Don’t lose sight of what is important

Published 8:35 pm Saturday, November 1, 2014

You knew someone had to say it; it’s the catchphrase of modern elections. Lee Saunders, national president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, campaigned with President Barack Obama in Michigan last week and declared, “This election is the most important election in our lifetime.”

Adds a League of Women Voters official in Wisconsin, “This may be one of the most important elections of our lifetime. … There is a great deal on the line — control of the U.S. Senate — and thus the direction of our country going into the next presidential race, literally hangs in the balance of how many people register and vote this year.”

She’s right, as far as that goes — voting is important.

You know what’s not important? Scaremongering, apocalyptic pronouncements and fear-baiting in the final days of an election.

On Wednesday morning, we’re all going to wake up, and our lives will all be pretty much the same as they were on Tuesday.

We’ll still enjoy the blessings of living in one of the most free and prosperous nations in the history of the world; and of living in the greatest state in that nation, and of living in the best part of that state.

Overall, in fact, the world is getting better. There’s no apocalypse dangling over our heads. Look at a few facts.

Economist Max Roser at the Oxford Martin School (affiliated with Oxford University) writes that things are looking up for humanity.

“The evidence shows that we are becoming less violent and increasingly more tolerant, that we are leading healthier lives, are better fed, and that poverty around the world is declining rapidly,” he writes. “It is easy to be cynical about the world and to maintain that nothing is ever getting better. But fortunately the empirical evidence contradicts this view.”

Sure, the economy — both worldwide and at home — has been experiencing a rough patch, but things are looking up. Yet in Texas, and in Tyler particularly, home prices are up — and that’s one of the best indicators of economic optimism. People buy homes when they’re reasonably certain they’re in a secure position. Consumer confidence inevitably follows the trend.

But what about these elections? Are the campaign ads correct — we’re doomed if the wrong people get elected?

Forbes columnist Fred Smith says we aren’t.

“The truth is that this upcoming midterm election, for all of the breathtaking amounts of cash being poured into it, will likely change very little in Washington,” he writes.

He’s right. Under either party’s most optimistic projections, we’ll still have a divided government. And Americans like a divided government. Voters usually only hand all three branches to a single party during times of significant economic distress or national security threats.

For a few more days, we’ll still hear those ever-more-shrill campaign ads. We’ll see those talking heads predicting disaster if voters don’t choose the right candidates.

But then things will settle back down, and we’ll be free to chart our own destinies, with our faiths, our families, our friends and our community.