What you need to know about American politics - 10/14/19 02:06 PM
Usually I avoid talking about politics, esp. on the internet, esp. on a tech forum. But after some people have called for the death of a U.S. president, I thought I would explain some things about American politics. My knowledge comes from experience, observation, reading, aging, reflecting on all of those, and from friends and relatives who have worked in Washington and in local politics. I think I can give an impartial account of some facts about recent politics. I didn't vote in the last election, by the way, though I probably should have.
For decades, there has been a persistent criticism that The People haven't been represented. This has taken the form of local debates over gerrymandering or over redrawing school districts to achieve something like racial and ethnic balance. At the national level, the criticism has pointed to the fact that, although the American population has increased, representation has diminished. Literally, there are fewer people represented because we have the same number of representatives in Washington per person thought there are more people alive in the states. It's a little like when you hear people talk about teacher to student ratio in classrooms, a statistic that is misleading or bogus or both.
In the early 1970s, the Libertarian Party formed at least in part on the belief that there was "one party" in Washington. These critics asserted there was no difference between the Democratic and Republican Parties because both were involved in playing the same "game" though with different players. The game is bribery. Contribute to my campaign and I will help (you) your company by passing or rejecting certain bills and laws in Washington. The more expensive it became to run for office, in part due to the cost of TV advertising, the more politicians spent time on fundraising and on writing and passing bills that favored certain companies (bosses) who contributed to their campaigns. Thus, the criticism was that politicians were no longer acting in the public interest. Literally the public wasn't being represented. Instead, politicians were acting in the special interest of certain companies. Apple gets a tax break. You don't. They are special. You are not.
The longer a politician held office, the worse the situation got, the more difficult it became to unseat an elected official because he had time while in office to curry favor with more contributors. This led some people like George Will to call for term limits in the 1990s. His book, Restoration, was a call to restore representation or what hippies in the 1960s alluded to when they said "Power to The People".
Many hippies made their way into the Libertarian Party, in part because of its anti-tax, pro-drug, pro-prostitution, pro-pornography positions. But the party never got more than a few percentage points in elections. Supporters complained that the two major parties worked against it, shut it out of debates, and in other ways behaved unfairly.
In the 1990s, complaints about representation were picked up Ross Perot when he started the Reform Party. Many libertarians shifted to the Reform Party, which became the de facto third-party alternative. It was so expensive to run for office that you had to be a billionaire to fund your own campaign. By funding your own campaign, you protected yourself from the bribes of Washington. Billionaires are odd people. They're not insane, a word which has ceased to mean anything, but they do tend to lead eccentric lives of extremes. To be a billionaire is to be literally out of the mainstream; one simply has more. Thus, an odd guy like Perot accomplished the incredible feat of winning 19 percent of the vote. That's 19 million votes out of 100 million. Not bad for a flake who had no political experience. I never cared for the man and I didn't vote for him. I enjoyed Dana Carvey's impressions.
Pat Buchanan, who attended Columbia journalism school, was the Reform Party's second candidate, and after him Donald Trump. Like Trump, Buchanan was called a Nazi and racist for attempting to tackle the problem of illegal immigration. Trump had been a Democrat for most of his life and was friendly with the Clintons. This is probably because Democrats had a reputation to being the party of loose morals. Regardless, this association ought not to surprise us. In every age, people of wealth and power congregate. There is nothing conspiratorial about it or even anything especially wrong with it. You hang out with people you like. Birds of a feather. You don't see birds hanging out with lions or snakes. They hang out with other birds. It's built into nature.
Although Alex Jones is a quack, even a stopped clock is right once a day. I disbelieved his talk of a deep state because it sounded too much like fiction or a movie. But there is a small bit of truth in it. Although politicians get the attention, most of the work in Washington is done by people who are not elected. These are staff members (usually recent college graduates) and employees of departments and the many branches and subdivisions of a very large government of a very large country. Most of them keep their jobs regardless of who is elected to any office. It's in their interest to do what they can to keep their jobs. These people are called bureaucrats. That sounds like a value judgment but it is an impartial description as good as any. These people do most of the work, not the people you see on TV. Enough has been written about bureaucracy over the years that I don't need to explain its many problems. Reading Orwell and Kafka might help because they dramatized bureaucracy.
The problem of money in politics hasn't been solved. Thus, the problem of representation hasn't been solved. Trump is the first real political outsider to become president. Consequently, many of the insiders want to see him gone, and, in the case of this forum, dead. It's a bad habit to wish ill of others. It's not a habit of mine. I have disagreed with all our presidents at some time or another. I have never wished them harm. I wish most everyone the best. Not because I'm Mary Poppins but because it makes life easier. As time runs out, you don't want to waste it being angry, least of all angry at matters you can't affect.
I can answer questions for clarification. But I'm not going to adopt the us versus them habit where one sacrifices the hard work of thought for choosing sides, as though life were a football game. I never was a good cheerleader and I'm too old to be a fan (short for fanatic) of any person, group, or movement.
For decades, there has been a persistent criticism that The People haven't been represented. This has taken the form of local debates over gerrymandering or over redrawing school districts to achieve something like racial and ethnic balance. At the national level, the criticism has pointed to the fact that, although the American population has increased, representation has diminished. Literally, there are fewer people represented because we have the same number of representatives in Washington per person thought there are more people alive in the states. It's a little like when you hear people talk about teacher to student ratio in classrooms, a statistic that is misleading or bogus or both.
In the early 1970s, the Libertarian Party formed at least in part on the belief that there was "one party" in Washington. These critics asserted there was no difference between the Democratic and Republican Parties because both were involved in playing the same "game" though with different players. The game is bribery. Contribute to my campaign and I will help (you) your company by passing or rejecting certain bills and laws in Washington. The more expensive it became to run for office, in part due to the cost of TV advertising, the more politicians spent time on fundraising and on writing and passing bills that favored certain companies (bosses) who contributed to their campaigns. Thus, the criticism was that politicians were no longer acting in the public interest. Literally the public wasn't being represented. Instead, politicians were acting in the special interest of certain companies. Apple gets a tax break. You don't. They are special. You are not.
The longer a politician held office, the worse the situation got, the more difficult it became to unseat an elected official because he had time while in office to curry favor with more contributors. This led some people like George Will to call for term limits in the 1990s. His book, Restoration, was a call to restore representation or what hippies in the 1960s alluded to when they said "Power to The People".
Many hippies made their way into the Libertarian Party, in part because of its anti-tax, pro-drug, pro-prostitution, pro-pornography positions. But the party never got more than a few percentage points in elections. Supporters complained that the two major parties worked against it, shut it out of debates, and in other ways behaved unfairly.
In the 1990s, complaints about representation were picked up Ross Perot when he started the Reform Party. Many libertarians shifted to the Reform Party, which became the de facto third-party alternative. It was so expensive to run for office that you had to be a billionaire to fund your own campaign. By funding your own campaign, you protected yourself from the bribes of Washington. Billionaires are odd people. They're not insane, a word which has ceased to mean anything, but they do tend to lead eccentric lives of extremes. To be a billionaire is to be literally out of the mainstream; one simply has more. Thus, an odd guy like Perot accomplished the incredible feat of winning 19 percent of the vote. That's 19 million votes out of 100 million. Not bad for a flake who had no political experience. I never cared for the man and I didn't vote for him. I enjoyed Dana Carvey's impressions.
Pat Buchanan, who attended Columbia journalism school, was the Reform Party's second candidate, and after him Donald Trump. Like Trump, Buchanan was called a Nazi and racist for attempting to tackle the problem of illegal immigration. Trump had been a Democrat for most of his life and was friendly with the Clintons. This is probably because Democrats had a reputation to being the party of loose morals. Regardless, this association ought not to surprise us. In every age, people of wealth and power congregate. There is nothing conspiratorial about it or even anything especially wrong with it. You hang out with people you like. Birds of a feather. You don't see birds hanging out with lions or snakes. They hang out with other birds. It's built into nature.
Although Alex Jones is a quack, even a stopped clock is right once a day. I disbelieved his talk of a deep state because it sounded too much like fiction or a movie. But there is a small bit of truth in it. Although politicians get the attention, most of the work in Washington is done by people who are not elected. These are staff members (usually recent college graduates) and employees of departments and the many branches and subdivisions of a very large government of a very large country. Most of them keep their jobs regardless of who is elected to any office. It's in their interest to do what they can to keep their jobs. These people are called bureaucrats. That sounds like a value judgment but it is an impartial description as good as any. These people do most of the work, not the people you see on TV. Enough has been written about bureaucracy over the years that I don't need to explain its many problems. Reading Orwell and Kafka might help because they dramatized bureaucracy.
The problem of money in politics hasn't been solved. Thus, the problem of representation hasn't been solved. Trump is the first real political outsider to become president. Consequently, many of the insiders want to see him gone, and, in the case of this forum, dead. It's a bad habit to wish ill of others. It's not a habit of mine. I have disagreed with all our presidents at some time or another. I have never wished them harm. I wish most everyone the best. Not because I'm Mary Poppins but because it makes life easier. As time runs out, you don't want to waste it being angry, least of all angry at matters you can't affect.
I can answer questions for clarification. But I'm not going to adopt the us versus them habit where one sacrifices the hard work of thought for choosing sides, as though life were a football game. I never was a good cheerleader and I'm too old to be a fan (short for fanatic) of any person, group, or movement.