To make a long story short, I’m a political science major and my girlfriend’s uninterested in politics. This isn’t a problem for our relationship, but it’d be nice to be able to discuss politics a bit more than we currently do.
She watched some of the debates, for instance, but felt too out of the loop to really appreciate the arguments being made. So, can anyone recommend some sites I can point her to or anything else that I might be able to do to get her more interested? I’m not just talking about the election, so while candidate-specific information would be great eventually, I think a more general “primer” on the issues might be more helpful. Thanks in advance.
Just wait til she turns 65. That’s the age my mom became obsessively interested in politics. She almost 80 now, and keeps a cutting file on all the local candidates, as well as following all the national stuff. I think it drives her crazy when I show no interest in watching Washington Week in Review…which she tapes.
Find a way to make her think politics affects her personally. Is she in college? Talk about each candidates views on the budget or federal aid. If the national budget keeps mucking up then the individual states will continue to go deeper into debt and cut back funding for education as a response.
What is she personally involved in? Is she a student, does she have a job, what are her goals in life? Find a way to show that who is elected president has a tangible effect on these goals.
Take some advice from someone older. Don’t try and push her into something that interests you. Not everyone is interested in politics. I’m pretty sick of it myself right now. Find some common ground instead. I have been with my wife for 10 years and we rarely talk about politics. She doesn’t like to talk about baseball either but it doesn’t seem to be a problem.
I have to keep up with politics or I can’t hold my own at the lunchtime debates at work, but my husband never had much interest in politics at all.
I was an on-and-off viewer of “The Daily,” ever since the days of Craig Kilborn, but he goes to bed earlier than I do, and he usually missed it. Finally, a light shown down from heaven. That light was the blue LED on our Replay TV. I didn’t have to stay up for the Daily anymore, and I started watching the previous night’s show the next evening, every day, with the hubby. After about a month of this my husband turned to me and said, “You know, I don’t know a damn thing about politics, and that’s kind of sad.” Now we both follow The Daily Show and Morning Edition. He doesn’t get to hear All Things Considered, because he’s at work, but his store subscribes to several magazines for the waiting room, and he’s become a Newsweek junkie.
Hmmm . . . What was that they were saying about the Daily Show’s viewers being better informed on current events? Some dismissed this as a selection effect: Predominantly people who are interested in the news will be watching the Daily Show. But Daily Show viewers are also better informed than “people who regularly read newspapers or watch television news.” Seems to me that by making current events interesting and—dare I say?—cool, the Daily Show motivates its viewers to want to learn more. It could be that a “fake” news format is exactly what our generation needs to make it okay to be interested in real world events.
However, like Loach says, don’t get pushy about it. If you make too big a deal about it, and she’s just not into it, then it could get very frustrating for her. I know that my husband said that part of the reason that he wasn’t into politics before was that he felt really ignorant on the subject, and trying to talk about politics made him feel stupid, so pushing her on the subject might just create hard feelings.
I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer but for some people it really is impossible. My sister is nothing short of brilliant in her field but doesn’t know squat about politics or (gulp) geography. And she refuses to do anything about it. Note, she reads literature, listens to music, loves the arts blah de blah blah blah but between the Economist and Cosmo she will always pick up Cosmo. Oh well, I don’t know how to clone crap so there you go.
I ahted politics. It took my husband about 4 or 5 years of constantly watching news and political programs. I simply want to be with him, so I wound up having to watch the programs with him. Now I’m pretty involved and opinionated. It’s backfired on him in that we have gotten into a couple serious arguments because he insists on watching Douchebag O’Reilly during dinner. I used to just not pay attention. Now I’m pretty much all strung up about it.
Both my girlfriend and I have become a lot more interested in politics together by reading and discussing presidential biographies and histories. I don’t know where this interest came from, but we picked up three different presidential encyclopedias and just read whatever interests us at that moment. Reading the history of the office makes it easier to see the connections and implications of what’s going on now (at least as far as the presidential election is concerned).
Of course, I have to say, a lot of really nice people aren’t interested in politics, because all the posturing and futility of it all just turn them off. Maybe it’s a good sign your girlfriend doesn’t care about this stuff.
