Are Politics Bad For Your Writing Career?
Once upon a time, your political beliefs were your business. Maybe you debated over a few beers or engaged in heated repartee at the family dinner table, but unless you wanted folks to know your views, they didn’t. Once Facebook & Twitter entered our lives, that changed. At least it changed in mine.
Folks following me in social media know I support our president and vice president and have since 2007, the same year I joined Facebook. For me, Obama trumped Clinton from the start, a choice that ticked off more than a few feminist friends. So I’ve got this big mouth that mostly, I’m not afraid to use.
Here’s why:
I’m a writer. At age eleven, I earned my first ‘clip’ by voicing my opinion about a community issue that the editor of Chicago Sun Times Sound Off column thought worthy of print. I don’t write ‘to write’ though I’ve made a modest living writing for dollars. But the words closest to me-that wake me up in the middle of the night and demand I write them down – come from deep down. Call it my muse, my passion, my viewpoint, I’ve always turned to the written word when needing to know more about something that troubles or perplexes me.
I’m an opinionated woman and an opinionated writer. For 16 years, I wrote for a very conservative daily newspaper in Orange County, California. My society column often highlighted nonprofits that included Planned Parenthood and AIDS awareness/research, nonprofits that weren’t the favored causes of my Conservative readers. In all that time, my editors never told me to give less ink to these causes, not once. I used to say, ‘My readers know I’m not one of them but they read me anyway.’ I like to believe it’s because I offered a balanced and reasoned view.
I don’t claim to know everything. I never suggest that our president is a perfect Ghandi-like fellow above reproach. He’s just the best we have right now and right now, we need the best to lead us through these terrible times that for many were fabulous before it all came crashing down. Someone had to pay for this mess. For the last four years, the radical right fringe believe it should be President Obama.
I do believe my politics may negatively impact my business and that’s okay. With each passing year, I appreciate how quickly my time is passing and for this reason alone, I don’t want to spend it with folks who believe our president is a socialist and/or foreign born. I have no interest in knowing anyone who believes their religious beliefs trump my rights over my body. I don’t want to discuss business with people who consider non-white people not as good. And I have no interest in knowing anyone who thinks their personal lifestyle is the one and only lifestyle to live.
I have no beef with Conservatives or Republicans. Over the years, I’ve called plenty GOP folks ‘friends’ and today still do. I do have a beef with their party’s fringed right. Whether they succeed in moving their marginalized agenda into our mainstream or not, I will always have a beef with these fringed folks.
Back when many of us were doing so much better than we are today, the need to rumble over politics just wasn’t there. But that all changed on 9/11 when the towers fell. The cataclysmic losses suffered from the attacks and wars that followed got worse when Wall Street fell. The culprit this time, greed.
Some people have to blame someone and President Obama is it. I was told once ‘For very finger you point, three point back at you.‘ I did not want to hear these words at that time though instantly, I knew they were true.
So until that time when Barack Obama no longer is president, me and my big mouth and whatever writing skill I have will continue to support his administration and report information that helps me better understand these terribly divisive times we now live in.
In the writing business, we call it voice.
Marla,
I love this post, not only because it reflects my views precisely, but also because it demonstrates your philosophical courage. At 66yo, I find that my own philosophical, political, religious (non-existent), and social views are finding their ways into my writing, even my fiction. I suppose that I’ve presumed the right, simply by surviving this long, to voice my views, regardless of the repercussions.
Bill,
Thank you for taking time to write these very supportive words.
I really appreciate it.
Marla
Thank you, Marla. You’ve just taught me a big lesson- especially this quote: ‘For very finger you point, three point back at you.‘
I love your voice. xo
Thank you, Madeline. It’s what I’ve got so I try to make the most with it…:)
Marla
Well said. This is a line most freelancers–most businesspeople, actually–have to walk, and most of the time it’s safer to keep our views under wraps. Your candor and commitment are refreshing.
Tiffany,
Thanks so much for commenting & for your kind words. There are real advantages to growing older and for me, this is one. That said, had we faced these extreme political times in my youth, I would have been in real trouble because there’s no way I would have been able to keep my big mouth shut…no way…:)
Marla
Amen. Thank you for having the character and courage to post this. Why is it not obvious that denying a person control over their own body is denying them the most basic of rights? I am perfectly willing to let people have different beliefs on any issue. Why do some of them call me “ignorant” and “traitor” simply because I have different views and get my news from multiple sources instead of just one?
Janet,
I wish i could answer your questions but I’m as stymied as you are—why, indeed. Like I said in the piece, I’ve lived in GOP country for almost 30 years-never had a problem. They knew I was a Dem and I knew they were REPS..we got along just fine & still do with members of the GOP now called ‘moderates’ There aren’t enough of them right now…i believe the entire party is being bullied by money & if I’ve learned ONE thing in my life, money talks!
Thank you soooo much for weighing in-i appreciate it & wouldn’t mind at all if you social shared this blog..:)
Marla
It’s tough for folks, many of them think ‘I’ll just quietly vote for my guy but keep my mouth shut—‘…Risky business these days. The stakes are high—the value systems are so different. Young women may have to learn the hard way that their rights to control their destinies aren’t carved in stone—they’re dependent on reasoned folks running this country who then select Supreme Court Justices who aren’t quietly ruled by their ideology….that includes more rights for the unborn than rights for the already born….sigh.
a Voice of reason and fairness.
Thank you-we need reasonable voices to stand up & use our voices-That’s all I’m doing-exercising my constitutional rights because I care about this great country that needs great leaders to lead us out of this mess..& we are blessed to have two, Barack Obama & Joe Biden
I feel as though I could have written this column, but for the fair and balanced part. I’m over it. I find Romney/Ryan to be a very dangerous duo. When I was a teen I was a big fan of Ayn Rand. I was also narcissistic, angry, and desperate. I wanted the right to blow up a building if I built it, never mind that thing about collateral damage. But I got over it in high school where I began to develop integrity, caring, a certainty that I had rights, even as a pretty crazy teen, to hold my own opinions such that war and segregation were inhumane and needed to be protested and that the super rich were out to own the world. I listened to radio early on and began to write “essays.” I became & remain a news junkie and activist. I’ve been arrested in Washington DC, San Francisco, Los Angels, and Maryland protesting for AIDS drugs and women’s rights. This year, my 70th, I sustained a leg injury on a rainy day at Occupy Wall Street and so my activism has left the streets because I feel too unsafe in a crowd with the cane I need to move around, but there’s plenty to do, and like so many others I sign petitions, write letters, participate in call banks and will, if I can, go to PA to help get out the vote. And I have a blog, “Don’t Just Stand There. Do Something” (www.dontjuststand.com,which is meant to explore politics through my own leftist vision and encourage activism. So thanks for what do and what you right. You are inspiring.
I hear you loud & clear-I’m consistently surprised that folks see me as brave…I sure don’t…I’m just exercising the rights delivered to me when my mother gave birth. ‘If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.’ I believe in this anthem as much today as I did WAY back when I took my position against the Viet Nam war. Never has that phrase meant more to me than it does today. Thanks for taking time to share your view-i appreciate it.