NickGeidner.com

More and more in American politics, I see an inherent struggle between the rational, self-interested individual and the self-sacrificing collective being. Both the health care debate and the mortgage meltdown provide amazing examples of this struggle.

First, in the health care debate, we can think of wasteful testing. Through out the debate, we heard numerous calls from both sides of the aisle to cut down on unnecessary, wasteful tests. The idea being that doctors are doing tests that aren’t really necessary and billing it to the individual’s insurance. The individual never realizes the cost and the doctor makes more money, this, in turn, raises premium costs. Therefore, at the macro-level everyone realizes we need to get rid of unneeded tests. But does this hold-up when we move down to the micro-level. Can an individual actually be asked to not do everything possible to help him or herself survive? For example, can we prevent women from getting mammograms until an age when the cost/benefits calculation makes sense? Probably not. The health care system is inherently suffers from a tragedy of the commons outcome.

The mortgage meltdown presents nearly the same principles. If everyone acts to maximize individual profits, the system ends up falling apart. Individual banks and bankers sought to maximize profits and ignored the effects of their actions on the larger system. This resulted in staggering profits for a while, followed by a staggering collapse of the system.

I know these aren’t new or unique thoughts, but in my view this individual v. collective problem, or social dilemmas, keep reappearing in American political culture.

Uncategorized collectives, thoughts

“With malice toward none, with charity for all…let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds…” – Abraham Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural Address

To explain the incredible journey, which has been the last four years of my life, would be impossible. It was the fall of 2004 when I first heard of a young state senator from Illinois named Barack Obama. At the time, I was working at a TV station in Youngstown and for the first time I was really paying attention to the presidential campaign.

In 2000, I had paid a little attention, but I never really connected the fact that this really affected me. In 2004, I knew it. I knew that we were choosing a president whose decisions and views would affect the future of our country. On the nights of the DNC, my friend Glenn and I got together and watched the speeches. When we saw soon-to-be Senator Barack Obama speak we were both blown away. As matter of fact, we were both, along with I assume most of the country, more impressed by him than the nominee, Sen. John Kerry.

Then election night came along and I was heartbroken. For the first time in my life, I found out that more than half the country did not see the world the same as me. More than half my countrymen didn’t see ending the war as important, didn’t see the assault on civil liberties as wrong, and didn’t seen all the other things the Bush regime did as important to fight against. This blew my mind. It took me a while to recover from that election.

I don’t think I really bounced back until the talk about freshman Senator Barack Obama’s possible presidential run stated surfacing. I was at grad school by this time at Ball State University. I was working on my master’s studying digital media with a focus on political communication. I knew from before the start that the Obama campaign was going to be an amazing case study of new media usage in political communication. So I started tracking him.

I immersed myself in Obama stuff. I read his books. I followed his website. I read news about him and I woke up early on a Saturday morning in February to watch a speech on the steps of the Illinois statehouse that would forever change the trajectory of our country. Over the next four months, I followed his new media campaign and in May wrote my thesis on the effects of new media in the early stages of the 2008 presidential election. In my thesis I basically said Obama’s web presence was going to change how people related to him and of all the campaigns Obama’s overall rhetorical strategy was most easily adaptable to the web.

I then moved to Columbus to work on my Ph.D. and over the summer volunteered for the campaign doing things like phone banking and canvassing. Election night came and I was relieved and amazed when Obama won, but it hadn’t fully sunk in. Honestly, it still hasn’t. For the first time, since I really connected presidential politics to my life, I am going to have a president I agree with, a president who I helped elect, a president who I feel represents and will fight for me and my views.

So now an hour away from the inauguration, I am flooded with emotions. I am excited for this change. I am excited for my country to get better. I love this country with all my heart and I want it to be good, not just for me, but for all Americans. I hope most that our country can move forward. That we can realize that above self and party comes county. I am restored in the hope that our country can work together “to bind up the nation’s wound.”

God bless the United States of America.

Uncategorized Obama, presidential, thoughts