OPINION: Political burnout is hurting our generation

 

Written By Julianna Rittenberg

Julianna Rittenberg is a freshman studying political science and an opinion writer for The New Political.

https://www.thenewpolitical.com/opinion/w8fn6i8ojr573o4zgvd6qgrlx1y4zx

Political burnout, or politics fatigue syndrome, has been an issue in America for years.

In 2011, former President Barack Obama remarked that people are tired of politics. In 2014, 15 of the 25 states that held primaries reported record low turnout. This flipped during the 2020 election, when there was record high voter turnout because people were outraged by Donald Trump’s presidency and therefore paying attention. Those in the field of politics are anxiously awaiting to see if 2022 will have a drop in turnout. (Clearly this OP is a bit dated, BUT is it still relevant?)

In 2018, a Pew Research Center study found that 68% of Americans felt worn out by the amount of news content there was and much fewer, 30%, felt that they liked the amount of news they received. When the study was reconducted in 2019, these numbers stayed roughly the same; 32% liked the amount of news while 66% felt burnt out.

Broken down by political parties, Republicans tended to feel more burnt out at 75%, and 59% of Democrats felt burnt out. Across all parties, burnout was more common in those who pay less attention to the news. 

Conservative political strategist and lobbyist Diana Banister sees four main causes of political burnout: widespread uneasiness with the government, media becoming more sensationalized and polarized, frustration with the political process, and disillusionment with politicians. 

Activists in particular feel a certain brand of political burnout. Activism work can be agonizing because so much of it is being told “no” or “not now,” working long hours and dealing with defeat after defeat. Activists are attempting to dismantle systems, and with that comes exhaustion, stress and many disappointments. As a result, roughly 50% of activists end up leaving their professions entirely. 

This is a problem. We need people to continue fighting for reforms, dismantlement and change. 

College students also deal with political burnout in a unique way. For a generation marked with rising mental health issues and the COVID-19 pandemic, changing media styles, and all of the other political issues on top of that stress, is a lot to manage and work through. 

In 2020, a study found that 75% of college students were stressed out by the election. Factors such as race, gender, class and sexual orientation also played into this. Those in minority and marginalized groups also felt more stressed out by politics because the stakes were higher. Minorities and other marginalized groups are more affected by the decisions politicians make about their lives, as they tend to target groups that are less able to defend themselves in the court system. 

For example, there are currently dozens of bills targeting transgender people across the country. Transgender people are a minority group in this country and have a harder time finding and affording a lawyer to represent them. Additionally, there is much debate over whether or not the constitution applies to their rights. 

There are systemic factors built against minorities in the political process. Black people and people of color have been barred from voting for as long as this country has existed.

Minorities’ way of life can be determined by those voted into office, people who do not believe they deserve the same rights and deny their existence. Of course this leads to higher stress and more frustration and disillusionment with our political system. 

With the COVID-19 pandemic, society has seen a positive shift towards prioritizing self-care. If self-care can invade our workplaces and continue to be prioritized by employers, then self-care and mental health may help combat political burnout.

Colleges should be doing more to help college students who are experiencing political burnout. Classes could be canceled on Election Day to make it easier for students to participate in the political process. 

Inside the classroom, particularly in politically aligned courses, professors should discuss political burnout and offer strategies to combat it. They can play an active role in prioritizing positive mental health practices. 

There is a lot of guilt that comes with experiencing political burnout. People feel the need to always pay attention, especially with the rise of social media activism. There is always something to be outraged about, fighting against and fighting for. Many of my friends and I feel guilty for taking social media breaks because we know how much is at risk.

However, not everything is on the shoulders of each individual. Taking periodic breaks from social media and the news can be healthy. Rest will allow yourself to reset; you will not make the change you are looking for if you are exhausted and burnt out. 

Activism is important. Paying attention to politics is important. Taking care of your mental health is important. These pieces fit together, and as a society, as well as college students, we need to do a better job at finding the balance — our future depends on it. 

News & science: Deepfake political non-profits; Immigration gridlock - some history

The NYT writes about some of those annoying robocalls we all get bombarded with from The people claiming to be working for American Police Officer's Alliance, the National Police Support Fund and other groups allegedly supporting firefighters and veterans: 

A group of conservative operatives using sophisticated robocalls raised millions of dollars from donors using pro-police and pro-veteran messages. But instead of using the money to promote issues and candidates, an analysis by The New York Times shows, nearly all the money went to pay the firms making the calls and the operatives themselves, highlighting a flaw in the regulation of political nonprofits. 

Amount raised and spent since 2014

The target who picks up the phone hears this sincere sounding robocall:

“This is Frank Wallace calling for the American Police Officers Alliance. Very quickly, we’re mailing out the envelopes to help fight for our officers who protect our nation’s citizens, just like yourself. Once you receive your card in the mail, you can send back whatever you think is fair this time. That’s all.”

This is not a policeman. This is not even a human. This is a computer, making thousands of robocalls with the same folksy voice.

About 90 percent of the money the groups raised was simply sent back to their fund-raising contractors, to feed a self-consuming loop where donations went to find more donors to give money to find more donors. They had no significant operations other than fund-raising, and along the way became one of America’s biggest sources of robocalls.

Killing robocalls is an issue that congress should be working on, but it can't because it is broken as intended by Republican government and regulations haters. Caveat emptor people!

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The NYT writes about why American immigration law and policy is a mess and has been for years:

For nearly a quarter century, as successive waves of migrants have tried to enter and work in the United States, presidents have appealed to Congress to address gaps in an immigration system nearly everyone agrees is broken.

Yet year after year, congressional efforts to strike a wide-ranging bipartisan deal — one that would strengthen border security measures while expanding avenues for people to immigrate to the United States in an orderly and lawful way — have fractured under the strain of political forces.

Immigration has proved to be a potent political messaging tool, particularly for Republicans, who have rallied voters behind campaigns to close the border with Mexico — and denounced anything other than stringent security proposals as amnesty. And Democrats have long resisted border security initiatives without measures to grant legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants residing in the United States and to expand immigration in the future.

While many lawmakers have tried to bridge the gap, not once in the 21st century has Congress managed to send a comprehensive immigration bill to the president’s desk.

The NYT points out that in 2006 the McCain-Kennedy bill passed the Senate, but died in the Republican House. In 2007 after congressional Republicans suffered defeats in the 2006 midterms, new Democratic majorities in the Senate and House tried to fix immigration again. The 2007 bill failed to clear procedural hurdles in the Senate in June 2007 and never received a final vote in either chamber. In December of 2010, Democratic congressional leaders held votes on the DREAM Act that provided an opportunity to gain legal status for immigrant children who grew up here and stayed out of legal trouble. Not surprisingly, Democrat-led Senate fell five votes short of breaking a filibuster blocking it from a vote. Again in 2013, the Democrats managed to get a filibuster-proof bill passed in the Senate, but House Republicans blocked it and the bill died. In 2018 another bill died in congress because Republicans and some Democrats opposed it. (the Dems opposed because of harsh measures in the bill)

So there we have it. Again and again, bigoted and racist Republican politicians refuse to reasonably compromise and that's the end of it. All we get is finger pointing and toxic dark free speech. This issue plays into the Republican hands. They demagogue the hell out if it and foment fear of the Great Replacement and rage at messes at the border. The GOP is incentivized to leave immigration a stinking mess so they can whine and complain about immigration being a stinking mess. 

Q: Should Democrats compromise by caving in to what the bigots and racists want, such as no citizenship pathway, or is that not a meaningful compromise?

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Science: Researchers have discovered that in addition to electrical imbalances across cell membranes, electrical imbalances are present in and around cell structures called biological condensates (BCs). A BC is akin to a drop of vegetable oil floating on water. BCs form spontaneously inside cells. 

Cell membranes are used maintain an electrical charge imbalance to   

drive chemical reactions -- neurons use this to communicate information

with other neurons

Science Daily writes:

The human body relies heavily on electrical charges. Lightning-like pulses of energy fly through the brain and nerves and most biological processes depend on electrical ions traveling across the membranes of each cell in our body.

These electrical signals are possible, in part, because of an imbalance in electrical charges that exists on either side of a cellular membrane. Until recently, researchers believed the membrane was an essential component to creating this imbalance. .... Like oil droplets floating in water, these structures [biological condensates] exist because of differences in density. They form compartments inside the cell without needing the physical boundary of a membrane.  

"In a prebiotic environment without enzymes to catalyze reactions, where would the energy come from?" asked Yifan Dai, a Duke postdoctoral researcher working in the laboratory of Ashutosh Chilkoti, the Alan L. Kaganov Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Lingchong You, the James L. Meriam Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering.

"This discovery provides a plausible explanation of where the reaction energy could have come from, just as the potential energy that is imparted on a point charge placed in an electric field," Dai said.  

After combining the right formula of building blocks to create minuscule condensates .... they added a dye to the system that glows in the presence of reactive oxygen species.

Their hunch was right. When the environmental conditions were right, a solid glow started from the edges of the condensates, confirming that a previously unknown phenomenon was at work. Dai next talked with Richard Zare, the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor of Chemistry at Stanford, whose group established the electric behavior of water droplets. Zare was excited to hear about the new behavior in biological systems, and started to work with the group on the underlying mechanism.

"Inspired by previous work on water droplets, my graduate student, Christian Chamberlayne, and I thought that the same physical principles might apply and promote redox chemistry, such as the formation of hydrogen peroxide molecules," Zare said. "These findings suggest why condensates are so important in the functioning of cells."

"Most previous work on biomolecular condensates has focused on their innards," Chilkoti said. "Yifan's discovery that biomolecular condensates appear to be universally redox-active suggests that condensates did not simply evolve to carry out specific biological functions as is commonly understood, but that they are also endowed with a critical chemical function that is essential to cells."

One of the mysteries, arguably a God of the Gaps thing, is how life could arise and evolve without cell membranes and the electrical imbalance needed to drive chemical reactions needed to create and sustain life. The energy needed to run biological chemistry requires energy. Despite lightening bolts, thermal hots springs and etc., until now there was no plausible source of that energy for life and cells to arise. 

These BCs could be the answer to the energy problem. If that turns out to be the case, this knowledge could close a major gap in our understanding of how life on Earth as we know it evolved from non-life either here on Earth or anywhere else.

Biological condensates include self-assembling structures 

called stress granules, Balbani bodies, paraspeckles, etc.

Green dots-blobs are paraspeckles in the

nucleus of a HeLa cell

From the Killing Democracy Files: The Viktor Orban redux

CONTEXT

After he was elected to power in Hungary in 2010, Viktor Orban moved quickly to kill democracy and neuter political and institutional opposition and dissent. Within a couple of years, he and his party were in firm control and voters could not dislodge them. Hungary ceased to be a democracy. A key tactic that Orban used to neuter pro-democracy government institutions was to purge the central government of competent professional bureaucrats. They were replaced by thugs chosen based on their loyalty to Orban, not their experience, competence or loyalty to democracy or the rule of law. 

I have pointed out here many times now that Republican Party elites greatly admire what Orban did to democracy and the rule of law in Hungary. Their actions are clearly aimed at doing the same to democracy and the rule of law in America. 

This 5 minute interview with Orban expert Kim Scheppele explains the American radical right's love affair with Orban.

THE AMERICAN ORBAN REDUX

Government Executive writes:

Feds Could Be Fired at Any Time for Any Reason 

Under a Bill That Was Just Reintroduced

The bill also would abolish the Merit Systems Protection Board and threatens to reduce former federal employees’ retirement benefits if they file “frivolous” appeals of adverse personnel actions

A group of 14 conservative lawmakers in both chambers of Congress last week reintroduced legislation that would make the federal government an at-will employer and abolish the Merit Systems Protection Board, effectively eviscerating federal workers’ civil service protections and chilling whistleblowing.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., are the lead sponsors of the Public Service Reform Act (H.R. 3115), which would make career federal workers at-will employees and get rid of most of the avenues currently available to appeal adverse personnel decisions. It also would abolish the MSPB and send most appeals directly to federal appellate courts, although it preserves a 14-day window for whistleblowers to allege retaliation before the Office of Special Counsel.

“It is far past time to reinstate accountability to the people for the federal bureaucracy by requiring that like any private sector employee, federal workers can be removed from their positions,” Roy said in a statement. “Notwithstanding the majority of federal workers who faithfully serve, especially our law enforcement personnel, we should not allow a wall of red tape to shield those engaged in noncompliance with the law and brazen political partisanship. Federal employees should keep their jobs based on merit, just like the people they serve.”  

The bill also allows for federal workers to appeal adverse personnel actions they believe were discriminatory to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, although the legislation requires EEOC to scrap its policies relating to the federal workforce and apply private sector rules to the proceedings.

And it creates a disincentive to federal workers filing appeals of their firings through a provision that says that if a court finds a complaint to be “frivolous” or otherwise “brought in bad faith,” the employee’s defined benefit annuity is automatically reduced by 25%.

“It’s clear that the bureaucracy of the federal government is both a waste of taxpayer dollars and inefficient,” Scott said in a statement. “Red tape and bloated federal agencies constantly slow down progress and hamper American innovation. It’s time to change Washington so it actually works for the American people. The public Service Reform Act will boost accountability and responsiveness across the federal government by making all executive branch employees at-will.”

Note the lack of good will here. Also note the hatred of the deep state that the radical right has been howling about for decades. The Republican fascist definition of a frivolous appeal is one that inconveniences their democracy and transparency killing agenda. The Republican Party clearly intends to do to American democracy the same as what Orban did to democracy in Hungary. There is no significant difference here. If the American radical right gets its way, America too will cease to be a democracy.

Commentary and a warning about the state of American politics

An opinion in The Guardian expresses grave concerns about the radicalized Republican Party and its cult leader: 

There is a clear and present danger of a new Trump presidency 

Democrats must act now to prevent it

We may come to remember this period as the interlude: the inter-Trump years. After the sigh of relief heard around the world when Donald Trump was defeated in November 2020, a grim realization should be dawning: the threat of a Trump return to the White House is growing.

His first task is to win the Republican party’s presidential nomination, but that hurdle is shrinking daily. Trump’s grip on his party remains firm, with none of his putative rivals coming close. Of course, the first round of primary voting is months away and much could change, but the shape of the race is already clear – and Trump is dominant. [cites E. Jean Carroll verdict as evidence of his unshakable political power]

That “makes me want to vote for him twice”, said Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama of the jury’s decision, articulating the view held by many millions of Republicans that this judgment – and any other legal finding against the former president – proves only that the elites are out to get him.

It means Democrats and those who wish to see Trump finished need to let go of the hope that the courts will dispatch him once and for all. .... on the current evidence, a slew of guilty verdicts would barely dent his standing with his own party. As Trump intuited back in 2016, he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and Republicans would still vote for him.

Plenty of Democrats concede that Trump is likely to win his party’s nomination. Indeed, many want him to win, so sure are they that he will lose to Biden in a rematch of 2020. And he may. But that contest will be far too close for comfort, at least in the electoral college that decides the outcome. In 2020, just 44,000 votes in three states stood between a Biden victory and an electoral college tie. Now the polls look much worse for him. .... Put simply, it was a photo finish last time and Trump’s prospects are better now than then.

What would a Trump restoration entail? He himself has promised “retribution”, and those who served under him warn that a returned Trump would be less chaotic, more focused, than he was first time around.

[Attacking the courts] has become a pattern, casting the justice system as merely another theatre in the partisan culture wars. Not content with destroying Republicans’ faith in electoral democracy in order to divert attention from the fact he lost an election, Trump is now doing the same to his followers’ trust in the law, this time to distract from the fact that he is a sexual predator.

A second-term Trump would set about finishing what he started, breaking any institution that might stand in his way, whether that be the ballot box or the courts. As Senator Mitt Romney, a rare Republican voice of dissent, put it after the CNN show: “You see what you’re going to get, which is a presidency untethered to the truth and untethered to the constitutional order.”

Democrats need to snap out of the complacency brought by victory in 2020 and work as if they are in a race against the devil and lagging behind – because they are. They need to address the Biden age issue fast: several party veterans urge the president to get out more, recommending the kind of closeup encounters with the public at which he thrives. They need to sell their achievements, not least a strong record on jobs. And they have to sound the alarm every day, warning of the danger Trump poses. Because it is clear and it is present.