Expatiperro

In September, before I packed up my life in the US and moved to Barcelona, one of my concerns was that by being abroad, I would be missing out on much of the election coverage and excitement. Sure, I would be able to read updates online, but that human element, the feeling that you're part of a unified, collective voting public would be missing. I was scared that I would be so tuned out that I would wake up on November 5th and have no idea how Oba-, I mean whoever happens to win came out on top.

Well my friends (said sincerely, and not in the McCain overused and insincere way), after wasting my entire Saturday agonizing over political blogs, polling sites, and make-your-own-electoral-map pages, I can say that my fears were misplaced. I'm as up to date on the latest polling and Electoral College scenarios as any "Bob the Machinist," "Sally the Statistician," or "Mott the Hoople" (thanks to John Stewart for the last one) living in Topeka, Boise, or Nashville, which of course would make me a real American, as opposed to all you latte-drinking, gay-marrying, effete liberals who are surely reading this. Now excuse me while I bake an apple pie, yell insults at some Muslims, and find ways to protect my wealth from being redistributed.

If anything, it's way too easy to get access to the latest political information, and being 6 hours ahead of East Coast time means that I read much of the news before most of you all back home do. Newspapers publish articles online before they go into print, and everything that is broadcast on TV is either available on Youtube, or on the stations' websites. And the main blogs that I follow (here, here, and here are a few) sum up most of the news I want to know, from across the rational chunk of the ideological spectrum. If it wasn't for the exotic food in the refridgerator and the street signs in Catalan outside my window, I could easily think I was at home.

Just before I left the States, I read an article in Esquire by Chuck Klosterman on the experience of being an American abroad (in his case, Germany). Even though he's 4,000 miles away from New York, Klosterman still can't escape the pull of the hyperkinetic and self-obsessed American media. And not only that, but his awareness of the events described in the press were the same as they would have been had be still been in the US. Klosterman writes,

Even if I were in the U. S., I still would have experienced both of these events [the NBA playoffs and the Democratic primaries] with the same remoteness I have in Europe. I was not going to travel to Boston or Los Angeles to watch a basketball game; I wasn't going to hold a cardboard sign and hop around like an idiot at the Pennsylvania primary....

As far as I can tell, my experiences with both phenomena were virtually identical to the experiences I would have had in New York. I was not more or less informed. The experiences were not more or less real.

Klosterman goes on to say that it's only by living abroad that he's seen how static life really is in America, despite the media's declarations to the contrary. Distance leads to perspective, and then to a realization that most of what we take to be news is really just recycled garbage, designed to tempt, but not quite whet, our appetite for more "news." And unless we manage to isolate ourselves from the media-produced ether that surrounds us, we're all captives to the narratives that are spun for us.

I guess that most of this post is a way to make up for wasting an entire Saturday doing... well, nothing. I would say that I can't wait for the election so that I won't be captive to political blogs, but something tells me that nothing will change after Tuesday. We'll all find new things to agonize about, new debates that polarize us, and new issues that demand our investigation, donation, and dedication. Or if we don't find it, we will have it handed to us by someone in the CNN Center, 30 Rock, or the Fox News Mothership. And life will continue on as usual.

But in the meantime, if you want to know about the latest Obama rumor or dirty Republican trick, just ask me. Even 5,000 miles away, I'm right in the middle of things.