Politics Is Based On a Fundamental Lie, says “Cynical Libertarian” Dave Barry| Big Think

Politics Is Based On a Fundamental Lie, says “Cynical Libertarian” Dave Barry

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There's one whopper out there that people rarely acknowledge, but self-confessed "cynical libertarian" Dave Barry isn't shying away.If you think lies are funny, you might be a cynic. If you’re a cynical libertarian, you might be Dave Barry. As a humorist at the Miami Herald for more than 20 years, Barry kept a close watch on state and national politics. What he saw, and continues to see, is a great lie perpetrated on the voting public: that politicians actually care about you (they don’t). But much like the lie of professional sports — that it truly matters which team wins (it doesn’t) — we depend on the lie so that we feel good about participating, whether in politics or in sports. Hilarious, right? Dave Barry is the co-author of For This

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DAVE BARRY :

Dave Barry has been a professional humorist ever since he discovered that professional humor was a lot easier than working. His is the co-author of For This We Left Egypt, and author of Best. State. Ever.: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland.

For many years he wrote a newspaper column that appeared in more than 500 newspapers and generated thousands of letters from readers who thought he should be fired. Despite this, Barry won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary, although he misplaced it for several years, which is why his wife now keeps it in a secure location that he does not know about. One of Barry's columns was largely responsible for the movement to observe International Talk Like a Pirate Day every year on September 19. This is probably his most enduring achievement.

Barry has written more than 30 books, including the novels Big Trouble, Lunatics, Tricky Business and, most recently, Insane City. He has also written a number of books with titles like I'll Mature When I'm Dead, which are technically classified as nonfiction, although they contain numerous lies. Two of Barry's books were the basis for the CBS sitcom Dave's World, which can probably still be seen on cable TV in certain underdeveloped nations.

Barry lives in Miami with his family and a dog that is determined to urinate on every square inch of North America. You can follow him at @rayadverb on Twitter and learn more about his work at davebarry.com.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Dave Barry: I do think politics is very funny, and I think politicians are funny. And the fundamental reason I think it is that it's all based on a huge lie, kind of like professional sports is based on a lie: that it matters whether this team wins or not, and it really doesn't. In the end if you would just accept that it was all just kind of a silly entertainment, politics is based on the lie that they actually care about you.

And I say this, I’m a deeply cynical person and a libertarian, but I've been watching politics fairly close for a long, long time and nobody in Washington cares about you. I don't care which side of the aisle they are on, they don't care about you. They care about keeping in office, having whatever perks and powers involved in it, and they care about winning.

And especially today in America winning is much more important to everybody than ever advancing any particular agenda or ideology, certainly helping people is way down the list because—you could argue any given issue—both sides can tell you why it will help you to do what they want you to do, but in the end I don't believe that's what they are trying to do.

The higher you rise in politics the less likely it is you're actually trying to help anybody but yourself and your immediate cohorts.

I don't think Trump supporters did get conned. I think they got what they want. They want a guy who – I know a number of Trump supporters, people he you would not necessarily guess were Trump supporters. They're not all white males, and they're not all straight white males, but they supported Donald Trump and they still do.

I think they don't believe that he is some kind of great statesman, they don't believe that he is well versed necessarily on all the policy details that a president should be versed on, but they think that he doesn't like what they don't like and he pisses off the people that they want to be pissed off.

Basically the Trump supporters, a large part of it, it wasn't racism, it wasn't sexism, it was [gesture] that to the people that they don't like the New York Times, the Washington Post, the political establishment in general, MSNBC.

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