Hello everyone! Welcome to Make Politics Boring Again. I’m Zach Kahn, and I am an incoming freshman at Northwestern University. I will be studying at The Medill School of Journalism. I currently reside in Charlotte, NC.

What is this?

Make Politics Boring Again is a Substack that advocates for making politics boring again.

The Case For Making Politics Boring Again

According to Federalist 51, government exists because not all men are angels. Thus, the role of government (at least in some capacity) is to mitigate and solve various problems.

Government was not created to generate clicks, enrich the pockets of politicians, or make people on social media furious over hateful posts by government officials.

Yet here we are. All three of those things are happening. Political polarization is rampant.

Making politics boring again means returning politics to its proper role, valuing results over drama and expecting government officials to spend more time working instead of tweeting.

Most government work is not very exciting. Work such as writing legislation, drafting budgets, and fixing infrastructure rarely goes viral, but it is extremely important.

The goal of this Substack is to create a culture where serious issues are treated as such, and effective governance holds much more value than sensationalist political commentary on CNN or Fox News.

Some Examples from Social Media

The other day, I was scrolling on X/Twitter when I saw this tweet by Roy Cooper’s campaign:

Roy Cooper is the North Carolina Democratic Party’s nominee for US Senate. He is facing Michael Whatley, the North Carolina Republican Party’s nominee for US Senate.

I have a problem with this tweet. Why does it matter that Michael Whatley used an AI graphic? And what the heck does that have to do with being a good senator or person to represent North Carolina in Washington? Absolutely nothing.

Earlier this year, the NC Republican Party’s official X account tweeted in a similar fashion, attacking Cooper for picking against High Point to defeat Wisconsin in the 2026 Men’s Basketball NCAA Tournament.

Again, that is another example of a political entity attacking an opponent about something that has absolutely nothing to do with good governance or ethics.

Correctly picking (or not picking) High Point to defeat Wisconsin in a college basketball game has (and should have) absolutely nothing to do with politics and government.

Yet, according to political groups, media, and personnel, it’s a reason to elect (or not elect) someone into public office? What in the world? Are we really serious right now?

While these tweets may look like jokes and fun and games, they are not. Tying politics to other aspects of personal identity, such as sports fandom, can deepen feelings of tribalism and make political disagreements feel more personal. When you attack an important part of someone's identity, it can feel like an attack on the whole person.

These are what I call trivial attacks: attacks focused on matters unrelated to governance, policy, or ethics. Politicians, candidates, and media outlets fuel political polarization in this country by using trivial attacks on their opponents.

Here’s some more recent examples of trivial attacks:

If we want to make politics boring again, we need to start by discouraging trivial attacks by politicians, candidates, and media outlets.

We need to stop spending time attacking each other over AI graphics, basketball knowledge, and veganism. Instead, we should start to spend time debating policies and the responsibilities of public office.

Elections should be decided by how candidates would govern, not by any candidates’ sports knowledge, dietary preferences, or other unrelated personal traits.

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Thanks for reading Make Politics Boring Again! Shoutout to my former AP Gov teacher, Dr. Bratyanski, for encouraging me to start this. Make Politics Boring Again.

Best,

Zach

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