Why I’m Over the Game of Politics

1. Politics—left or right—doesn’t care about facts, feelings, or truth because above all, it’s a game of optics. Any or all of these become raw material to weave whatever viewpoint serves the party’s interests.

2. Speaking of parties: 99.9% of politicians aren’t representing the people. They’re agents of their party first, ambassadors for their political brand second, and representatives of the actual people… only to the degree that it serves purposes 1 and 2.

3. This isn’t new. Politics has always been messy business in America—our founding fathers set that tone. To borrow a line from Hamilton: smacking each other in the press and never printing retractions. It occurred to me on my 10th or so watch of the play that in 200 years, not much has changed. What’s worse: decorum has devolved into schoolyard blame games and tantrums that politicians expect the rest of America to care about. While you name-call and play blame games, you may have missed this: people’s actual lives and livelihoods are hanging in the balance.

Dear members of the Republican and Democratic parties: America is (or should be) over you.