On Cynicism and Idealism

The other day I wrote that my vote for Hillary in the primary was a vote for me. And it was. Although I believe deeply that the personal is political, and the political is personal, last night, watching Obama, I realized- I think for the first time- that I can cast another kind of vote. I can vote for my country.

Although this seems extremely obvious, it is the kind of voting that in my lifetime, I have only ever heard tell about, but never actually witnessed. I was born in the midst of the first accusations over the Watergate scandal. My earliest political memories are of my father scowling at the TV news, and shushing me so he could hear as the government cynically and selfishly betrayed a generation of people who had, up until then, believed that even if they disagreed with it, they would not be lied to- at least not for something as meager as hubris. Furthermore, coming as it did at the end of a decade of political outrages and heartbreaks that were so much bigger and more important in scope, I think Watergate ushered in cynicism in the worst way possible- not with a bang, but with Eliot’s pathetic whimper. All the passion and meaning and Big Ideas of the 60s died with a scandal so dry it didn't even contain any women- let alone any sex, or anything else that might possibly have made it worthy of the grand and lofty dreams it actually crushed.

Since then, every subsequent election has only been a greater and bigger partisan pissing match, with neither party quite able to own up to its own part in the mess created by those turbulent years. It is as if each president since Kennedy has been a way for the two parties to hide their own mistakes in the transgressions of the other, with the result being playground style mine-is-better-than yours politics for more than four decades.

It’s no wonder my generation has simply been called X. We were the first to come of age in a post-modern political landscape, and no one has known better how to define a generation weaned in a climate in which apathy has been the most appropriate response to a thinly veiled subtext of win one for your team, for the next election cycle, and your place in the books. It has never been about what kind of country we might want to live in, or what we might actually be willing to do to get there. Rather the most we have dared to ask has been temporary respite from the other- an incremental, four or eight year pendulum swing in our direction, so we’ll at least have the chance to even the score. Trickle down and Iran Contra: 2 for you. A balanced budget and Kenneth Star: 2 for me.

Overall though, expecting much from any politician has just seemed naïve, foolhardy, or at least dorkish and extremely uncool. Government has always been such a disappointment that cynicism has really been the only intelligent response.

So when Barak Obama first announced his bid for the presidency, with his fine, fluffy speeches and his scant C.V., I was the first to raise my world-weary eyebrows and say “Um-hmm. Pretty package, but underneath he must be the same-old, same-old”, simply because they all are. I have never dared to hope that I could get even a fraction of the things I’d like from my government so I supported Hillary because, whatever else, she could give me one thing I wanted very badly- a smart woman at the helm.

But then something happened. Last night, as Barak Obama spoke, for the first time ever I began to feel what it will be like to cast a vote, not just for one or two things I want, but for an idea and a dream of a country I gave up on, almost before I was old enough to know that I had.

Patriotism stirs in strange ways and with this speech, given in the midst of our darkest political era to date, idealism for what we can be has lifted off and floats in my peripheral vision, delicate and perfectly formed like a soap bubble in the sun. At the same time, I am still a little afraid to turn my head and look at it full on, lest my gaze causes it to burst.

The cynic in me, honed with years of practice, wonders if this is like one of the moments on the 405 in L.A, when you pass a nasty back up. As you drive on you eventually see the cars on the other side who are still going full speed, zipping along all California cool, blissfully unaware of the hopeless mess ahead. I always wish that I had the power to shout, at 75mph and across eight lanes, “Don’t do it! Get off now while you still can!” And I always wonder too if they are looking at me, thinking the same thing.

For now, for today, for the first time, I am happy to just drive on.