Politics Is for Power How to Move Beyond Political Hobbyism, Take Action, and Make Real Change

It's a really inefficient way to think about politics, like one 20 minute conversation at a time, but it works and works in a much more durable way than, you know, a postcard or a letter or something like that.

It's more durable and according to the research, more effective. It's also the perfect antidote to a problem called political hobbyism that Hirsch wrote an entire book about.

In his book, Politics is for Power, Eitan makes the case that millions of Americans are engaging in politics in ways that are emotionally satisfying but ultimately self-defeating.

So I would imagine that a lot of people listening to you would disagree with your assessment of them.

And as I say in the book, I live right near Fenway Park.

So there it is. What news do political junkies demand? Outrage and gossip. Why? Because it's alluring. What news do we avoid? Local news. Why? It's boring. What do we think of our partisan opponents? We hate them. Do we really hate them? No, but politics is more fun if we root for a team and spew anger at the other side.

It's easier to hate and dismiss the other side than to empathize and connect to them. When do we vote? When there's a spectacle. When do we click? When politics can be a frivolous distraction. When do we donate? When there's a cocktail party or a viral video.

In his book, Politics is for Power, Eitan makes the case that millions of Americans are engaging in politics in ways that are emotionally satisfying, but ultimately self-defeating.

What feels right to him? It seemed to me that the way that people are doing politics is much more similar to a hobby than to what I think of as politics, which is acquiring power.

So they will learn a lot of facts and talk about those facts. They will participate in a kind of craft. Like they'll go online and share memes, have a discussion very similar to how sports fans listen to sports radio.

What news do political junkies demand? Outrage and gossip. Why? Because it's alluring. What news do we avoid? Local news. Why? It's boring.

When we come back, even as many political hobbyists expand their energies on the latest outrage on Twitter, Eitan Hirsch argues there are other people who are very serious about acquiring and wielding power.

I'll be really honest and vulnerable I hope it's germane uh my mind goes back and forth I mean the topics are I think totally relevant like I have a chapter on moving from grief to resilience I have a chapter on moving from anger to courage um I have a chapter on agency you know finding it's a little bit like what you're saying before finding that sense of agency what can I do what can I control so I don't feel helpless

there's an arc in the book which was almost unintentional where I moved from individual action to kind of seeking systems change by having that kind of vision and then I move back to individual action where the last part of the book is about somebody in his relationship with his father and his father's very sick and dying and how he was with that toward the end

he's got this book called Politics is for Power, and he makes a distinction between hobbyists and people trying to actually affect things in politics