The politicians’ motives are more complex. Thomas Sowell explains in part as deception:

“The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”

The other part is a combination of ego and ignorance. They believe they are more intelligent than businesspeople. They have never been told they are wrong and have never bothered to understand what is involved in another person's job. The winner of the New York primary has never worked in a grocery store, let alone managed one, handled the logistics for a chain, or started one. In other words, he has no idea what is involved.

I worked in a grocery store almost sixty years ago while I was in college. I worked for two different managers at the A&P. One was one of the best in the company. The other was average. There was nothing wrong with him, and the store was reasonably well managed, but the difference was noticeable.

I went to a poorly managed local grocery store near my home today. As usual, one of the items on my list was not available. I can count on that happening every time I go there. My standard joke is that the store’s manager is somebody’s nephew.

I did my graduate work in Computer Science and Management Information Systems. I designed databases and computer systems while working with customers to understand their business requirements. I was amazed at the intricate details they had to keep straight. I had a supporting role. The systems I designed helped them. They set the rules based on corporate policy, employee agreements, and applicable standards. They also had to comply with federal, state, and local laws. If I thought the rules of my computer environment were complex, they had much more to consider.

We went to a meat-packing house. Customer demands for meat change almost daily. Some days are big hot dog days. On other days, people prefer fancier cuts of meat. That can change if people don’t feel they have money. The man explained that there is a one-inch-wide area in front of the hind leg. The first cut made at a specific one-eighth mark produces a distinct mix of meats. The industry is competitive, and margins are tight. If he picks the right spot, they make money that day. Choosing a different place can result in the plant losing money on that day.

Socialist leaders produce whatever they want, regardless of what customers need. The average person will have to stand in line and accept whatever is offered when they reach the front of the line. I go to an Orthodox Church. We’ve heard of people coming to America from Russia and being uneasy in our grocery stores. They were used to accepting whatever they could get. That they had to make a decision about every needed item was overwhelming.

Before you let a genius politician casually talk about starting a grocery chain, let’s talk about what’s involved in starting and running a grocery in New York City.

First, you need stores and warehouses. That means land and buildings, permits, approvals, and endless decisions. If you think it’s easy to get something built in New York City, you might talk to the man in the White House.

Where do you locate your stores? Will you put them where you can make more money or where the poor need them the most? If the latter, how much will you spend on steel bars and additional concrete to make it harder for items to be stolen? You’ll also have to pay for more security.

Then you design the interior. First, place the milk at the back, so people must go through the entire store to retrieve it. You need to decide on the aisle width and the amount of room to allocate for meat, frozen food, produce, etc. How much space do you want to set aside for soda, snacks, candy, and other items? Those companies pay you for shelf space and special display space at the end of a rack.

The city is densely packed and accessible only by bridges and tunnels. Land, labor, taxes, and the cost of shipping food and other goods into the city are higher than in other places. I was a union worker while I was in college. I also performed computer support for union benefits later in my career. Unions are needed because they keep wages and benefits from being too low. Once the stores are running, there are at least three unions to work with in the stores: Meat, Bakery, and Retail or Grocery. You will also deal with the Teamsters to move items to and from your warehouses and stores. There are also various unions involved when dealing with city workers and the people who build your buildings.

I remember a comment by a friend who was a manager. He said management would be easy if he didn't have to deal with people. You hear complaints about prices and the people running the current grocery chains in the city. You assume you could do better. You have no idea what it takes to deal with the people in the company, the customers, the unions, and the bureaucrats at all levels to run a grocery chain. You don’t want to be handling all the complaints the current owners are dealing with. If you go through with it, they’ll gladly leave the city’s grocery issues in your hands and go elsewhere.

These items are just the start. I don't have room here to list all the issues involved in setting up and running a grocery chain. If politicians and voters think they can do a better job, it is because they have no idea what is involved in the process.

I have a coffee mug with the logo of my favorite NFL team. I must use it for my coffee when they have a game, or they will lose. I can also help my team win by yelling at the TV and a player who blows a play so that he does a better job for the rest of the game. I know that for a fact.

Yes – that was sarcasm.

 I can root for my team and then enjoy dinner with someone who roots for the other team. All over the country, there are families with “mixed marriages” where differences are discussed with raised voices and humor. Duke-North Carolina, Auburn–Alabama, Michigan – Ohio State, and even Yankees – Red Sox.

We are entering a period where many people are interested in keeping your emotions high to meet their goals. They have managed to make the environment so that relationships in families, friendships, and other groups are breaking apart. I am, of course, talking about the Red and Blue teams in politics.

We are having a problem understanding each other in a way that keeps things civil. I want to suggest the work of Professor Jonathan Haidt. (pronounced “height”) He studied why people express their morality in different ways. He prepared a wonderful TED talk and wrote an excellent book called The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. His work is an excellent starting place if you want to understand those who differ with you to help smooth conversations.

I found Haidt’s work helpful in “de-demonizing” the other side.” But that leaves a significant question. How and why have we gotten so bitter about our politics? If we assume someone benefits from it, who is it, and how did they do it?

We have an obligation, as citizens, to stay informed about what is happening so we can make an informed decision when we vote. We are asked to vote for candidates and help decide bond and constitutional questions. These questions can be settled with no change in our blood pressure.

Two groups lose if passion can’t be generated. Keeping our emotions high about their concerns is not in our interests. There is, in fact, very little we can do about political offices once election day is over. It is essential and helpful for us to understand that their goals and purposes need not be ours.

Those who need customers

We need to be clear on how various organizations and their people view us. Let’s start with all forms of media. Most of what we watch or use (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, internet, email, etc.) has advertising, or those like NPR and PBS that depend on contributions. They have detailed information on the number, ages, and types of subscribers, viewers, clickers, and email account holders.

The reason is simple. You are not the end-point customer. You are a product. You are part of the number used to convince advertisers to spend money to reach their audience to get those customers to buy something, vote for somebody, travel somewhere, or do something else. They have one problem. How do they get you to come back the next time?

There is a hint if you listen to the teaser for the late-night news on your local TV station. Your emotions and curiosity are a hook. There is always a problem or mystery or drama of some sort. You must come back for “details at 11.” Bad news and disasters are good ratings news for news media or weather channels.

It is the height of hypocrisy when anyone who works in the media complains about the cost of political campaigns. The most considerable expense in a campaign is media advertising money. I wrote this on election day in the “swing state” of North Carolina. The ads have been endless.

I am almost 80 years old. Sixty years ago, I was a political science major and wrote for the college newspaper. I cast my first presidential ballot for Hubert Humphrey and thought the world’s prestigious newspapers, magazines, and wire services were pure gold in terms of accuracy in journalism. In the last several decades, I have lost faith in every one of the sources I once respected. Many of these publications have openly renounced objectivity as a goal, and, at times, civility seems missing.

If you want to live in a world of emotion and have your opinions confirmed, you can look for a media source that only hits those buttons that make you comfortable. But it is difficult and, at times, frankly unpleasant to travel through the variety of publications needed to get a balanced view. Failing that, please understand that your neighbors, even your relatives, may choose different sources to keep them comfortable. When you frequently read multiple sources, you can “choose your facts” and realize neither side is always accurate.

Politicians and the advisers

Our political leaders have one overriding problem, which impacts how they view and address us. Thomas Sowell of Stanford’s Hoover Institution states things directly.

No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems - of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.

Their first goal is to make sure their supporters vote. To do that, they can either generate enthusiasm for their candidacy or fear and anger about their opponent’s campaign. Bored and indifferent citizens may stay home. You lose if they might have voted for you and you didn’t get to their emotions.

They can also try to keep emotions up if there is a post-election controversy. I recall that happening in the 2000 Bush-Gore election. They may want emails, letters, and phone calls. You can provide that calmly and without profanity.

Now What

I am writing this while the polls remain open on Election Day, 2024. There is every possibility that many players will try to keep our emotions and blood pressure up for quite a while to serve the purposes described above.

If you have a technique to relax or escape, great. If you want to try a simple one. I offer something that is easy in concept but has a famous history. I was in a theater group as a child. Our teacher had a child’s version of the famous “Method Acting.” Another version is known today as CBT or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

She taught the idea to young children using one simple phrase. If you “think the thought” of the person you are pretending to be, you can act like that person. If you want to act like a calm person who is not upset by what is happening around you, think like that person. Of course, one thought might be, “I think I’ll turn the news off.”

What happens now is up to us. Tension, anger, gloating, upset, or peace. I am reminded of the song that starts and ends with hope and the way to get there:

We soon learned that the North Carolina DOT was doing its due diligence and planning for the increased population it could see coming to the area. They were right. Since 2019, 6000 new homes have been approved, and another 2500 are awaiting approval. The City of Durham sees this area as a revenue source to help it fund other needs. We do not see any increase in police or schools.

The Arbors is one of the active retirement communities in the area. We are primarily concerned about emergency health care. When the county was building Fire Station 17 at Leesville and Doc Nichols Roads, our community leaders worked very hard to have the city put an EMS facility in the same building.

Before Covid, NCDOT had plans for project U-5518. It covered US 70 from East of Page Road to Interstate 540 and would replace traffic light-controlled intersections at Brier Creek Parkway and T. W. Alexander with highway interchanges. In meetings, NCDOT told us that, before long, it would take 45 minutes on either street to get from ACC Blvd through Glenwood Avenue if they didn’t upgrade the intersections. Also, the Glenwood and Brier Creek intersection is just above the entrance to I-540 and has heavy traffic from both directions.

Most of the construction area is in Wake County. The corner of T. W. Alexander and ACC Blvd has the Cambridge Optimal Living Retirement Community and a Wake Med Emergency Room. Emergency vehicles must be able to get through the intersections at Glenwood Avenue quickly. NCDOT is ready to do this work.

So, what is the problem? The last section of Glenwood Avenue between I-540 and the East End Connector runs west of T. W. Alexander Drive to Durham’s Lynn Road. NCDOT had started planning for that with project number U-5720. That would be a follow-on after they solve the congestion problem closer to I-540.

The Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization claims the right to delay, or block, 5518 while they do a “US 70 East Corridor Study.” While preparing for their meeting, I looked at the material. The study covered precisely the area of project 5720. That is, it stopped before any of the work for 5518.

Those who sit at Glenwood Avenue lights are frustrated by the continual delays and downright angry about any possible cancellation. We are a fringe area of both Durham and Wake County and the cities of Durham and Raleigh. It is difficult to get serious attention when you try to shout from deep in the outfield.

We are not kidding about this. The development in our area is rapid. Yet, the City of Durham wants the money without providing matching value or needed infrastructure. Meanwhile, planners at the far end of our region want to use us as a playground for their theories.

Prompt and timely medical care is our primary concern. Since you can’t give us flying fire equipment and ambulances, upgrade the intersections.

The state is an Open-primary state. If you choose to register by party, you can only vote in that party’s primary. You can, however, sign up as Unaffiliated and pick any party for any primary. At the risk of stating the obvious, everyone gets the same ballot in the November general elections and can vote for anyone of any party for any office.

The state is big enough and diverse enough that both parties locally dominate different parts of the state. So the question occurs for UA voters who live in an area dominated by the party they don’t support. They can vote in their preferred party’s primary to get that party’s best candidates. Alternatively, They can vote in the other party’s primary to get the “least worse” local officials and better their day-to-day lives.

If you live in an area where your preferred party is the minority, your primary day votes are only meaningful when votes for that office are being conducted statewide. For example, Members of Congress represent district-level offices, not statewide. If your local district is overwhelmingly not your preferred party, your primary vote for a congressional candidate is probably a vote for a November loser.

North Carolina state officials, including the Governor, run for office in years divisible by four. These are, of course, Presidential election years. That makes a choice easier. The impact of those offices on our lives is sufficient to match any local officials. So we can easily choose the ballot of our preferred party.

 Durham, North Carolina, is in NC-4, the most heavily Democratic district in the state. Charlotte is split between two heavily “Blue” districts. Southern Wake County (not Raleigh) has a different situation. The northern half of Wake, including Raleigh, is in the solidly Democratic NC-2. But, Southern Wake County is in the only swing district in the state: NC-13.

I live in Durham. County offices are on the ballot this year, and the winners of the Democratic primary will win the General Election in November unless the unbelievable happens. Both parties have primaries for the U.S. House and Senate. The Republican candidate for the House seat is expected to lose in November. However, the Senate candidate has an excellent chance to win this year.

UA voters may choose the preferred ballot to vote in the Republican Senate primary because they believe it is crucial. I hope they understand what they are giving up.

The County Sheriff and District Attorney significantly impact your day-to-day life. They decide how crimes are investigated, who is incarcerated, evidence collection, who is prosecuted, etc. If you are unhappy about how that is done in your county, don’t skip your chance to vote against officials doing things wrong.

Again, I want to emphasize: We are not in 2024; today is 2022. The only statewide office on the ballot is the U.S. Senate seat. If your preferred party is Republican, are you going to skip voting to make your county better so you can cast a vote for Senate?