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The White Middle Class Can’t Be Too Busy For Local Elections
Apathy is a bigger threat than fascism
Until a year ago, I couldn’t even tell you the name of my state governor, and he’d been in office for over two years.
For much of my life, I never concerned myself with politics. I imagined myself too pure, too wholesome, too enlightened to subject myself to such dirty dealings. That’s why I had registered as unaffiliated. Associating my name with a political party would stain my otherwise clean self-image.
My detachment from politics might sound infuriating or incomprehensible to some, but hear me out. I was one of the lucky ones, part of a middle-class family that would do well regardless of who occupied Washington. I had the luxury of not caring about politics. Only recently, in the past year or two, did I recognize the privilege of political detachment.
But that privilege turned out to be a fantasy.
For decades, I scoured enough crumbs to live the American dream even while billionaires became gazillionaires. That changed two years ago when I realized I’d need a side gig to sustain that middle-class lifestyle.
Now, I’m down in the dirt of politics, but many of my neighbors still latch onto political detachment as a sort of badge to flaunt their…
