Laura Lucas Despite how it might seem, not everything is political. Shitty football coaches aren’t Trump’s fault, nor are the PC SJW’s taking away your video games, and some things just suck.
I don’t know if this is something I’ve become increasingly aware of, or if it has always happened, but I’ve noticed that further left- and/or right-wing media incorporates politics into everything. They take issues and inject political spin that undermines both the issue at hand and the political issue. I understand that, politically, we’re experiencing a hell unknown to North America. The President of the United States poorly runs his foreign and domestic policy through his Twitter account. Literal Neo-Nazis took to the streets of Charlottesville. College campuses are quick to shut down any right-wing speaker that even considers coming to speak due to outrageous student backlash. That being said, not everything that happens in the world is the fault of the current political climate, and making that stretch hurts any chance for competent narratives and debates to persist. I’ll give three specific, albeit hyper-focused, of examples of exactly this.
I. A coach who likes winning isn’t political
Recently, I was reading an article on vice sports about Bill Belichick being “a Creature Who Lives for Victory, and Nothing Else.” The title hooked in me in. I was really interested in seeing an examination of one the most successful NFL coaches, especially since the Superbowl is so close. My interest turned to a comical cringe as the sub-heading read, “the perfect coach for Trump’s America.” The only connection to Trump in the article was the fact that Belichick endorsed him. If you want to hit the NFL, there are clear and easy targets (just google “NFL” and “abuse”). If you want to hit Trump, there are even clearer and easier targets. If you want to hit the NFL and Trump’s relationship, again, clear and easy targets to hit. However randomly aiming for the sky and forcing unrelated issues together manages to hurt all three of the previous issues at once and weaken the legitimacy of all three.
The article argued that since Belichick has what seems like a sociopathic obsession with winning, that he represents America’s “moral rot.” Claiming that people like Belichick don’t attribute to the greater good but rather hinder it. Here’s the thing: people like Belichick, won World War II, fiercely fought against communism and gave rights to people who had none. I’d argue those attributed to the greater good.
Go-getters go get, winners win, and it sucks to suck. It’s that simple. There’s a reason why Bill Belichick has won five super bowls. There’s a reason why Barack Obama won two presidential elections. And there’s a reason why I’m bitching about a Vice article on the internet.
II. Punching Nazis in cyberspace isn’t political
You know what’s a fun game? Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. You know what it’s about? Killing Nazis. You know what’s not political? Fucking killing Nazis. Despite this, both extremes had a hayday when this game was released.
People on the far-right were quick to call the game racist to white people, claiming the games use of Black Panther-esque and Communist groups as American allies as inappropriate. Ignoring the fact that using these groups is accurate to the 1960’s era in which the game is set. Ignoring the fact that, given the alternate history the game is set in, it isn’t unrealistic to think that these groups would be the most prominent in resisting Nazis in America. Scrolling through the negative user reviews, most complained about the racism to white people and the overt political correctness the game. How is a dumb video game about killing Nazis, the literal, historical personification of pure evil, controversial to some? What disillusion have people bought into?
Left-wing outlets weren’t exactly innocent of this either. Vice previewed the game and in their preview they lauded the game’s marketing campaigning, and specifically the use of “punch a Nazi” and “make America Nazi-free again”. This was so obviously tailor-made to stir up controversy with fringe Trump supporters, especially after Charlottesville, knowing that the game would sell exponentially because of it. The game sold as well as it did, in part, due to the “anti-white” controversy it baited into the public mediums. This isn’t something you applaud, at least from a moral standpoint. I found the preview equivalent to being in a history class discussion about Fascist Germany when some person goes, “Hey the Nazis sure sucked,” and the prof responds by ending the discussion because no other observation could ever be made about that time period.
I’m currently halfway through the game and loving every moment of it. Why? Because it distracts me from the issues that persist all around us and I get some catharsis from virtually killing history’s archetypal villain, the Nazis.
III. Cancer isn’t political
The final example, I frankly find the most baffling. This was an ad that circled around Australia, pitting breast cancer against prostate cancer. I fail to see the point it was trying to make. What difference does it make who gets cancer more often? Does it make prostate cancer worse than breast cancer? How does forcing gender politics into cancer awareness help your cause, or any cause for that matter? This ad does nothing to address the very real issues of both gender struggles and the crippling diagnosis of cancer. Cancer is still cancer. Cancer doesn’t care if you’re a republican or democrat. Cancer doesn’t care if you punched a Nazi or were the Nazi that got punched. Cancer doesn’t care where you identify on the gender spectrum. Cancer just takes. It takes and takes until there is nothing left any more. Cancer doesn’t just take from the person it infects, it robs everyone of something. Man or woman, you either survive cancer or you don’t.
The world is a bad place right now. If we want to make it better and hold people accountable for their actions. We have to address the issues accurately and concisely. Unnecessarily politicizing things is getting us nowhere.
