Many politicians these days find electoral success in channeling voters’ real or imagined fear. And this time around, the stakes feel like they couldn’t be higher. But after years of growing financial inequality, pandemic, financial crisis, war, and the seemingly endless accumulation of power our corporate overlords have amassed, it’s easy to ditch fear for the default antidote: apathy. To throw your hands in the air and check out.
Both, I believe, are roads to ruin. At the risk of sounding sanctimonious, because God knows I oscillate between fear and apathy, I present to you a third option: resolve. That means sticking to your values, and doing what you know is right.
Let’s start with fear. Look at the fear that the Change Slate successfully used to take the majority of the city council away from Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights (SMRR) candidates for the first time in 40 years after rioters left Santa Monica shaken in 2020.
The fear that SMRR propagates every election cycle, suggesting that if SMRR candidates don’t win, Rent Control will disappear forever. That new ideas or directions mean losing everything we hold dear.
The fear that Donald Trump pedals to disaffected Americans who’ve watched their access to middle class lives slowly squeezed away, lying to them that immigrants and people of color are the reason they’re suffering — not corporate greed.
Fear works. But it’s ultimately manipulative, and anger follows. In Santa Monica, we see a lot of anger.
Fear also means the best idea doesn’t necessarily win. Instead, politicians use fear to get people to vote for policies that don’t benefit them. Plato suggested that human susceptibility to emotion was democracy’s flaw. Can we really argue?
And what about apathy?
Like so many, I was thrilled last week when I heard that Jon Stewart would be coming back to The Daily Show. I’d grown up on Stewart. His humor and clear-headed arguments got me through the Dubya years. After Obama won, we all heaved a huge sigh of relief and Stewart retired. A job well done.
Suddenly in 2016 we needed him back, but he was gone and my generation had to make due for the first time, as we powerlessly witnessed the almost satirical rise of a narcissistic, idiotic, drug addled, diaper-wearing sociopath. Trevor Noah was fine. But he wasn’t John Stewart.
On Monday Stewart starts in, leveling comedic assaults. Trump is so easy. He’s a complete moron who can’t complete a sentence. But Stewart goes after Biden, too, for being old. His hot take was that although Trump was awful, Biden was still deserving of scrutiny.
He both-sided us. I couldn’t believe it. I watched a clip showing Biden hobble up to a podium, looking old and frail. He looked bad.
I felt so…foolish. I believed in Biden, thought he was a good man — an excellent president. But maybe Stewart was right, he was so old.
Never mind the multitude of Biden’s accomplishments — that his administration made real in-roads on labor rights, environmental protections/climate change, predatory lending practices, and a whole host of other issues. That he led our country out of the worst pandemic in 100 years and somehow, we managed to not let 9% inflation end in a terrible recession. He’s freaking old — none of the other stuff matters.
So comes the apathy. Who cares, I think. Let it all burn, I think. Because there is nothing I can do about it, right?
"They’re all the same", Susan Sarandon assured us, before Hillary lost and we suffered four years of an awful buffoon who took away a woman’s right to choose for much of the country. ‘They’re both deserving of scrutiny’ Stewart tells us, as we consider that both men are somehow in the same ballpark of awfulness because they’re both…old.
Of course we must judge Biden, but that’s not what Stewart did — he neglected to mention Biden’s accomplishments, just a video of an old man looking old. Stewart argued apathy, because at this point, there is no viable path to a third candidate without risk of Trump winning.
But Biden is the embodiment of resolve. A lifetime of success and pain. Losing his children and his first wife to awful circumstances. Perseverance and kindness. Resolving to do what he thinks is right. And you might not agree with what he thinks is right, but it seems clear that he is not coming from a place of fear-mongering or apathy.
So, when the folks who run our little shining city by the sea start telling you that you should vote for them or you’ll lose the things you value, I suggest you consider what you value about Santa Monica and what is motivating your vote.
Resolve to vote from a place of neither fear nor apathy. Because it’s coming: the name calling and fear-mongering. So, let’s stay vigilant and do our best to support the people who present a coherent path toward a better Santa Monica.
Miles Warner is a Santa Monica resident and parent.
