Great comment. Taking it further, making “politics” inherently negative has a lot of propaganda value to power. The people in charge generally want to defend the status quo, so they’d rather depoliticize the populace. This is why you get such strange contradictions as the people in charge constantly attacking “political elites” or “the swamp” or whatever. They’re trying to discredit politics itself to consolidate their power. Similarly, when they do want to change something, they say “it’s not politics; it’s common sense.” They want a population that feels like politics is something inherently dubious, or at least just not worth their time and effort.
Inclusion has always been and will always be a political project, because there are people who want power and who will use it to exclude people for whatever reason.
Great comment. Taking it further, making “politics” inherently negative has a lot of propaganda value to power. The people in charge generally want to defend the status quo, so they’d rather depoliticize the populace. This is why you get such strange contradictions as the people in charge constantly attacking “political elites” or “the swamp” or whatever. They’re trying to discredit politics itself to consolidate their power. Similarly, when they do want to change something, they say “it’s not politics; it’s common sense.” They want a population that feels like politics is something inherently dubious, or at least just not worth their time and effort.
Inclusion has always been and will always be a political project, because there are people who want power and who will use it to exclude people for whatever reason.