Why Would Anybody Want To Run for Office?
Redrawing lines for myself around work and social media
In 1831, while gathering information about the American prison system, a minor French aristocrat documented the raucous, messy, energetic young democracy emerging here. With shock and fascination, Alexis de Tocqueville observed New England town hall meetings, noted the conflict between our values and reality, and remarked on our complete disregard for European-style hierarchies. Random people could eat cheese and get drunk in the White House! de Tocqueville predicted that this American form of government and society was the future, and would soon sweep throughout Europe.
When I was a young graduate student at the University of Chicago, I became enamored by de Toqueville. My master’s thesis compared his ideas with the philosopher, Hannah Arendt, who championed the idea that people are happiest when publicly stating their views and working together as a community.
Thirty-five years later, I’m considering putting theory into practice. I’m weighing the pros and cons of running for our town’s Board of Education, readjusting various work commitments, and reevaluating my social media footprint. Modernity has made political participation much more complicated.
As someone with decades of experience with education policy, a position on the town school board would seem to be a no-brainer. I like schools. I know about schools. I like kids. My own kids are well enough settled, so I have the time to do this. What’s the problem? Why hesitate? Why am I sitting around making mental lists of the pros and the cons?
As a world-class neurotic. I worry about everything, so there’s that. Also, there’s absolutely no guarantee that I would actually win an election, so the whole election process could be time consuming, expensive, and ultimately unsuccessful.
There are other practical considerations, because a school board position is extremely time intensive job with no financial compensation. If I do this, it will take away time from other work. As a freelancer, I have fewer boundaries around my time than others, so “political time” could leak into “work time.”
Writing has been my primary gig for twelve years now, and I usually focus on schools. Sometimes I write traditional reported pieces. Other times, I write essays and opinion pieces. It’s not possible to be an impartial education journalist, while holding a political position in a school district. So, I’ll stop traditional reporting, but still write occasional essays. This might be a good time to focus on the unwritten book and ramp up my side gig.
And, at the same time, writing has been my hobby for twenty years. I maintained a blog long after everyone else left, because I developed a sweet, supportive community. I liked posting pictures of my bathroom renovations and chatting about all sorts of random matters from Donald Trump to Meghan Markle. Blogging might have died years ago, but I kept at it. Until now.
I will continue to write, just not as freely as I did in the past. I will write this once-weekly newsletter with some oversight from my husband and son. Writing freely while in political office works for some — AOC’s Instagram stories are truly amazing — but there’s just too much danger in getting cancelled for a random comment taken out of context. I should probably step away from Twitter, too, but I might love it too much.
After I have tied up my complicated jobs and hobbies, I still have to wonder — do I really want to do this job? Across the country, school board meetings are ground zero for fights about school books and reading curriculum. They have to find solutions to huge problems, like online bullying and rising health insurance costs. They have very little flexibility to make changes because 80 percent of the budget is locked into salaries and benefits. Does anybody want this thankless job?
That optimistic grad student who loved progressive philosophers is still in me. I do think that even in these complicated times with threats of cancellations and layered bureaucracies and bricked up budgets, we can make improve public life. I’m not ready to give up on working for more equitable, effective schools. So, the next steps are some public meetings to get input and gather support. Scary!
LINKS
Speaking about philosophers and the University of Chicago, we’re still talking about the New Yorker’s story about an unusual marriage in their philosophy department.
Death of the Humanities: Douthat and Heller. This passage in the Heller post was discussed a lot IRL:
Watching: Last of Us, Mandalorian
Cooking: It’s Lent, so I’m making GOOP’s salmon tonight.
Shopping: We’re putting in two new bathrooms. Now that toilets and tile are purchased, I’m getting some accessories: hooks, heated towel rack, and hamper. I couldn’t resist a new t-shirt. The new vanities: here and here.
Picture: “On February 22, 1837, President Jackson had a 1,400-pound block of cheese hauled into the main foyer of the White House for an open house with thousands of citizens and his staff, where they discussed the issues of the day while carving off slabs of cheddar.” source.