The Audacity of Cringe

I mentioned that I started using social media apps again once I noticed that the Kamala Harris campaign’s account had started firing on all cylinders, making politics fun and engaging instead of anxious and dreadful.

But what I hadn’t considered was that I’d also quit smoking around the same time. In retrospect, I was just trading one previously-reliable dopamine-hit distraction for another. And once I made that connection, it also helps explain so much of everything I’ve been turning over in my mind, trying to make sense of things that refuse to make sense, and wondering how we all ended up in this state.

There are several eerie parallels between addiction and this whole social/political dystopia we’ve made for ourselves in 2024:

The distraction becomes the focus. For me, the “quick smoke break to clear my head” gradually turned into “I’ve got to finish this so I can have another cigarette.” This doesn’t feel that different from watching the glut of political media put all of their focus on the politicians and their campaigns, instead of the real-world problems that they were trying to address. People have been pointing out for years that the emperor has no clothes, which the political media has taken as a cue for incessant discussions about The Power and Significance of Nudity In America’s Fast-Changing Political Climate.

It rejects the idea of ever having enough. In the 80s, it was 24-hour news channels. Now, it’s having to fill every pixel of every screen, and every nanosecond of the day, with content. Old-fashioned notions of relevance and newsworthiness were discarded long ago, because there always has to be something to focus on, something we can make seem important, even if it isn’t.

It feeds off of self-awareness. I always felt like being aware of how much I was smoking was the same thing as being in control over it, but for me, it wasn’t.1 With media — traditional or social media — and politics, self-awareness is never used towards changing behavior, but reinforcing behavior. People on Twitter came up with the ostensibly ironic term “doomscrolling,” and then dove back even deeper into their phones and their imaginary, perpetually angry and miserable communities. And one of JD Vance’s least-harmful bits of weird behavior was saying that he had a Diet Mountain Dew and “people will probably say that’s racist.” The GOP is perfectly aware that they’re (with good reason) perceived as racist, but instead of engaging in any actual introspection, they’ve simply decided that the accusation is meaningless.

It reinforces the same patterns over and over again, until it loses any resemblance to the original. It’s been over a decade since I actually enjoyed a cigarette; by the end, it became more of a burdensome obligation than anything pleasurable. I’m reminded of that when I see how political media took the necessity of fact-checking and turned it from actual journalism into the performative ritual that it is now, giving nonsensical rebuttals to obviously true statements, presumably just because they have to write something. So now, instead of being a reliable source of truth, they just reinforce the (false) notion that everyone is always lying to some degree or another.

Elements of that also are apparent in how you can draw a straight line from the Reagan Administration version of the Republican party2 to the MAGA cult that the GOP is now. It’s the same bullshit ideas of empowering the wealthy at the expense of the majority of Americans, repeated over and over again through the decades, each iteration becoming even more degraded as it’s so furiously defended.3

I’ve heard “Democratic Party elites” like Nancy Pelosi and even Joe Biden repeatedly insist that the Trump-worshipping GOP is a corruption of the more honorable and respectable version of the past, the version that we need to have in America once again. I’m wondering how far we have to go back to get to the good version? Today’s GOP doesn’t seem like a corruption of the original, but an inevitable caricature of the original.

But my point with all of this navel-gazing was to be optimistic. Because I think it’s a lot more encouraging to think of the worst excesses of the 21st century as being the result of a ton of chaotic systems interacting with each other and causing feedback loops, than to think of them as being deliberate choices.

Encouraging because it helps explain so many things that simply don’t make sense otherwise. Why do people I know are good and respectable insist on supporting the worst politicians in the country? In what sane world is this presidential election a close race at all? How does someone become a candidate for President of the United States when they’re so clearly undeserving and unfit? Why wasn’t he disqualified for any of 1000 reasons, way, way back in the first GOP primary?

Why are the newspapers that I supported with subscription money back when they were being attacked as “Fake News!” now guilty of publishing obvious garbage? Why am I so eagerly supporting presidential candidates when I’ve been convinced for decades that politicians are never to be trusted? Why am I finding myself tearing up at campaign ads, when I’ve been taught since middle school that advertising is manipulation? And possibly the most surprising: why am I happy at the prospect of knowing less?

Some of it is obvious: the extremist, lunatic fringe is also the loudest and most interesting, which is the most desirable quality in a society entirely built around getting attention. Even in the last 3 1/2 years of relative calm, I’ve heard so much more about what the MAGA dipshits are doing than any of the good that the Biden administration has been doing, because even the liberal media can’t force itself to look away. And why bother going to the trouble of presenting the Biden administration’s achievements — or even controversies — in an interesting way, when there is no shortage of interesting maniacs eager to do the work for you?

It’s The Daily Show phenomenon: there’s at least one guy who’s basically built a career out of going to MAGA rallies and putting the most visibly extremist dipshits on display for our entertainment. Are they representative of the entirety of Republican voters, much less “half the country” like we keep hearing? Absolutely not, but the more they’re made visible, the more it helps reinforce that clear division between Us and Them. Even if the real majority of the voters have been beaten down by a system that doesn’t represent them or even respect them, but has instead lowered their expectations to such a degree that they don’t believe there’s any legitimate way of being better. All the while reassuring them that this feeling of resignation and despair and cynicism is the most realistic take on the world, and anybody who suggests otherwise is lying or trying to make them feel bad.

None of it is all that complicated; this is basic Yoda shit. The dark side is quicker, easier, more attractive.4

This frequently gets misrepresented as excusing the inexcusable (e.g. voting for Trump), or trivializing fundamental values as if they were just differences in opinion. It’s not; it’s simply acknowledging that good people can make bad decisions. Especially if they’ve been beaten down so much that they’ve become convinced that it’s naive or unrealistic to expect basic decency.

I honestly don’t give a damn about the worst people in the country; there’s nothing I can do for them even if they wanted my help, they’ve always existed, and they’re always going to exist. But they’re the only ones who get attention. Which is part of how the left side of the spectrum gets beaten down, too. We only hear about controversies, because properly-functioning governments are boring, and politicians celebrating their own victories are immediately suspect. It’s a perpetual stalemate, and we’re the perpetual underdogs, with Our Heroes only ever being just barely able to keep back the forces that threaten America. We’re constantly being taught to expect the least of our representatives and the worst of our neighbors.

And there’s diminishing returns on all of it — what used to be shocking will barely register these days, so the worst people have to get even more depraved and awful to get the same amount of attention. As I’m writing this, the two main social media platforms I follow are focused5 on how the worst people on other platforms are trying to bully and shame Governor Walz’s son for visibly crying with happiness during his father’s speech at the DNC last night. There is absolutely zero reason for this. Decent humans have no need to know what the worst humans are doing, unless we can do something about it. All it’s doing is giving them attention that they didn’t deserve and wouldn’t get otherwise. They would and should be sitting miserably alone in their dark rooms being angry and bitter and refusing to claim responsibility for their own unhappiness. This feels like something that we all used to understand.

Which is why the Harris-Walz campaign feels genuinely different to me. If the Obama campaign felt like trying to move America forward from the Reagan/Bush/Clinton eras, and the Biden campaign felt like appealing to shared humanity and decency after four years of chaos and division, this campaign feels like a combination of both. It’s not just shedding the worst of the GOP, it’s shedding much of the legacy cruft that’s been dragging down the Democrats. And best of all, it’s finally acknowledging that we’re living in 2024 and should stop acting like it’s still the early 2000s.

It’s been hard to shake my suspicion and cynicism, but I think at the core it’s as much pragmatism as idealism. The advantage of running against a party that’s absurdly, cartoonishly evil is that it makes the choice a lot simpler. But one of the greatest strengths of the Harris campaign has been recognizing that “you’ve got no better option” isn’t enough; they’ve got to work to motivate us all out of our apathy with a promise of moving forward.

But there’s still a lot of comfort in “what have we got to lose?” I figure worst case, even if Harris and Walz did somehow turn out to be unable (or worse, unwilling) to deliver on their policy promises, the good has already been done. They’ve taken a stand on issues that the Democrats have been too afraid to touch for so long that they’ve stopped being “radically liberal” and are just common-sense, moderate, and very popular policies. Now that they’re out there, it’ll take a lot of politicking to stuff them back into the box of Unrealistic Demands From The Leftist Fringe.

(I am left wondering about the emphasis on restoring abortion rights when Harris is president, since if that’s something the president has control over, then why isn’t Biden doing it right now? And why no mention of securing marriage equality at the federal level, since corrupt Supreme Court justices are already writing threats into their bought-and-paid-for decisions).

And I think even more than that, the campaign has already sent its most valuable message. It’s taking back all of these basic ideas about freedom, patriotism, faith, family values, civic responsibility, and sincerity — some of which have been bizarrely coopted by Republicans for most of my lifetime, and all of which have been sneered at by cynics for being maudlin, anachronistic, or cringeworthy.

I’ve spent so many years surrounded by self-righteous self-described leftists, and seeing right-wing bigots shouting “love it or leave it” on TV, that I started to just take it for granted that I’m supposed to feel uncomfortable when I see the American flag, or when I hear people shouting “USA.” I’ve spent so many years being warned about media manipulation that I’ve taken for granted that I have to watch any display of sincerity with skepticism and remember to look for all the angles.

But I can already tell that this is different, just from watching the DNC. You can still distinguish Democrats saying the things that Democrats say, from people who believe in what they’re talking about. I didn’t feel any need to see or hear President Clinton ever again, but I did watch former Secretary Clinton’s speech as well as Oprah Winfrey’s. They said all the right things, but they didn’t connect; they felt stuck in time, as if they’d been transmitted from the early 2000s. And Michelle and Barack Obama proved how they’re some of the best speakers the country has ever had, with powerful speeches that not only spoke to the moment but incorporated their personal take on it. Still, it felt like whatever spell had been cast on me from 2008-2016 had worn off; I heard them, but wasn’t particularly moved.

Which was a sharp contrast to Senator Warnock’s, Representative Crockett’s, Secretary Buttigieg’s, and just about every speech I’ve heard from Kamala Harris or Tim Walz. Even when they’re repeating the same talking points I’ve heard before, they feel immediate, relevant, and sincere. I’m sure plenty of people who want to think of politics as Game of Thrones-style drama, or pure artifice, instead of civil service will believe I’m being naive. But I refuse to believe that you can fake the kind of sincerity they’ve been showing us.

Last week, the Harris campaign released a video with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz at a table, talking casually about their favorite foods and music, and sharing their thoughts about the campaign. (It’s the one where they talk about spicy food at the beginning, causing yet another colossally stupid day of non-controversy on social media). I love it, and I especially love that it just nails the tone of the campaign.

Maybe if you’re watching it along with everything else, it just seems like another campaign ad. But to me, it feels like a significant shift, finally acknowledging that yes, we are over 20 years into the 21st century. For as long as I can remember, the media has been obsessed with “authenticity,” or specifically: how best to fake it. We’ve gotten shaky cams, cut-aways to alternate angles, a romantic comedy whose entire climax is devoted to the concept, grainy or aggressively color-corrected footage, all the way up to the modern abomination of people holding their lapel mics in videos.6 And no matter what format it takes, it assumes an arrogant self-awareness, a sense that the filmmakers have to point out to the viewer that what they’re watching is artificial, because they wouldn’t have been able to tell otherwise.

The Harris & Walz video dispenses with all of that. There’s no illusion that this is anything other than a campaign ad, because it would be foolish to suggest that we somehow just stumbled into a candid conversation between the candidates. But it does feel exactly like what it claims to be: a professionally-lit, meticulously scheduled, heavily-edited, multi-camera video of two people who have an agreed-upon list of campaign points they want to emphasize, but want to do so in the format of a friendly conversation. It reminds me a lot of what I like so much about Dolly Parton: she is brazenly commercial, but always comes across as genuine, because it is genuine, and she doesn’t feel any need to be embarrassed about being commercial. And this video feels simultaneously sincere and like a campaign ad, because why can’t it be both?

And as long as I’m rejecting fear of being gullible, why not reject fear of being stupid while I’m at it? I think becoming more politically aware at the same time the cable news networks started to take off ended up scarring me, since it always made me feel intimidated and irresponsible for not being better-informed. At various points in my life, it’s been extremely important for me to know who the cabinet members are, who were the prominent senators and representatives, and to have opinions about each of them. It was also stressed how I needed to know who the prominent journalists and opinion column writers were, and how they aligned with me politically.

For a brief time, I actually believed that Ross Douthat and David Brooks must be deserving of some degree of respect, because even though I never agreed with a single thing they ever wrote, and in fact could tell that they were objectively wrong, I figured that you couldn’t just stumble into a position at The New York Times without being well-informed.

That insecurity extended to online forums and social media, where I just tended to defer to people who seemed to know who was who and what was what, and could remember who John Sununu was and specifically why he was bad, and thought that because they knew (or retained) more information than me, they must also have it all figured out. It took too long for me to appreciate that information is the relatively easy part. Understanding it all is much, much harder. And then taking effective action is even harder than that.

And yet, the most plugged-in, “extremely online” people I’ve seen online are just repeating the same old stuff I’ve been reading for years. As if snarking on sincere displays, and dunking on the worst people in the world, ever accomplished anything of merit at any point in the last 10 years. And as if there hasn’t been a shift in priorities and in politics — a shift away from cool and guarded, in favor of fearless sincerity and doing the right thing regardless of political fallout — so substantial that even I can notice it. Going back to reading the tepid takes of social media cynics and self-appointed pundits seems insufferably tiresome.

I happened to see a panel from a webcomic (can’t identify it after it scrolled away, unfortunately) which perfectly described the difference between your sphere of awareness and your sphere of influence. Modern online media demands that we’re aware of so many things, almost none of them things we have any control over. People have been pointing this out for as long as I’ve been using social media, but there was always a counter-argument insisting that awareness was valuable in and of itself, and we all had a duty to keep paying attention. But for some reason, even after years of building up my skepticism and cynicism, it didn’t occur to me that the people with an agenda were the ones were scolding me for not paying enough attention.

So the idea I keep going back to, over and over again, is the simplest one: worry about the stuff I can control, stop worrying about the stuff I can’t. And I think the reason such a simple idea hasn’t fully taken hold is because it requires a lot of trust. Trust that there are still people who mean what they say and intend to keep their promises. Trust that there are competent adults out there in charge of the institutions that we depend on. Trust that I’ve got a lot more in common with people I disagree with than just our disagreements. Trust that the truth isn’t as easily hidden as people like to believe. Trust that not everyone is trying to hide something or put one over on us. And trust ourselves for being in control of what we do and say and believe, without fear of being mistaken, or fear of being thought of as naive, gullible, or simple-minded. Because for as complicated as everything has gotten, the things that should be the most important to each of us are still the simplest.

1
Respect to people who’ve been able to quit with willpower alone, but I never have been able to without chemical help.

2
At least. That’s as far back as my memory of politics goes.

3
A perfect example of that is the fetishization of the 2nd Amendment even as children are murdered in dozens.

4
Yoda said “seductive,” but it doesn’t feel right using that word to describe anybody in the GOP.

5
To one degree or another; my corner of Mastodon tends to be generally politically agnostic, which is both good and bad.

6
Which I think is supposed to suggest spontaneity, or draw attention to the artificiality of the video? It’s all bullshit. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go yell at a cloud.

1 Respect to people who’ve been able to quit with willpower alone, but I never have been able to without chemical help.

2 At least. That’s as far back as my memory of politics goes.

3 A perfect example of that is the fetishization of the 2nd Amendment even as children are murdered in dozens.

4 Yoda said “seductive,” but it doesn’t feel right using that word to describe anybody in the GOP.

5 To one degree or another; my corner of Mastodon tends to be generally politically agnostic, which is both good and bad.

6 Which I think is supposed to suggest spontaneity, or draw attention to the artificiality of the video? It’s all bullshit. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go yell at a cloud.