Voters walk into cast their ballots at the Center Point Church on Nov. 8, 2022, in Orem, Utah. (George Frey/Getty Images)
If I could take any time off from being a journalist or feeling interested in politics, it would be the October before a presidential election.
No disrespect to those of you who find these weeks thrilling and exciting. But I have worked as a professional journalist through four of these consarned crucibles (2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016, before taking a break in 2020 for nonprofit work), and each cycle drained me further of the will to live.
The fault is not that of journalists, at least not the dedicated reporters I’ve worked with for most of my career. No, the fault rests with political parties, cable news channels and social media clickbait factories that treat every day in the runup to a presidential election as THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY IN HISTORY.
DID YOU SEE WHAT YOUR HATED OR BELOVED CANDIDATE DID? Stay tuned! Before you leave this page, are you sure you don’t want to click through a slideshow for the WORST VICE PRESIDENTS EVER ?
Please, make it stop.
Or as actual horse racing reporter Joe Drape told Poynter in June : “My colleagues who I admire in politics should remember that the rule of thumb in horse racing is ‘nobody knows nothing. You got opinions, you got information in front of you, you got speculation, but until the race is run, nobody knows who’s gonna win.”
At one point, the overheated coverage and carnival-like atmosphere amused me. It struck me as a harmless diversion.
Like the time in 2008 when I lived in New Hampshire, working at the Concord Monitor , and one of Hillary Clinton’s press people called me at home. She pressed me for information about an upcoming story examining the candidate’s foreign policy stances. I politely ended the call as soon as possible — after all, I wasn’t a reporter or senior editor and didn’t have anything to do with the piece in question.
But hey, it was a fun anecdote. And everyone gets a little carried away during election season, right?
I also remember the time in 2016 when an approximately 180-year-old Bob Dole phoned the Monitor newsroom to talk about the primary. He somehow had gotten his hands on the general newsroom number, so as I sat at my desk designing a page, a voice rang out: “Hey, does anyone here want to talk to Bob Dole?”
To my regret, someone else conducted the interview.
In the years since 2008 — and certainly since 2016 — our national political conversation has devolved. Old-media gatekeepers have crumbled, and rhetoric has turned dark and dangerous. While Vice President Kamala Harris has injected youthful vitality into this year’s contest, former president Donald Trump has played his greatest hits for the third straight presidential election. In the slightly altered words of Green Day, wake me up when October ends.
I know we’re feeling overloaded and concerned. I’ve heard it from readers via email and in person. That queasy mix of anxiety and exhaustion churns in the pit of my stomach, too.
So here are a handful of pointers for making it through the next 40 days relatively unscathed.
Follow your state and local elections. Kansas isn’t a battleground state in the presidential election, which means that your attention makes the most difference when focused close to home. I’ve made this point in column after column , but I’ll make it again here. State legislative and community-wide contests affect your day-to-day life. Too many people ignore them.
Tune out the horse race coverage. Who’s ahead? Who’s behind? Who gives a damn? In a close national election, polls and election forecasters fill an irrelevant need. If you want to follow a national contest like the presidential election, figure out what the candidates stand for and why. Learn about their backgrounds and what people who work for them say. Follow high-quality journalism from States Newsroom’s Washington, D.C., bureau and others. But unless you’re gambling on the outcome , leave fretting about the odds to others.
Avoid social media conflict. Look, you’re not going to persuade your cousin that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. You can’t tell your grandfather who to vote for now that he’s made up his mind. There will be time to consider the toll of politics on your personal relationships, but not right now. Let the election happen. Don’t engage in conflict or negativity that will make everyone feel unhappy.
If you won’t listen to me about these last two points, listen to University of Colorado School of Medicine professor Steven Berkowitz, as quoted all the way back in March : “Limit the amount of news that you watch. Also, watch different outlets with different perspectives. Delve into the issues with print media. Stay away from too much social media hysteria.”
Get some exercise. Winter hasn’t snowed us in yet, so for goodness’ sake, take a walk or gentle jog. Eat good food. Take care of your body and mind , especially when you experience a constant drumbeat of negativity.
Remember your caring. If you have a big heart and big feelings about the election, try to remember those emotions for all of the other months. Don’t do so to create drama, but to motivate yourself for all of the challenges that await civically minded people. We have big jobs to do in Kansas and the United States, and they don’t stop on Election Day.
Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here .
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