Megan Rapinoe says the goal of her new HBO special is to “make politics cool.” Instead, it will serve to make your personal life miserable.
Rapinoe told Jimmy Fallon that “our lives are political in so many ways,” adding that her show would demonstrate that “politics is engaging with you whether you’re engaging with it or not, all the time, no matter what.”
This is the toxic mindset that social justice pushes on the public. Everything in your life, from your interpersonal interactions and the shows and sports you watch to the products you buy, must be a political exercise. This is what makes Rapinoe and other popular athletes feel compelled to make their sports careers as political as they have been, which has made sports a slog for so many who view it as an escape.
This is the mindset that makes food political, like the political battle over Goya Foods after its CEO praised President Trump. It’s the mindset that drove Joaquin Castro, a Democratic congressman whose brother ran for president, to target Trump donors in his district. A sitting congressman used his platform to go after retirees and small-business owners, many of whom donated to him as well, for associating with the wrong political figures.
“The personal is the political” is also the inspiration for many in the media, who look to make everything about your life political and divisive. “How to talk to your Republican uncle at Thanksgiving” has become as much of a meme as it is a genre of media writing, but the intent of those think pieces is clear: Your relationship with your own family is meaningless beyond how they vote at the ballot box.
This is the path to misery for many. From the obsessive activist class to the fraction of people who are “extremely online,” the toxic mixing of politics and personal life causes them to disassociate from family and friends over political questions that don’t affect them to the extent they like to think.
Politics is not engaging with you “all the time, no matter what.” Your identity is not political unless you decide to make it so. You don’t have to follow Rapinoe’s all-consuming maxim, and if you want to be a happier person, you shouldn’t.
