Sports, Circuses & Politics
In a comment to my post yesterday, part of which dealt with the growing steroid scandal (sort of a scandal on steroids) (sorry for that) Remay1 decries sports in America: "It’s disgusting really. It’s bread and circuses. Designed to keep the “masses” amused."
Just a thought, but it seems to me the "sports mentality" has, in fact, creeped into our political life to our national detriment.
There are, of course, the metaphors: it's a race, we're in the homestretch, Hail Mary, he knocked him out, he suffered a body blow, it's the bottom of the ninth, she called an end run, etc. I'm sure you can think of more.
We treat elections like sporting events, and, indeed, like an NBA game, most elections "tighten" at the end, to be decided in the last few minutes, or days. Let alone overtime. Maybe our penchant for rooting for the underdog affects voters as they watch the polls.
But, perhaps more problematic is that more and more of us align with our "team", and, in a knee-jerk fashion, root for "our guys", without considering if our guys are right.
During their 4 Stanley Cup in a row dominance of the NHL, the Islanders had a goalie who was sensational, Billy Smith. I rooted for the Islanders. How many times did I find myself defending his refusal to follow the time-honored NHL tradition of shaking hands after a playoff series? How many times did I try to rationalize away his dirty swinging of his stick around the goal? Almost as many times as honorable, good, Democratic family men and women came to the defense of the Clintons.
Why? Well, I root for the Islanders. They are my team. And the Clintons were on their team.
It's not just the Clintons. Republicans should have risen and said to Tom DeLay, hey, too bad you don't like the rules you helped put in; you have to follow them. And Democrats should be saying to Sen. Mark Dayton, the idiot who closed his Washington office in October because it wasn't "safe", but is, according to Powerline, whining that he wasn't included on a trip to Iraq, hey, you have to go. You are embarrassing.
Perhaps if we spent less time cheering for the uniform, and more time making judgments on actual positions and actions, our leaders would be more likely to work together in that ever elusive "bipartisan" way, to effect real change and solve real problems.
Just a thought, but it seems to me the "sports mentality" has, in fact, creeped into our political life to our national detriment.
There are, of course, the metaphors: it's a race, we're in the homestretch, Hail Mary, he knocked him out, he suffered a body blow, it's the bottom of the ninth, she called an end run, etc. I'm sure you can think of more.
We treat elections like sporting events, and, indeed, like an NBA game, most elections "tighten" at the end, to be decided in the last few minutes, or days. Let alone overtime. Maybe our penchant for rooting for the underdog affects voters as they watch the polls.
But, perhaps more problematic is that more and more of us align with our "team", and, in a knee-jerk fashion, root for "our guys", without considering if our guys are right.
During their 4 Stanley Cup in a row dominance of the NHL, the Islanders had a goalie who was sensational, Billy Smith. I rooted for the Islanders. How many times did I find myself defending his refusal to follow the time-honored NHL tradition of shaking hands after a playoff series? How many times did I try to rationalize away his dirty swinging of his stick around the goal? Almost as many times as honorable, good, Democratic family men and women came to the defense of the Clintons.
Why? Well, I root for the Islanders. They are my team. And the Clintons were on their team.
It's not just the Clintons. Republicans should have risen and said to Tom DeLay, hey, too bad you don't like the rules you helped put in; you have to follow them. And Democrats should be saying to Sen. Mark Dayton, the idiot who closed his Washington office in October because it wasn't "safe", but is, according to Powerline, whining that he wasn't included on a trip to Iraq, hey, you have to go. You are embarrassing.
Perhaps if we spent less time cheering for the uniform, and more time making judgments on actual positions and actions, our leaders would be more likely to work together in that ever elusive "bipartisan" way, to effect real change and solve real problems.
posted by A Red Mind in a Blue State at 10:14 AM
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