Political Codependence—Not Political Nihilism—Is what this reckoning is about

When performative progress meets systemic "benign neglect": understanding political codependence in modern America.

This quantum redshift indicates something very profound is going on in this nation. History will likely remember this election as a massive political reckoning.

You should start by reading this post on Reddit, ostensibly from a black man in NC, about why he and a bunch of his people did not vote at all in the 2024 election season. The TLDR is simple: “Life was shit under Obama, Trump, and Biden, so we don’t care anymore.” He is far more eloquent and comprehensive than that. I’m also aware that it could be a fabrication, but at the same time even if it is a fabrication, it seems to resonate.

It also gave me a name for what’s going on: political codependence.

Political codependence describes the dysfunctional relationship between institutions and the groups they claim to protect, where performative support masks systemic neglect while demanding continued loyalty and compliance. Like in personal codependent relationships, one party (institutions) maintains power through a façade of care and protection, while the other (marginalized groups) is expected to remain grateful and supportive despite their needs being consistently overlooked or actively suppressed. This creates a cycle where genuine grievances are dismissed through token gestures that preserve the underlying power structure while claiming progress.

This dynamic manifests across modern society: DEI initiatives that celebrate individual success stories while failing to create systemic change for minorities and women; educational systems that suppress gifted students’ development in the name of equality while failing to actually help struggling students; neurodiversity programs that focus on surface-level acceptance while maintaining structures that cause burnout and mental health issues; political parties that expect minority votes while offering only incremental improvements that don’t address fundamental inequities; and corporate inclusion efforts that prioritize optics over meaningful structural change. In each case, the protected group is expected to minimize their struggles, express gratitude for insufficient support, and continue participating in and upholding the very systems that suppress them - all while being told this arrangement is for their own good and the good of society.

There’s a certain Stockholm Syndrome that society seems to be collectively tired of. Just because the DNC makes noises about protecting women and minorities and inclusion, doesn’t mean it helped. This meme pretty much sums it up:

It doesn’t matter who’s in office, America is a neoliberal war machine.

Now, there’s not really much more I can say. The data speaks for itself, the black NC voter can speak for himself, and the above meme also really just encapsulates the whole deal. I could regurgitate everything you already know: men are tired of being blamed, women still don’t feel safe, minorities scoff at the DNC, the RNC is at least honest with their disdain and prejudice, etc. etc. etc.

But again, the data speaks for itself. No one is happy with politics.

Congressional approval seems to spike briefly when there’s a crisis. 9/11, Great Recession, and COVID are noticeable here.

So instead of regurgitating all the familiar talking points I’m just going to riff on my thoughts for a bit.

What seems most ironic to me is that the DNC seems to be completely calcified, totally encrusted by the trappings of their own rhetoric and confused doctrine. I remember saying, unironically, to my wife that the DNC has become the party of the status quo. And my wife vehemently agreed with me. Since when did the DNC become ultra conservative? Paralyzed about maintaining the status quo at all costs? Then you look at the RNC platform; reduce corruption, legalize cannabis, invest in crypto, actually fight against China. That just hits different, and while some of their policies are aggressive, hateful, or abhorrent, the vibe is just very different. It’s almost like the RNC is the party of change… what?

Real progressives in the DNC, like AOC and Sanders, get silenced. Meanwhile Nancy “Wall Street Bets” Pelosi stays in power. To me it looks like naked corruption and insider trading, but has anything been done about it? Nothing whatsoever. The effort to curb political insider trading is bogged down in process.

It’s enticing to fantasize about a “perfect world” and how “everything could be different.” I mean, I should know, I’m a sci-fi writer. That’s the entire point—to decouple from all the constraints and trappings of today and create a fictional setting in which you have full control over. But very often, “getting from here to there” is a challenge. And anyways, reality is a complex adaptive system meaning that every incremental step of change you take has unexpected outcomes and interactions. Politics, technology, science, economics, culture, geopolitics… it all has unexpected twists and turns so it’s really just impossible to predict exactly how the future will look, let alone how it ought to look (and no one can agree anyways).

Thus we return to process. Democracy is a process as much as it is an institution. The longer I reflect on what has happened politically, the more sense it makes to me. The DNC lacked the courage of their convictions, didn’t really move the needle, and are nakedly corrupt. The RNC is frothing with conviction, actually breaks things, and are also nakedly corrupt. So, if the system isn’t working for you now, why not break it and rebuild it?

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

If it is broke, try duct tape.

Yes, I’m from the South and it would not be incorrect to call a huge chunk of my family redneck, a fact that we’re actually fairly proud of. I have, on occasion, unironically said “hold my beer” and my point is that the system sure as shit ain’t working for most people today. Trump was voted out of office to put Biden in, and the promise was “back to sanity and stability” and “to make politics boring again” but the DNC’s left hand can’t talk to their right hand due to the aforementioned policies of niceness and equality and superficial manners. Meanwhile, the RNC has packed the supreme court and keeps stealing the ball, and the best we’ve got is a murmuring geriatric. Is that all the energy we progressives can muster?

I would be lying if I said that I didn’t have my own anger tied up in this. I wrote yesterday about the nearly schizophrenic relationship society has with excellence, brilliance, intelligence, whatever you want to call it. People, usually “progressives” get so triggered by any mention of IQ and twist themselves up into logical pretzels to downplay a very real test that measures a very real biological logical truth and has very real social consequences. All because “check your privilege” narratives. Now, I’m not a lonely guy who hates women. I have a beautiful, loving wife, and I make decent money. So I don’t have the same grievances that many other men do. But I figure for the sake of transparency, I ought to just lay it all out. What are my grievances as I talk about “political codependence”?

1. Mistreatment in school aka “blackboard trauma.” I was gifted, and they knew it. I scored in the 99th percentile in all the EOGs and yet I had to go at the same pace as the special needs kids. The system catered to the lowest common denominator and I had to sit there so bored listening to other children struggle to read, who should have been in remedial education, that I was checked out and confused most of my school career. So when the RNC wants to trash the public school system and try something else, like charter schools, I’m like “you know what? Fuck it, anything else would have been better than what I received.” This was also an egregious waste of human potential.

2. Gifted and neurodiversity erasure. Being different only counts if you’re a card-carrying autistic. That means that the Establishment has made the sign of the cross over you and said “yes, in the eyes of the state, you are officially retarded” and now you can be a token diversity hire without any real protections or recourse. But you should feel grateful for this acknowledgement of your disability (which is by the way a social construct) and just sit in your corner and play nice. I literally had a boss once “accuse” me of being autistic because, and I shit you not, I “didn’t like being treated unfairly,” and it reminded him of his autistic daughter. Newsflash, everyone wants to be treated with some basic fucking dignity, particularly if they make you a lot of money.

3. Mental health establishment’s treatment of men. There’s a reason men don’t go to therapy. Hell, I did go to therapy, and never again. First, therapists are some of the most dysfunctional people I’ve ever met, in a case of the blind leading the blind. Many therapists have their own demons, axes to grind, and prejudices, and they land in the role of therapist for all the wrong reasons. Yes, one or two of my close friends are therapists, and they will be the first to acknowledge that not everyone is really well-suited to the career. I went to therapy with my ex and everything was my fault. Getting bullied at work, burnout, begging my wife to pay attention to my emotions, making her feel “abandoned” when I walked away in tears from her screaming at me—all of it my fault according to our feminist, progressive, polyamorous, Burner therapist. Oh, and also I had to clean up the house and pay all the bills, so yes, I know what codependence feels like.

So yeah, for me, the Democrats haven’t represented any real progressive values in a long time, and like a lot of other men, I’m just kind of sick of the narrative, implicit or explicit, “you’re a Privileged White Man™ so just suck it up, btw, it’s Autism Awareness Month ✌🏻”

In codependent relationships, there is a pattern of abuse > neglect > repair. First they ignore you, then they attack you, then when you take some distance, they reel you back in. This is called “hoovering” by the way. I think this nation has just entered into the “leaving” cycle with the DNC and we really need a fundamentally new Democratic party. We also need a categorically new RNC as well, by the way, I’m not happy with either party, but it’s a case of “a broken clock is right twice a day.” Politics is way easier when you just adopt the George Carlin view of they’re all broken, corrupt, stupid, and selfish. The whole system is built for and by them.