Danny ChaiI’m kind of glad I’m distanced from the current election. I’ve come to dislike politics more and more. There were a few years recently when I feel like I was getting too emotional about politics – I found that when I read about it or listened to interviews I’d get really riled up and upset that there are so many unthinking / uncaring people in the world. But it’s totally pointless – raging changes nothing. Frankly, I’ve come to believe that talking to people about it or posting things on Facebook is pointless also. We’ve reached an age where everyone’s mostly made up their minds about things, even beyond politics. Meaningless, meaningless; everything is meaningless. Anyway, since I gave up caring about politics so much I’ve felt a lot better emotionally.
Interesting thing is, the Brits I’ve met like American politics. They even seem to like it more than UK politics. This came up in conversation when someone was talking about how much they loved The West Wing. I found that odd, because the whole thing is about a completely foreign political process that has no bearing or relation to the UK. But they’re into it. This guy made one comment I thought was interesting – in the UK, basically all the top politicians come from the same upper crust – Eton, Oxford. But politics in the US feels more egalitarian, and certainly more populist. He suspects that this is why he finds US politicians far more eloquent than any British ones – eloquence is far more a requirement in the US political system than in the British.