The Death of the Public Sphere

I spent the last week canvassing to get out the vote for the American midterm election, and the experience was a bit shocking. Not so much talking to people door to door, where I generally got what I expected. Most people didn’t want to talk politics, very religious and pro-police people were voting Republican, and people voting Democrat were very worried about the erosion of our democratic institutions and norms (ironically, this is supposed to be the conservative position). What surprised me was the attitude of my coworkers. I’ve done canvassing before, and at my other job I had worked with a motivated group of mostly young people who wanted to do something good for the world. At this new job, the group was very diverse in most every respect, and the only thing we all had in common was that we really needed the money. When one person complained that people didn’t like being bothered about voting after 6pm, someone in a leadership role literally asked him “do you care about them, or the money?” <a href="https://aninjusticemag.com/the-death-of-the-public-sphere-5dc32e296382">Read More</a>