Politics Isn't The Problem

Politics gets a bad rap. People often say: “I hate politics,” “Politics ruins everything,” or “This isn’t political.” But politics isn’t the problem. Misunderstanding just what politics is - is a problem. Let’s start with the basics. Merriam-Webster defines politics as “the art or science of government,” and “the total complex of relations between people living in society.” Oxford calls it “the activities involved in getting and using power in public life, and being able to influence decisions that affect a country or a society.” That’s not just elections or party drama. That’s how rules are made. How decisions get enforced. How power moves through systems—visible or invisible. Politics is universal. No matter what political or economic system you choose—capitalist, socialist, democratic, authoritarian—you still have to contend with politics. Because politics is how decisions get made. It’s how we decide what to address, what to ignore, who gets a say, and who doesn’t. You can change the system. You can change the rules. But you can’t opt out of politics. Even in systems that claim to be apolitical, politics is still happening—just less transparently. Politics shapes the conditions under which we live. It affects goals we all recognize: • Where we live, and whether we can afford to stay • How we raise kids, and what schools they attend • Whether we can access healthcare, or navigate bureaucracy • How we work, commute, retire, or care for others • Even whether we feel safe speaking up—online, at work, or in public These aren’t abstract. They’re personal. And they’re political—not because someone “politicized” them, but because they involve governance, coordination, and impact. Politics isn’t just about institutions. It’s about the substance they’re meant to govern. And dysfunction shows up in both places. There’s the dysfunction in the issues themselves—housing, healthcare, education, safety—where policy fails to meet lived reality. And then there’s the dysfunction in the institutions—where process breaks down, trust erodes, and decisions feel disconnected from the people they affect. But that second layer often stems from a deeper misunderstanding. We treat politics like a spectacle, not a structure. We confuse bad faith with politics itself. We reject complexity in favor of slogans. And in doing so, we lose the very tools that could help us fix what’s broken. That’s why I’ve launched this series. To hopefully make politics clearer—less spectacle, more structure. We’ll explore how politics shows up in everyday life, how it gets distorted, and perhaps how we can navigate it without losing clarity or proportion. My ambition is simple: each segment will offer a different lens. Some diagnostic, some narrative, some visual. After all, we’re not here to finish politics—we can’t. We’re here to keep pace with it. But that requires something first: We have to recognize the difference between the negative things we see in politics—and politics itself. One is dysfunction. The other is the structure we use to fix it.