The Elective Election

“Are you all paying attention to the impeachment news?” my professor asked our class last week. Having a vague knowledge of the proceedings, but no actual certainty as to what any of it meant, I sheepishly clutched my water bottle and left the classroom as the topical discussion raged on. They’ll think I just needed to refill the bottle, I thought to myself, slightly paranoid that my classmates would take my absence for ignorance. And they’d be right.

I knew that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had launched an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump in the autumn of 2019, but I had no idea how to engage in the discourse around it because I didn’t know what was actually happening. I tell myself it’s because the news moves at an impossibly breakneck speed that I could not possibly keep up with everything. While that’s partially true, I also know that the freshman year version of myself would have been keeping a diary on every moment of the Trump impeachment process, following along with every new development as if he was scouting a minor league baseball team with a suspiciously muscular shortstop who may or may not have committed treason.

 

I may never be as engaged politically as I was during my freshman year at UMass Amherst. I looked forward to the presidential debates between Trump and Hillary Clinton more than I looked forward to weekly New England Patriots games and new episodes of Game of Thrones. It was must-see television and, what’s more, it left me feeling good about myself. As an avid supporter of Clinton, each debate and the rhetoric and polling surrounding it left me with the confident feeling that my “team” was going to win. I wasn’t stressed that Trump would be able to beat Clinton in the 2016 national election any more than I was stressed that he would be able to beat her in a debate.

The only things that stressed me out during the October leading up to the election were the lines for UMass’ annual feast of lobster on Halloween at the dining halls and the protest march of which I found myself in the middle. Cutting through the campus center from my classroom in Hasbrouck to my classroom in Herter, I ended up opening the doors as a crowd of people were walking by and chanting about something that felt politically-charged. Confused and stuck in the middle of the march, I felt like I was Larry David in a particularly-controversial episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. As such, I was careful not to fumble the kind of social gaffes that he would.

When relaying the story to my friend, he asked me what the protest was for and I had no answer for him. I was too focused on getting to class and I was too laid-back about the political landscape to care. Hillary Clinton was going to be president; it was a done deal. Why did I need to learn about the causes of political unrest in the nation? Everything was going to be just fine.

 

I didn’t want to leave the comfortable red chairs of the campus center. I knew I had to go to class, but I was still overcome with goosebumps as I watched President Barack Obama deliver a speech on the day after the election. “But to the young people who got into politics for the first time and may be disappointed by the results,” he said. “I just want you to know, you have to stay encouraged. Don’t get cynical, don’t ever think you can’t make a difference.” Wiping away a few tears, I resigned myself to shutting my laptop and preparing to go to class, walking out the doors of the campus center for the first time since the election resulted in a major upset as Trump had become the president-elect.

But I took President Obama’s words to heart. And just a few weeks after accidentally becoming part of a protest march, I found myself consciously holding a sign in another protest that sought to force UMass’ hand at becoming a sanctuary campus for undocumented students who might soon be facing extreme hardships when a new administration took over the federal government.

The day after Trump’s election, I subscribed to a podcast entitled Pod Save America, which is hosted by former Obama administration speechwriter Jon Favreau. His words of encouragement were rooted in the concept of getting involved in local political scenes. So I blended Obama’s advice with Favreau’s and joined the UMass Democrats, added a political science course to my spring 2017 schedule, geared up for that to kickstar a new minor for me at UMass, and marched with fellow students while advocating for undocumented students, Muslim refugees, women who needed Planned Parenthood for healthcare, and more.

As troubled as I was about the outcome of the election, I still felt confident and proud to actually be civically engaged and doing something as I marched across campus.

My confidence quickly plummeted when a peer tapped me on the shoulder and informed me that my sign was upside down.

*

“Yeah, I remember that burst of idealism,” my cousin, Ginny, said over dinner after I told her I was planning to add political science as a minor. We were visiting relatives in a different state for the first time in four years and the conversation gravitated towards my academics.

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, I was a poli-sci major. I thought I was going to change the world and make a difference. But I just couldn’t hack it. It’s not a job for my brain. It didn’t last, so I switched to pharmacy.”

“I think I’ll stick with it,” I said.

“Yeah, well,” she said, unfolding the tinfoil around a baked potato on her plate. “Minors are easier to stick with than majors.”

The former president was telling me to not get cynical and to not give up hope. A dear relative was telling me that idealistic surges never last. How can one decide which advice to follow? All I wanted was someone to come along to save us all. If it couldn’t be me, surely there must be someone out there to save us all.

 

Academically, I performed decently in my introductory poli-sci course, but it was so clear to me that everyone in the room was preparing for a long career in politics. According to my professor, my ideas, while overflowing with optimism, were completely unrealistic.

“Use the textbook a bit more,” he advised me.

As the semester wore on, I felt more and more out of my element, as if the entire classroom was a sign I was holding upside down at a protest march.

Every class began with a “current affairs” update as we would learn about the latest headache emanating from Washington, D.C. At a certain point, I gave up on expecting the political figures of the nation to do the right thing or, even, the understandable thing. The more politically-active I became, the more cynical I felt, betraying Obama’s advice and fulfilling Ginny’s prophecy in the span of six months. There were fewer and fewer ways to find joy on a daily basis and I knew I was in way over my head.

 

Ultimately, I let the political science minor slip away with the one class I took from it becoming a mere elective on my transcript. I promised myself I would stay as engaged as possible without completely wringing out the joy from the sweat towel of my life. On occasion, the cynicism is important to stay politically-motivated, but a certain point, you cannot allow it to entirely consume your life.

I also understand that I am a heterosexual, white male who can afford to not be politically-engaged on a twenty-four/seven basis. It is a privileged perspective to take, but it is what I felt I had to do for the good of my mental health and the good of my academic career. I’m an English major with an education minor. If I pursued a career in politics, I would be some combination of a diver in way over his head and Charlie Brown, repeatedly rushing after a football, despite all evidence that shows he will never actually be able to kick it.

My mind, spirit, and perhaps even my conscience are not built to be possessed by a politician or, more simply, anyone who works in the realm of the political. But during my brief stint as someone down in the daily political muck, each of these was shaped by the things I learned. The political figures I looked up to guided me to larger truths that I can understand on a moral level, as well as on a legislatively boring, technical level.

Throughout my time at UMass, I have largely worked towards my goal of becoming an English teacher of secondary education. Aside from my brief stint as a political maniac, I have stuck closely to this path. Yet, it was my dalliance with a political science minor that finally informed me why I wanted to be an English teacher. It is not because I want to talk about books all day, which sounds fun, or because most of the role models in my life are also teachers, which made it seem like what I should do. It is because I want to make a difference and I want to help the next generation be better than my generation, just as the political figures of the modern age are encouraging the next crop of youths to do. I may not be able to be a political analyst or even the president of the nation, but my experience in the political science realm has informed myriad aspects of my connections to English and education.

If all things are political, then so is a high school education because not every student I teach is going to become an English teacher. Some will become engineers. Some will become poets. Some might even become the next big political figures of their times. Perhaps some will finally be the ones who will save us all. The best that I can do, as a future English teacher, is keep my students as informed and curious as I was when American politics was my entire world. I will not graduate from UMass with a political science minor on my diploma, but I will depart this school with the hope that civic engagement can begin in my classroom.

Image Source: Slate