“We must recognize that, at this point in the race, the best way to keep faith with [our] goals and ideals is to step aside and help bring our party and our country together. So tonight, I am making the difficult decision to suspend my campaign for the presidency,” said Pete Buttigieg, emotional yet composed as he announced the conclusion of his campaign for the presidency of the United States on Sunday, March 1st. His campaign was ground-breaking and historic, especially since he was the first openly-gay man to run a competitive campaign for this position, and he was “the first gay candidate to earn primary delegates for a major party’s presidential nomination,” as stated by CNN Politics. Looking back on this campaign, after its conclusion, one can truly see the effects that it has had, and the lessons that it offers the public, in a more clear light.

One of the most significant of these lessons that I would like to explore is how Buttigieg’s campaign shines light onto the rise of ‘Political Hobbyism’ in the United States, a subject explored on NPR podcast ‘Hidden Brain.’ The term political hobbyism is defined by the Huffington Post to be a person’s desire to follow and engage in politics due to their own emotional need and gratification. A leading researcher on the subject, Eitan Hearsh, argues that the general population’s reason for staying involved in reading the news cycle is not because of the drastic effects that politicians can have on our legislation, neighborhoods, and issues of concern but rather because of the gratifying parts of watching the news. Essentially, politics becomes a sport or a contest with increasingly dramatic debates and discussions. In his words, “for many citizens, participation in politics is not motivated by civic duty or self interest, but by hobbyism: the objective is self-gratification.”

Buttigieg’s campaign has seen the effects of this hobbyism. If politics are indeed becoming less and less about policy, and increasingly more about name-recognition and the ability to appeal to the voter’s sense of gratification as they seem to be, Buttigieg’s roots of being mayor to a mid-sized Indiana city simply could not compete against his opponents, mostly people who are already in positions of power in the U.S government. Joe Biden, for example, served both as Vice President and a Senator representing the state of Delaware. He clearly has had far more name recognition from the beginning of the presidential race than Buttigieg.

One way to measure this might be Google Trend rankings, which can illustrate the public’s curiosity and therefore knowledge of certain presidential candidates. When it comes to a map of the USA, a handful of states had Joe Biden as their most popular search, while Bernie Sanders had an overwhelming majority as the most widely searched candidate of the Democratic Party. Buttigieg was shown as the most popular search in only one state: Indiana, his home state. This represents the difference that name-recognition can make in today’s political world; it is one containing many informed voters, but there is a perpetual majority who are uninformed or following politics for the benefit of their gratification, and not their communities’ welfare.

Hearsh argues that this is one of the many drawbacks to a significant portion of our society’s existing in a state of Political Hobbyism. To consume the news, scroll through twitter, and read the paper might all be beneficial things, but the benefit only truly takes place when we actively lead discussions and fight for what we believe in, whether it be in general or local elections. To move the discussion, and our habits of consumption, from a popularity contest to a discussion truly based on policy and the merits of the candidates is vital in order to ensure a representative and functional democracy.