Complete political despair, despite being very comfortable otherwise

Is the middle class currently better or worse off than during WWII or Vietnam?

If it isn't mediocrity it is mendacity. If it isn't incompetance it is megalomania. Sometimes it is all of them together in a total cringeworthy package - like our current Bubblehead-In-Chief. The sort of people who elbow their way to the top are only rarely of a noble character. I have steadily recalibrated my expectations of politicians to a very low threshold. I mostly hope they won't facilitate too much hatred, greed and destruction along the way.

Be glad your life is so good now. Try not to cringe too much at the sight of your "leaders". It helps a bit to mock them ferociously at every opportunity.

It also helps to have read Henry Adams.

Yes. Certainly. Many, many thousands of them. On the other side of the coin are the top percentile of power: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Frist, Hastert, DeLay and company. It's a progressive winnowing out process as you rise nearer to the top, and conscience is ballast that's tossed over the side.

I'm with the OP on this one. My life is going pretty wonderfully, but I have a real sense of despair and panic about the direction of the world (which has become more material as I just found out my wife is having twins). I used to get by on the general sense that over time, people become more progressive, but I think that that sense was pretty naive, and even if it IS true in the big picture, there can be some pretty scary "localized" downturns as we move towards something better.

Is the answer, as Rushkoff recently said in Arthur, to just disengage? I don't know. Maybe. Somehow that feels like giving up. But on the other hand, giving up on a system that seems irreparable might be better than trying to "fix it from the inside."

it's good that he's aware of what an anomaly he is -- he's really taking advantage of his little window of opportunity to get shit done for his city. at least he's trying and he's not all talk, no action.

Hey now, I didn't say white!

http://www.hcjic.org/images/Photos/obama-clinton2.jpg
http://www.law.washington.edu/LCT/Pubs/News/Images/cantwell.jpg
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/08/11/sanchez.playboy/story.sanchez.kabc.jpg
http://img.thehill.com/img/news/072705/Gene%20Taylor%20copy.gif
http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/2004/spring/78a.jpg
http://207.44.246.82/~michroni/news/images/stories/2005.10.10/Front%20PAGE,%20granholm.jpg
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/images/daily/rahm_012598ap.jpg
http://www.newyorkbusiness.com/images/gallery/SC_sheekey.jpg
http://www.house.gov/schultz/photogallery/ph_group.jpg

i dunno how likely this is, aside from possibly swaying moderates who think going into iraq was a shitty idea. a lot of the republicans who've turned on bush have done so because they think he's not tough enough on immigration issues -- that certainly isn't gonna make them start voting democrat though, they'll just support some other conservative who agrees with them.

Actually, all snark aside, I think we have a lot of good young blood in the Democratic party, and I think it's going to continue to improve.

Meaningless until November 2006.

I think so too, but I'm not convinced that it will translate into votes. Every major election cycle has been labelled "the year of [insert trendy demographic here]" but each time that hasn't translated into actual numbers.

"GRAVY FRIES?"

LOL

How has this not been bumped in 14 years

Currently oscillating between thread title and 'complete political indifference, despite (because) not being very comfortable otherwise'.

Somehow the mask divide makes me despair even more than racism. I know it shouldn’t, but it’s just the fact that something so obviously *beneficial* to society with no real drawbacks can still set off virulent political division. I mean I really, really hope the anti-mask thing is overplayed by twitter bots and sensational media. But it’s so fucking disillusioning. I just want to stay in my northeast liberal bubble forever.

OTOH
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-news-poll-voters-say-yes-to-face-masks-no-to-rallies.amp

Guess that’s sort of encouraging?

this is me. my job has kept going, I work from home, I have good savings, I'm in good health, I have 30 weeks of severance on deck if I get laid off.

but the ugliness of the world has really done a number on my emotions. on the other hand, days tend to fly back quicker cos nothing really happens, so it's making what I thought would be a long excruciating election year move faster.

what I thought would be a long excruciating election year move faster.

get back to us on Oct 1st with an update. ;-)

oh for the days when things merely completely sucked

oh I'm sure Oct 1 from Nov 3 will feel like 3 years

Guess that’s sort of encouraging?

There's a performativity about the mask divide which makes me think its not quite as pronounced as might appear

Glad not to have to have that argument here in England, where the mask divide is between the 1% of the population that wear them and everyone else, who is like “what’s a mask”