I recently re-watched Ken Burns’ excellent 2014 seven-episode
mini-series The Roosevelts; An Intimate History. It reminded me again that Washington politics
has always been nasty and brutal; just as many bitter accusations were flung
about when Teddy Roosevelt decided to run for a third term as one sees in today’s
news, and even worse followed Franklin Roosevelt all through his three terms.
And the news media was just as biased then as it is today. All that has really changed is the new and
powerful echo chamber produced by social media, which locks people even more
solidly into their (usually unexamined) prejudices and political biases.
Looking at Washington politics today, with Democrats
endlessly and futilely wasting their time trying to bring down President Trump rather
than trying to actually propose useful legislation or at least trying to
position themselves to win the next election, and Republicans seemingly out to
lunch (I have no idea what the Republican party stands for these days, and
perhaps they don’t either), I am reminded of nothing so much as a bunch of undisciplined
third graders on a playground squabbling over some senseless game.
Among the Democrats only Nancy Pelosi, minority leader of
the House, seems to have her head on straight, I don’t much like or trust her,
but she is undoubtedly a brilliant political strategist, and clearly understands
that the endless calls by some of her colleagues to impeach the president on
the one hand, and the naïve and disruptive behavior of “the gang” on the other
hand are distracting her party from the serious business of trying to keep the
House and win back the Senate. But she is having serious trouble keeping her
party in line.
Among the Republicans only Senate majority leader Mitch
McConnell seems to know what is important. He is tightly focused on getting as
many “conservative” judges appointed as possible, to balance out the “liberal
activist” judges that have been appointed over the past eight years. (I approve
of this – laws should be made by a majority vote of elected legislators, not “created”
by individual unelected judges to fit their political or social biases). He
understands that presidential polices can disappear at the next election, but
judge appointments will shape the judiciary, and hence the effects of legislation,
for far longer. I have no idea what any of the other Republicans in the House
or Senate are focused on.
But in the end we get the presidents and legislators we
deserve – we who vote have put them in to office, and those who don’t bother to vote have only themselves
to blame if they don’t like who gets elected. We humans are inherently gullible and easy to
sway. This seems to be every bit as true of the “educated” elite as of the less-well-educated
masses. Candidates know this and get themselves professionally “packaged” like
products and promise us all sorts of goodies from the cookie jar, and if we are
gullible enough to believe them then we have to live with the consequences.
Clearly the American political system is broken. But I
suspect that is only a symptom of a much deeper problem in our society. Our educational
system has clearly failed to educate the average citizen well enough to understand
the economic and political issues they are voting on, or even to understand the
logic of our political and government system (Why has civics been dropped from
most school curriculums?). And it seems to me the advent of social media and
the internet is turning out to be much more of a danger than an advantage to
our society. Indeed, it seems more of a boon to purveyors of lies and fake
news, to hackers who want to steal identities and data, and to organizations like
Facebook that collect details about us to sway our votes or sell us products we
really don’t need. I watch the Millennial
generation wandering about the world with their face buried in their iPhone
playing games in virtual worlds (like Pokemon) and wonder how well they are prepared
to deal with the harsh and unforgiving realities of the real world.
I argued in a series of posts some months ago (here) that America had no external enemies who really threatened us, and that when our empire collapsed, as it surely will someday, it will probably be from internal failings, not external enemies. Perhaps this is the beginning of those internal failings
I argued in a series of posts some months ago (here) that America had no external enemies who really threatened us, and that when our empire collapsed, as it surely will someday, it will probably be from internal failings, not external enemies. Perhaps this is the beginning of those internal failings
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