America’s New Pastime: The Politicization of Everything

P.J. O'Rourke

 Many of us haven’t talked much to our families this past year. You could blame the pandemic for this (or America’s response), but it’s that every holiday brunch, every Wednesday Zoom call, every banal group text all get blown up by politics. 

Ubiquitous political ideology is the meta-virus interwoven within COVID — it invades each facet of our lives as we cherish our political identities like swaddled newborn babies. With myopic religious fervor, The Left of Right worships either Fauci or Trump, readied with our fangs out, weaponized with our rage-bait sound bites if someone dares disagree with our curated perspective.

Our legendary Editor in Chief P.J. O’Rourke reminds us of the vitality of political distancing in 2021. He notes that as Washington’s shadow grows and the machine of politics curdles into a golem dictating everything from mask mandates to the reopening of schools, that our humanity and freedoms will continue to wither.

Right now, the most dangerous thing about politics is… politics.

Politics are dangerous to everybody. This is true if you’re scraping spray-painted obscenities off your Trump/Pence yard sign and wearing your MAGA cap at half-mast in mourning. And this is also true if you think AOC and the Green New Dealers have just dealt you a straight flush. (Flush twice – it’s a long way from Congress to your lunch bucket.)

Of course, politics have always been dangerous. Politics are how it’s decided who controls government… Whoever controls government controls the force of the law… And the force of the law is a lethal force.

Fail to pay a parking ticket and you’ll be fined. Refuse to pay the fine and you’ll be jailed. Try to escape from jail and you’ll be shot. Every law, every government rule and regulation, no matter how trivial or picayune, is obeyed at the point of a gun.

That gun is called politics. And what makes politics so dangerous right now is that Americans – Left, Right, and Center (if there even is a Center anymore) – have come to believe that the answer to every question is political:

• How much money should we have? How much money can we have?
• What’s a dollar worth?
• How many dollars must we pay employees?
• Who are the employees required to be? Who is allowed to employ them?
• Who’s a real American?
• Who’s just pretending?
• Who gets to exercise free speech? What if they speak too freely?
• What should be taught in school? What should be believed in church?
• Which doctor can we go to?
• Which car can we drive? Or do we have to take the train?
• And what should the weather be like?

...Politics is a zero-sum game… Only one side can win. Individual people compete too. Only one person can be CEO. But there are plenty of different types and kinds of CEOs you can be. And how often do you apply for a job as CEO? Most of the time, when people are competing, it’s a game like golf or Little League, not a matter of life and death and parking tickets like politics.

...Politics is famously good at creating divisions. To bolster support, politics depends on a feeling of “Us.” But every “Us” needs a “Them.”

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