that challenges me. But I think, more
than that, and deeper than that? It gave me something to feel. That might be purely personal, but I think there are many of us, like me, who haven't felt in
a long, long time. To feel a semblance of something beyond myself,
greater than myself, and yet that I was somehow still a part of, was
intoxicating and addicting.
When I look at sites like CFP, however, and I wonder the same questions, the answers are far less encouraging. The only thing I can see viewers standing to gain from sites like that is further distrust towards the left, and any institution, really. A greater tendency to believe conspiracy theories. More anger. More fear. And more partisanship. Those are feelings, and as someone who craved something similar, I can appreciate that, and understand the need for it. But what do those feelings give a person? A “WAKE UP, SHEEPLE” mentality? An unending rage to want to bring the system down, specifically, the left side of it? Toxic emotions that rule their life and up their stress-levels? Those sites don’t give answers, they give hate, and they give a serious distaste for anyone on “the other side”, and any healthy curiosity at all. I mean, seriously: how does any of that benefit someone? And how does any of that solve the problems we as a country, face?
What my political mantra has become, regardless of the issue, is: okay, so…what do we do about it? What’s the action? None of that involves, or should ever involve, visiting sites like CFP or Facebook or Reddit, or whatever other slanted media source one might gravitate towards. It's too easy to fall into the bathwater of something that satiates a human desire to feel, and it's so much more difficult to instead focus that energy on brainstorming solutions and figuring out how we move forward. I think we're all overdue to climb out of the comfort of our tub, and start thinking in a more productive way. Towel, anyone?