Thoughts on the Election

America, you beautiful mess

I’ve gone back and forth about posting something on the election. An American teacher at my school asked, as I’m from Michigan, a crucial swing state, if I’d gotten my absentee ballot. I could see her disappointment when I told her I did not plan on voting. We were on a short commute to school, so I didn’t want to take up the rest of the drive explaining my reasoning.

Then I sat down the other evening and wrote out some thoughts. 

I love history, economics, politics, and the marketing that is running a campaign, and I used to write almost exclusively on economics and politics (in my previous years on Medium.com). So I pretty quickly had seven pages… and that’s way too many. 

But I find it very hard to be concise on these issues. Explaining current political trends and my position on them demands historical context and caveats and inevitably takes up too much space.

Especially in 2024 America, it’s tough to thread the needle and not piss off half of the room—or the entire room. 

But my plan all along was to be gone before November. 

Every election cycle seems to get worse, and we all knew 2024 was going to be a hot mess. Unfortunately, we were right. That being said, I did have interesting, fun, and sometimes animated conversations about politics with many of the uncles. I intentionally focused on the areas where we agree: the wastefulness of endless war (supported by both parties), increasing censorship (supported by both parties), the numerous faults of those two main parties, and the overwhelming power of Big Money corruption in every nook and cranny of our political and governmental system. 

The standard narrative from the media and on the internet is that America is so divided we can’t speak to one another without it devolving into a shouting match. I wanted to disprove that myth. When speaking from a place of respect with people of all political backgrounds, there are inevitably areas of overlap. I agree with my uncles on quite a bit, and we didn’t get into a single heated argument. I like to believe we disproved the myth. We don’t have to agree on everything to get along, nor do we have to believe the same things to have an interesting and productive discussion—you don’t have to agree with anything I write here, and that’s very okay.

Since the beginning, 18 Uncles has had clear political undertones. But I rarely get into my personal political beliefs anymore. Even though one of my favorite parts of doing this was talking about the project and politics with rural Americans in my hometown, random acquaintances when traveling, or liberal professors while bartending. 

And if you want my full thoughts, hit me up, and I’d be happy to share.