The next election is not an existential event for the United States. Neither is the one after that ¡ª or the one after that. But that won¡¯t stop American politicians from claiming otherwise, nor anxiety-ridden voters from believing them.
For at least the last decade, our politics has been gripped by a malady I call ¡°The-End-Is-Near-ism.¡± It¡¯s fueled by Democrats and Republicans (incumbents, candidates, activists) declaring the next election the most important of our lifetime. That¡¯s how the fever starts, anyway. Then, as the body politic¡¯s temperature rises, we¡¯re told the election is that important because if the opposition wins, the U.S. as we know it will cease to exist. Lately, we¡¯ve been told that the next election is more important than all the rest because, if the opposition wins, there might not be more elections.
Paul Sracic, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, calls this phenomenon ¡°Armageddon politics,¡± explaining to me in an email exchange that the danger this attitude poses ¡°lies not just in its rhetoric but in the actions it inspires.¡±
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