De-politicizing
It could be argued that the last month has been the most tumultuous in U.S. political history. We had the debate on June 27th, Trump’s assassination attempt on July 13th, and Biden dropping out of the 2024 presidential race. If planet Earth was a reality show watched by aliens from another universe, this past month might be the highest-rated episode.
Now we have Trump vs Harris with the election being exactly 3 months away. Regardless of which side you’re on, we are all in for an absolute onslaught of political content meant to try and persuade you to vote or act in a certain way.
The current media landscape that covers politics is toxic and it’s meant to make you enraged, emotional, and angry. This applies to both mainstream media like the New York Times and people on social media like Ben Shapiro or Joy Reid. They are incentivized to make you emotional because that drives clicks and ultimately revenue for them. So for the next 3 months, they will be sensational, untruthful, and hysterical with little to no accountability. Likewise, the 2 major parties are incentivized to cast the other one as horrible and that if the other side wins, we are doomed and it will be the end of democracy, perhaps even the end of the world. Both sides will paint the other side as evil, immoral, radical, and unfit to lead, among many other one-liners. Fear persuades people more than any other emotion, so both parties and the media will engage in endless fear-mongering.
I have my personal views, but I’m going to do my best to completely disengage from day-to-day politics for the next 3 months. I’m talking about X posts, Instagram videos, and most mainstream media outlets. I’m only going to consume content from a few non-partisan, independent Substack authors that I trust and respect and I’ll watch any debates that occur. Most of my current political content comes from X, so I’ve muted every possible political word from my feed. I’ll also disengage from political conversations - I believe that people’s minds are already made up and there is nothing you can do to convince them to vote differently. So, what’s the point? Their news and algorithm bubbles are far more capable than my persuasion skills. There’s little hope in convincing anyone of anything.