Last night, hanging out at Denny's I was trying to talk to Mark, but the two tables near us were talking so loudly it was hard to hear. The were talking politics. I couldn't have had a bigger smile on my face.
I don't care what your politics are. No honestly I don't. I like to talk about politics with intelligent people who agree and disagree with me. Just ask my girlfriend, the right wing/wants to get married in the church/still talking about joining the military/daughter of a Coastie/granddaughter of a career Army officer/The Korean war is still ongoing/FDR was one of the worst things to happen to the US kind of conservative. Or you can talk to my best friend, the Obama loving/current president mocking/agnostic for socialised medicine.
Now the vast majority of you, my tiny tiny readership is currently based, or has been based in the DC area. Many of you have traveled, or are living elsewhere. Different cities, some in different countries... so really, I'm asking what you think about the level of political discourse where you are, or have been, compares with DC.
I lived in Richmond VA during the time period that Rudy McCollum was mayor. You may remember him as "that guy between current Governor Tim Kaine, and current Mayor and previous Governor Doug Wilder". You may also know him as "the four year mayor of Richmond with a smaller wikipeida entry than many swedish deathmetal albums released on independant labels and handed out in malls". Suffice to say, that Richmond, particularly at that time, was not too big on talking about national politics. Everyone I knew hated the PATRIOT ACT yet didn't care enough to do anything about it.
Here people talk politics on the Metro, around the water cooler, and obviously, at Denny's. It helps that our local sports teams are all choking dogs and we all know that if they make the playoffs, they ain't makin' in past the first round; so people rarely pay attention. Except the Washington football franchise. People would sell their children for the chance to sit on the 50 yard line and watch them lose. Which they do. A lot.
So politics becomes something that the local guy can talk about. The two free papers that are handed out on the Metro come from the Post and the Times. So everyone who walks past or uses a Metro station has no excuse not to be up to date.
Do you talk politics with your family? With your friends? Do people in your city/town talk local/state politics, or national politics; both, neither?
2 comments:
I generally don't talk politics with my family - too many arguments as we're wide apart on the spectrum. With friends sometime. I've lived in NoVA with the exception of 4 years near Richmond, so politics to me is usually both local and national.
I stopped talking about politics when I moved away from DC. It's just not as prevalent of a topic of discourse here, or possibly anywhere else in the country. I was so accustomed to the hearty discussions of both sides (even if they made me want to pull my hair out) that then once it was gone it was just GONE. Didn't exist anymore, so why mourn its passing? And it seems like because it's nearly as taboo as religion to bring up in polite society, (around here), so to speak, the mere mention is blasphemous. You just. don't. do it. here. It's bizarre. I have 1 friend that I discuss these things with, and we usually agree - which isn't as much fun as I thought it would be.
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