We Live In A Political World: #346 / "Politics Is Shit"

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

Javier Milei is the President of Argentina. He is pictured above, using a photograph obtained from the December 9, 2024, edition of The New Yorker. Milei's friends and supporters call him the "Madman."

The New Yorker article - all about Milei - was written by Jon Lee Anderson. The article is headlined, "Enemy Of The State." If you click that link, to go online, you will find that the title to Anderson's article is somewhat different, but the online headline has the same basic message: "Javier Milei Wages War on Argentina’s Government."

I recommend the article, and particularly if you like Argentina, which I definitely do. I studied there for a month, one summer, and have visited other times. The nation is, to be polite, deeply troubled. The New Yorker article will give you a pretty good idea.

As for the title of my blog posting today, that quotation comes from within the article itself. According to Héctor Espinoza, a liquor dealer, who was interviewed by Anderson, that phrase - "Politics Is Shit" - expresses the feelings of the ordinary people, who are tired of supposedly "leftist" political types, who use words like "community," "dignity," and "human rights," but who are actually only interested in getting into power themselves. Milei is seen as different, as the genuine article. His ascendency to the presidency is explicitly compared to the route to the presidency of the United States, taken by one Donald J. Trump.

Do ordinary people, here in the United States, think "politics is shit"? And do they think that president Trump is going to do something about that?

Well, there is a responsible argument that lots of people in the United States do think that "politics is shit," and that they see Mr. Trump as someone who is going to turn that around. In fact, even those who don't see Mr. Trump as an antidote really do believe that our "politics is shit." Or "shot," at least. A friend of mine, for instance, recently sent me an email that said the following:

My analysis of how the system operates rests on the fact that Congress is completely controlled by the oligarchy and that "calling/petitioning congress is useless." [So, too] is our electoral system... My sense is the power elite allows a few progressives in, so we can believe that change is possible through the electoral system, but never enough to make any difference in the basic economic and foreign policies that uphold their power.

Perhaps my friend, who authored this opinion, would disagree with me, but I think it is probably fair to say that the above opinion comes close to an assertion that "politics is shit." Its characterization of our current political situation is also, I think, pretty much on target.

So, here's where I agree: Our current politics is horrible. It's "shitty." It may even be fair to say that our current politics "is shit."

However, our current political situation is different from "politics" itself. I like to call "politics" by a different name - "self-government" - but whatever label is applied, "politics" as an activity is what we've got. We do "live in a political world," and abandoning "politics," because our current political situation is so shitty, is to concede the game.

Is Congress "completely controlled by the oligarchy?" Let's say it is (I basically agree with that analysis). Given that, though, the question for me is what we are going to do about it. Suggesting to ourselves that we can make our political situation better without engaging in politics doesn't strike me as a winning formula.

Our political "representatives" are supposed to represent us. And they are not doing that! So, what's the antidote? I know from personal expeerience (admittedly at the local level) that money doesn't always win, and it won't win, either, if we can mobilize ourselves, and understand that "politics" is a participatory activity, not something that we look at, as observers, and then evaluate.

If "politics is shit," it's time for us to clean the bowl!