08/10/2024

Listen—

My news junkie tendencies must end. In the second half of July and into this month also, I have procrastinated on an article revision for the James Joyce Quarterly by spending hours each day watching CNN on YouTube. Jake Tapper is an engaging reporter, and Kamala Harris has refined the rhetoric of her stump speech so rapidly that it feels like watching history unfold in real time. Indeed, the stakes are arguably higher this election cycle than any in recent memory, given the Ukraine War, the Gaza War, and the possibility of a wider regional conflict in the Middle East, which is to say nothing about a host of domestic issues determining the choice Americans make in November.

But I need to get a life. Big money has outsized influence (“one person, one vote” is not the reality of American democracy), but even if Bernie Sanders’ election reform proposals were adopted, there would be the problem of imperfect knowledge. Politics is contentious precisely because it is not scientific. Humans pretend to know about utopia (i.e., that voting is based on policy outcomes), but our minds are just not suited to that task. Most people vote like me—based on feeling and intuition—and I trust Harris more than Trump, so I am endorsing her campaign. Now I can get back to work.

Kind regards,
Kenneth