Whenever a challenge comes along, my usual coping strategy is to count down the minutes until it's behind me. If deadlines or responsibilities loom, I simply think, "Hey, only 4 more hours until this is over and done." "Only 3 hours left until I can breathe freely." "Only one nightmarish hour to go." Compartmentalizing chores and challenges into timed exercises makes everything seem more conquerable. Life might suck now, but it's going to suck a lot less in the near future.
To that end, I'm happy to report that we only have roughly 34,980 minutes until the midterm elections are over and campaign ads disappear for a while. With grit and perseverance, we can make it, people.
We're presently in that sweet spot of the midterm build-up where we're being assaulted by campaign pitches on all fronts. They interrupt my TV shows, overrun my airwaves, clog up my internet, and take up precious space in my mailbox every day.
I am in NO WAY anti-advertising. How can I be? Those ads are in our papers and on our websites, too. They help keep our business afloat and pay my bills. I might be a little biased, sure, but political ads serve great purpose -- I WANT candidates to market themselves to me.
Without campaign ads and the amazing political coverage in your favorite local newspaper (cough), we might not have any idea who to vote for. And when we're all uninformed, we clearly have to do the next best thing and vote for the candidates with the silliest names. Don't believe me? Just think about U.S. presidents. Have we ever elected a John Smith or a Mike Jones? Nope, not while there's Millard Fillmores and Grover Clevelands to vote for. If political ads and news went away, we'd be inaugurating President Seymour Butts in no time, trust me.
My problem isn't with the abundance of political ads out there. I'm just weary of their content. The only thing I'm learning about local candidates is how utterly terrible their opponents are. It's just negative ad after negative ad right now. If each of these ads is to believed, the entire political field must be full of terrible nightmare people who barely deserve to walk among us, let alone govern us. Every time I turn on the TV, there's some ominous voice telling me Candidate X wants to tax me into poverty or Candidate Y wants to take away my rights. Candidate Z is "BAD FOR IOWA, BAD FOR GOVERNMENT!" I don't even live in Iowa, but it's starting to feel like the state's very survival hangs in the balance of November's ballot.
Here's the thing, though. I don't want to sound like I'm flexing (if so, it's a pretty weak flex,) but I personally know a few of the candidates running for election this cycle. And guess what? None of them are terrible nightmare people. I might not agree with their politics, but they're far from a menace to our society. I can't speak for everyone on the ballot, but the ones I know are all fairly nice folks who genuinely want to make a difference. Yet every night, I get to hear ominous voices telling me they CAN'T BE TRUSTED.
Elections should be about positivity and optimism for the future. It shouldn't be about scaring people to the polls. In fairness, a lot of the negative ads aren't coming from the candidates themselves. They usually come from PACs with a vested interest -- that's why even the ominous voices often have to quietly issue a disclaimer at the end like, "Paid for the by the Committee for People's Justice of America's Freedom Liberties" or whatever. It all just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Until, that is, I recently discovered what's going on in Brazil.
If you thought OUR political propaganda was bad, check out what's happening down there. Brazil is currently in a heated presidential run-off race. In recent days, viral videos have accused one candidate of being a Satanist. His opponent, meanwhile, has fallen victim to a widely circulated video where an old interview was edited out-of-context to infer that he's a cannibal. That's right -- in Brazil, the negative ads are more like, "Don't vote for Candidate X, he eats people." "Oh yeah? Well, Candidate Y worships the devil!" It's as if their only PAC is Q-Anon.
Things are so bad, in fact, that one candidate actually had to post a five-point statement on Facebook refuting that he regularly speaks to Satan and did NOT, in fact, cut a deal with the devil for the presidency. I can only presume the voices in HIS ads are EXTRA ominous.
So we haven't sunk to THOSE kind of depths yet, but give it time. There's still three weeks before midterms, so anything's possible. I saw a dude still proudly walking around today in a Q-Anon shirt, so never underestimate the power of stupidity. Read up on the candidates, ignore the negativity, and make educated choices at the polls based on facts instead of ominous voices.
With any luck, it'll all be over in about 34,975 minutes.
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