It’s nice not being in the U.S. right now. As it stands, I still hear far too much about the election – primarily from the internet, and people I talk to here, who speak the name ‘Ao-Baa-Maa’ with almost the same messianic reverence I’ve become accustomed to in my representative demographic (privileged 20 something academe types). It is easier to convince Zhou-sixpack that the two candidates aren’t extensively different on most major issues (a stance popular among those of us who consider ourselves ‘unique.’ Don’t worry it’s just a phase.)
It’s too bad Obama support stopped being edgy some time ago. Now I must resort to contrarian arguments about America being led down the inevitably destructive path of crowd politics:
As the late Nobel laureate Elias Canetti observes in his great book, “Crowds and Power” (first published in 1960), the crowd is based on an illusion of equality: Its quest is for that moment when “distinctions are thrown off and all become equal. It is for the sake of this blessed moment, when no one is greater or better than another, that people become a crowd.” These crowds, in the tens of thousands, who have been turning out for the Democratic standard-bearer in St. Louis and Denver and Portland, are a measure of American distress.
Maybe? Should he win the expectations seem too high. Regardless, I have plans to eat pizza and drink wine early in the morning as I hit refresh on a browser watching election results come in.