Yesterday, The New Yorker's George Packer pronounced himself bored with the 2016 campaign in particular and American politics in general, and though I think he's wrong, I understand where he's coming from. But if those of us who have devoted our lives to politics can't find enough about it to sustain our interest, what hope is there for the citizens who have better things to do with their time? This isn't an easy question to confront, but I'll give it a shot.
First, this seems pretty understandable:
American politics in general doesn't seem like fun these days. There's nothing very entertaining about super PACs, or Mike Huckabee's national announcement of an imminent national announcement of whether he will run for President again. Jeb Bush's ruthless approach to locking up the exclusive services of longstanding Republican political consultants and media professionals far ahead of the primaries doesn't quicken my pulse. Scott Walker's refusal to affirm Barack Obama's patriotism doesn't shock me into a state of alert indignation. A forthcoming book with revelations about the Clintons' use of their offices and influence to raise money for their foundation and grow rich from paid speeches neither surprises me nor gladdens my heart.
I know what he means; I confess that I found myself feeling something between gloom and despair after the seventh or eighth shutdown/default crisis, like we were trapped in an endlessly repeating and miserable cycle, and it wasn't easy to do my job of examining the situation and writing something both informative and interesting about it. But that passed. And the thing is, it's up to those of us who write about politics to make it interesting. That's what we're here for.
Would a Clinton-Bush matchup lack novelty? In some ways, sure. But there are still things that make each of them, familiar though they might be, interesting characters. Their paths to this point and what voters think of them now tell us a lot about American politics and America itself. And this election will be hugely consequential. The next president is probably going to shape the Supreme Court's path for decades to come (there are four justices over the age of 76). The fate of the Affordable Care Act, and the health of tens of millions of Americans, hangs in the balance, as does the question of whether we're going to have another war in the Middle East and whether we're finally going to address decades of rising inequality.
Elections can be interesting (or even fun) for a lot of reasons. It becomes interesting if it's close, as this one is almost sure to be; the uncertainty of a conflict's outcome always heightens the dramatic tension. Beneath even the most practiced and cautious candidate lies a complex party with factions and internal divisions that can be explored. Every presidential campaign features uses of technology to reach voters that didn't exist four years before. Yes, the daily repetitive grind of the campaign trail and the latest micro-scandal or "gaffe" can enervate the spirit. But there's plenty more going on if you're willing to go deeper.
Maybe what's eating Packer is the lack of a collective sense of fun about politics and the campaign. I suspect this may be a hangover from 2008, which for liberals was, and probably always will be, the most interesting and fun campaign of their lives. You had a charismatic new candidate who got liberals excited and motivated to cast off the ennui that had overtaken them after eight years of George W. Bush, and in the midst of a horrible economic crisis it seemed like the future was filled with hope and possibility. Many of the elite liberals I know are now greeting the Clinton candidacy with an attitude of, "Well, I guess so." And if the people you know don't seem excited, it can be hard to get excited yourself.
I'm sure George Packer has plenty of other things he can write about if the campaign isn't grabbing his fancy. But if you're going to write about it and it doesn't yet look interesting, then you just have to look a little harder.