March 30, 2010 12:25 AM UTC

Expectations (R v. B)

• 10 Comments
• by: NeonNurse

Here’s a premise: Stress can be caused by unrealistic expectations. In addition, unspoken expectations can cause stress in all types of relationships.

It seems to me we can see this in the current hullabaloo about the Democratic Senate race primary.  I thought maybe if we could list some of the unspoken and/or unrealistic expectations we are seeing — not only the other guys’, but our own too — we could get a start on a dialog that could tone down the extreme rhetoric.

Or maybe I am delusional.  We’ll see.

I’ll start. Feel free to argue mine or add some of your own.

1. Entitlement: This one has already been discussed a lot, but it still pops up — is Romanoff ‘owed’ the Senate seat? Does Bennet ‘own’ it? Are there some entitlement issues going on here?

I have personally seen and heard people make the argument that Ritter should have picked Romanoff instead of Bennet. Back when it happened, I agreed. Today, I think Ritter might have known what he was doing. Bennet has climbed a steep learning curve and done a very good job for someone who never held office before.  I’ve seen him in action with a hostile crowd, and he has excellent skills at listening and creating consensus in that kind of environment. On the other hand, although I believe Romanoff has a superb record of accomplishments, some of his choices in the race thus far make me think he’s having some kind of mid-life crisis. (Been there, done that, wearing the t-shirt of sympathy.)

People have also said that since Bennet is the incumbent he should be allowed to stay. I admit I have had to make an effort to shake free of this one.  I’m of the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ school. But believing in democracy means believing in the freedom of the voters to choose. So no, Bennet should have to get in and scuffle just like anyone else.

Summation: The entitlement expectation is a high stress provoker because it is one of the weakest real life reasons to keep OR replace someone in any given seat.

2.  More progressive than thou: One example of how we are seeing this is in the money question. Does it show higher moral values to refuse certain types of contributions? Some people think so. Other people think in a big and important race like this one, it’s naive not to accept all the help you can get.

I think the expectation here is that REALLY WANTING a good idea to be both true, and workable in the real world, should be enough to make everyone agree to accept it.

Summation: The expectation that everyone SHOULD embrace morally upright ideas automatically BECAUSE they are ‘good’ is definitely going to be a source of stress when those who remain unconvinced resist. This core expectation is at the root of quite a few causes of the morality type that have avid followers on both sides: abortion, gay marriage, etc.

3.  Power: This one is more subtle, and is two-pronged as well, which complicates it.  We want to feel our chosen candidate is going to be powerful in taking action on the matters we care about. We assume that anyone elected to public office has a huge amount of power, because they demonstrably have more that WE do as regular citizens.  Therefore, our unspoken expectation is that, say, Bennet has this extreme power and he could pass the Public Option if he really wanted to.  Since he didn’t do it…there must be some secret reason why he didn’t!! Either that, or he is actually NOT powerful, and thus should be replaced.

Summation: It might be helpful to re-examine exactly what we expect from our chosen candidate, and decide if it is reasonable. Reality-based, if you will. There is nothing wrong with having high standards, but expecting perfection will definitely bring on the stress.

4. The Mirror: You are supposed to be a (Democrat, American, __ ) like me, so you should agree with me! (This one needs no expounding on, right?)

Summation: It can be stressful when someone we thought held the same beliefs as us turns out to disagree with us about something, especially something important. It can make us doubt ourselves, which is usually an uncomfortable feeling.

Conclusion: I’ve taken some time over this post, and tried hard not to be snarky. The reason I shared my own expectations here and there was to give examples,  not to try to lure people over to my side. I’m hoping this can be a useful conversation. It might not change minds, but if it makes each of us more aware of what unspoken feelings are driving us, we might feel less stressed out. I’m also hoping it will help us accept the idea that other people may well be unrealistically expecting us to think the same way they do, and they are mad at us because of that, not because either one of us is bad and/pr wrong.

But what do YOU think?