Preserving the pilot light of American politics
“Make your smile a different way to cry,
when the truth they’ve been tellin’ you is just another fine lie;
and the light on the inside is flickerin’ out
with the things they don’t tell you about.”
-Bill Mallonee
In thinking about why more people aren’t involved in the American electoral system, it seems that citizen involvement is tied to the effect voters (or would-be voters) believe their opinions have.
One example of this is lumped in with the recent tale of union strife, in which two unions (the Teamsters and the SEIU) left the AFL-CIO. Among their reasons was the apparent lack of effect from millions of dollars spent on political campaigns. Highlighting this thought pattern is the recent break with labor by some union-sponsored pols on the recent CAFTA legislation, which some have noted was narrowly approved and with much help from the federal “favor corps.”
Of course, there are others who engage in political positioning contrary to their public stances, as in conservatives who will also readily drop the mantle of principles for the right price. Think of any “conservative” who voted in favor of the Read IDladen appropriations bill—upstanding, patrioticallylabeled senators and congresspersons who couldn’t have their reputations besmirched with (what would have been) completely ridiculous accusations of “not supporting the troops.”
Taking a stand is something you want your representatives to do. But many only seem to bother when the TV lights are on and the perceived benefit of doing so includes more than the paltry reward offered by a clear conscience.
But the point of this diatribe isn’t how politicians are taking money from supporters they don’t intend to represent—that’s almost a staple of American politics, far too entrenched to be solved with a simple essay like this. The focal point here is the lack of political involvement in the only place where it really matters: the voting booth. Well, let me ammend that, because being an active voter should also involve being an informed voter, which does take energy that most of us don’t seem willing to expend, no matter how dire the consequences may be.
Maybe the American public is like a wild horse in the continual process of being broken. Our public officials must be thinking of us this way, at least. Rather than give dignified explanations for contrary positions they take, there are many who prefer to simply tell us we just don’t know what we’re talking about. Even those of us with passion and idealism to want to do something about our mess of a political system will be broken to some degree by the incessant abuse we suffer at the hands of our “servants.” That abuse takes more than one form. It can be in the disregard they show their constituents by not supporting a clear consensus opinion, and it can also be the disdain and malignment that often awaits those who disagree with their political positions. (Many are quick to forget how few of their positions are truly consensus views, regardless of their electoral victories.)
We shouldn’t be so easily broken by these people, but human nature has within it the tendency toward discouragement when things go consistently wrong. And it is such when our public servants spend too much of their time and effort appeasing those who have not the votes, but the most money. Which is where organized labor was always at a disadvantage, because they have had a horrid tendency to try to outbid business interests. And the business lobby has almost always had more funding behind it. (For whatever may be taken away from the efforts of the Change to Win coalition, this point is a solid one in their favor: it’s better to build consensus from the roots rather than simply attempting to buy from the politicians.)
The point is what it always has been, I suppose. Politics is a game of winning hearts, and the first step is to give hope to those hearts. That means reversing a longstanding trend that has been geared toward extinguishing that hope. Because, make no mistake, many of us bemoan the fact that most voters don’t bother to involve themselves in political happenings, but too few politicians are among those lamenters.
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