May Boredom Save Us

I am not waiting for enlightenment of the people to lift the course of our country from its death spiral. I’m pinning my hopes on boredom. Enlightenment is out of reach, beyond our grasp. Boredom is achievable.

Bored people don’t want to vote for what’s boring them. Maybe they don’t vote at all, but if they vote, they will vote for something different. They will vote for “change.”

I’m hoping for boredom to break out in a big way within the ranks of those who got us here by voting for change the last time. I’m not counting on indignation. Boredom is more reliable than indignation. Indignation spreads when people realize that they’ve been bamboozled. They are indignant because the candidate they voted for has not delivered what they were promised. For some, their indignation might be sufficient to trigger a vote for the available alternative candidate. But indignation is a slippery thing. Bamboozlers have a talent for passing the blame to others.

Our country operates on binary choices and a two-party political structure. You can vote for the clown who bores you or for whoever is riding in the clown car he’s driving (i.e., his party’s candidate), but that is just an easy path to more boredom. There is just one available alternative. Third-party candidates never win, even if they are named Teddy Roosevelt. If you feel it your civic duty to participate in the election, and if you are bored with your last choice, then you’ve good reason to vote for the available alternative, unless you’re content to stay bored.

Of course, the level of your boredom must be adequate to overcome the numbing effects of political poison. There is a whole industry that profits from poisoning voters’ minds. The political tools of this trade are many, and its business plan is to manufacture outrage, specifically outrage at the other party’s candidate. Amp up the intensity of the outrage and outraged voters will become amnesic as to their boredom. Successful poisoners make outrage exciting, and excitement is an antidote to boredom. If your poisoned image of the available alternative outrages you, then you will be desperate to vote for the only other choice even if that choice leads to greater boredom.

Political poison can be effective in provoking outrage whether the poison flows from swallowing lies or from believing in statements that no one can show to be true or false. A fact-checker can prove that an outright lie is false, although it is not easy for poisoned voters to believe the proof. But the unfortunate voters who believe in statements that nobody can show to be true or false have ventured beyond the point of no return. For those voters, boredom has lost its sting.

In our present circumstance, the proportion of voters poisoned beyond the point of no return appears to be about thirty-five percent. The next national election will be won or lost on the votes of the middle fifteen to twenty percent. The direction of their votes is unpredictable. The balance between boredom and outrage may have a lot to do with it. The outcome may be determined by the votes of late deciders who may vote either way depending on how they feel when they wake up on the morning of election day, or based on who they last talked to or what internet troll they follow. Chances are that the articulated policy positions of the candidates will have little to do with it.

Articulated policy positions have meaning for those who consider themselves enlightened. We should all be grateful for their enlightenment, but I have come to believe that genuine policy preferences have little to do with the outcome of elections.

A candidate’s “policies” are more often rhetorical devices. Rhetorical policies are faux policies. They are the stuff of campaign promises and political poison. They are not made to be kept. They are made to craft a contrast with and to feed outrage against the opposing candidate. Campaign promises often evaporate by inauguration day.

There is a place in our politics for genuine policy positions. Policy discussions can be building blocks of careful thinking about governing choices. That is a beautiful thing, but it is an intellectual exercise that doesn’t win elections.

It is a paradox. Boredom may be critical to success in the coming midterm and presidential elections. Boredom may overpower the voters’ indignation and outrage. Boredom in the end may save us.

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Some other stuff for later,