So Much News, So Little Blogging

The president is proving, oddly enough, how little national politics matter to my daily life.

My township, county, and state governments touch my life directly. Even more so because I am a state employee as a university instructor. But, there was some big news. More than most people will recall because the news cycles came and went so quickly.

Donald Trump’s White House was (is) in chaos. The Democratic House of Representatives promises zealous oversight. The government shutdown began over a border wall… and continues for now. It was a wild six weeks as 2018 ended.

Yes, there was a lot of news at the end of 2018, and yet I wasn’t up to blogging because work and family had me swamped. I had to decide between late nights working and even later nights with time for blogs and podcasts. We always have a choice, I realize. My job came first — and I’m going make significant changes to how I approach that job this spring. One of the mistaken assumptions about libertarians is that we value wealth or work more than family. Nope. We value choices, and I chose poorly.

Always choose family over work.

Anyway, despite everything in the headlines, my life did not change. Nor did my wife’s or my daughters’ lives. We managed to have Thanksgiving and Christmas (though work interfered with both) and we didn’t ponder what the president or Congressional leaders might be doing — or not doing. Life went on, along with whatever mistakes I was making.

Life goes on. That’s what happens, generally, in the United States if you’re a middle-class family in the exurbs. As stunning as that might seem, that’s the perception of most people I know.

That disconnect between the people and the federal government is a problem, I suppose, if you believe in a strong and powerful federal government. If you believe in greater local government control, then everything seems to be stunningly normal.

I see more “news” on social media than on television. I’m not engaged as much as I was two or three years ago. To be blunt, I care less about the daily gyrations of the stock market or the latest lies and omissions from national politicians. It isn’t that I don’t care about the long-term stakes, but I recognize that the day-to-day offers fewer valuable data points than I once imagined.

Most days in the markets or in politics are merely part of the longer trends. The market bounces about, but today’s 100-point swing is less important than such moves were 20 years ago. Panic and euphoria are tempered today by experience. The same is true of political rhetoric. The executive order of today might be undone by the next president. The Congress will change and do or not do some things, and fail at undoing many others. The daily rhetorical swings in power seem significant for a week.

One reason for my melancholic outlook is that I realize there is no libertarian or classical liberal base of voters. There are no libertarian leaders, at least not any of influence. The beliefs and researched opinions I hold don’t matter… they are nothing.

The voters want debt controlled; the voters want more spending. The voters want us out of foreign military actions; the voters oppose Trump pulling out of Syria. The voters want local control of education; the voters want federal education money. The voters oppose “special interests” without realizing the Middle Class is a special interest with lots of perks in the tax code and regulatory systems.

No, my daily life went on and I was too consumed with my job to pay much attention to the major events.

I’m convinced Trump will not be president forever — though Democrats might help him win re-election if they aren’t careful. Trump will go away. All our leaders over 75 will eventually be out of politics (one way or another). Our system will swing back towards its moderate (in a global perspective) norms, with center-left and center-right establishment figures rising to claim power.

I’m going to pay more attention again and blog more, primarily because I’m returning to the topic of economics as a professor and writer. I am going to stress, as well, how marginal many of our debates end up in this political moment.

And now that I’ve rambled a bit, time to regain focus and move forward. The last six weeks weren’t much fun, and I probably would have enjoyed them less if I had watched more news.