More Unacceptable Terms

Two more to cut out:

1) Competitive District

2) Polls indicate…

Here we are on the eve of the election. There have been two terms that have been shouted over and over again - to the detriment of the American people. Let’s do away with these…

“Competitive District” sounds simple enough. There are a lot of competitive districts this year. Many are generally right-leaning that may go left, others are the opposite. But in all cases I‘ve seen, it is the candidates that are competing, not any stance or belief. Those competitive districts are those that have the most to lose - or have already lost a lot - and are full of tense and terrified voters. So to get the vote, every dig at the opposition is taken and every opportunity to describe personal beliefs is shunned. In this way, the People have a popularity contest, masked by the notion that a serious public discourse is taking place. The voters are not all sitting in public meeting houses, convincing their neighbors that, indeed, the bailouts prevented worse job loses or some other important topic. Each voter is betting on which candidate will take the least from him or her, period.

And it is these people that make up the polls. The most useful poll is a sort of quiz, asking voters “what is the name of your governor?” That kind of data really shows something. You could also ask “is evolution real?” Both of these questions have a right answer. All governors have names and evolution (in one form or another) is absolutely real. Now, if 50% of a state missed the first question, the schools would start to focus on facts like that a bit more, I think. If 50% of a group missed the second one, a candidate would say “and this shows that American’s don’t want to accept this heresy!” Having a poll show that popular opinion says X doesn’t make X a fact. That subtlety has been lost along the way, often, and is embarrassing to me.

Thus, I soldier forth into tomorrow very worried. This damage will keep getting worse for awhile still. I’m guessing another 25 years.