OPINION
It’s election day and while so many people around me express various levels of angst about this year’s election, I am settled into my quiet place double checking a couple of facts before I cast my ballot.
You see, while the sky is falling for many voters, as it does every four to eight years, I know through a study of our history and through my personal experiences as a voter that usually the falling sky is just an illusion.
Every election cycle involves a card game. In card games there are bluffers and there are winners and losers.
There is a variety of games from which to choose. With real card games you have spades, tunk, 500, poker, and well, uh Uno, and many more possible selections. They all have different rules and variations to the rules of any given game.
In the card games of politics, of which there are multiple varieties, you have an endless number of race cards, LBGTQ cards, gender cards, illegal alien cards, unemployment cards, and now the #MeToo cards.
I am not suggesting that there are not some serious concerns in America and in Maryland, but the game players love these cards. These cards help win elections, or at least bring in a respectable vote count to avoid total humiliation at the polls.
I have found that in some elections candidates do not need to convince voters of their qualifications. Often times, there is no need to discuss beliefs or voting records.
Too often, all that is required is to pull out the customized deck of cards with the end game being to convince potential voters that the other side is truly demonic. Ahhh – it works every time. What a great strategy. Fear!
I remember back in high school, I decided to run for student government president. My opponent, a newcomer to the school – a transfer student, also decided to run. While I genuinely wanted to be of help to the student body, my opponent loved experimenting with political tactics. He was a student of politics while I was not.
It was a total blow out. My opponent won. After the election, my team discovered that rumors had been spread that I was against sports. Of course, that was totally untrue. I asked my opponent, whom I counted as a friend, why he did that. He said he pulled it from a popular politician’s strategy playbook.
My opponent had a devastating card in his deck. By the rules of politics, he won fair and square.
The student body saw with my candidacy that the sky was falling. In actuality, had I been against sports, my opinion on the matter would have had no effect on the sports program. But, voters do not always think through the issues before them.
I am not convinced that every candidate who gets his or her base riled up over issues truly believes the words coming out of their own mouths. For many candidates, it’s all about the strategy. Target your base and tell them what they want to hear and you are assured of a good vote count and maybe a win.
Because of card games and 1985 group think mentality, I abandoned party politics decades ago. Now, I am the prized pig. The politicians can make no assumption about my leanings because in Maryland I am unaffiliated. I get mail from every party imaginable. But truly they are wasting their time with me.
I typically take the time to study each candidate regardless of party. And in any given year where I may be less investigative than I should, I simply skip those parts of the ballot where I claim ignorance. I do not vote for affiliations — I vote for people. And if I didn’t take the time to get to know you, I will not give you a vote of confidence.
The only card game I play right now is an occasional Saturday night game of 500. I don’t find political card games all that entertaining.
I love Maryland and I love this country. With all of the nasty stuff that goes on daily, we have a system that prevents the sky from falling. Since the first U.S. President took office in 1789 until now, we have had nothing but safe and seamless transfers of power. Furthermore, because of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, no one is allowed to be elected to the office of President more than twice.
The same is true in Maryland at the executive branch and the same is true with Howard County at the executive branch.
With our slow, grinding form of government, progress is made slowly, but then so is regression slow. I am comforted that our chief executives have limited terms. Typically they do not have enough time to make the sky fall or to initiate the zombie apocalypse.
Again, I am not minimizing the issues at the local, state, and national levels. I am just sharing my perspective that hot button issues are intentionally made hotter and scarier for the purpose of winning elections.
The political card game is exhausting and debilitating. Win or lose I find no peace in the process. No candidate is my savior. I cannot put that kind of energy into the process.
When our happiness and joy is based on human candidates our maximum time of peace and comfort lasts only four to eight years.
Ricardo Whitaker is the publisher of the Guiford Gazette.