"No one tethered to reality believes our political class is up to the challenge of right now" (1 Viewer)

[rockaction]

From Peter Savodnik on Twitter. 

He's written for Vanity Fair, started a brand called Stateless Media, and has other feathers in his cap. 

Plus, I know his sister. 

But what do you think about this? Is Savodnik being excessively critical and hyperbolic, or is this real? 

I lean towards real. I don't think our political class is serious. How it got that way, I don't know. I think Solzhenitsyn had this to say about how we're getting our political class. 

"A statesman who wants to achieve something important and highly constructive for his country has to move cautiously and even timidly. There are thousands of hasty and irresponsible critics around him; parliament and the press keep rebuffing him. As he moves ahead, he has to prove that each single step of his is well-founded and absolutely flawless. Actually, an outstanding and particularly gifted person who has unusual and unexpected initiatives in mind hardly gets a chance to assert himself. From the very beginning, dozens of traps will be set out for him. Thus, mediocrity triumphs with the excuse of restrictions imposed by democracy."

What say you guys to both quotes? 

 

[shadrap]

when you care more about being re-elected to hold power to feel important the good of the USA becomes secondary.  this in my view has been happening for way too long.  Wondering if anyone here really believes the open border policy for illegal immigrants under Biden is really about compassion & the betterment of our country or votes.  that is a good example.  IMHO

 

[matuski]

The title of this thread and pursuant quote could not possibly encapsulate my position any better.

shockingly i find myself dogpiled by the right or left in sequential posts.

 

[Herb]

More on board with the second quote, but don't disagree with the first.

We all go on our tribalistic, partisan rants, fully ensconced in the certainty that "we" are right and "they" are wrong. We bicker over partisan minutia and meaningless talking points, make fun of the current state of our traditional boogeyman Russia, with their broken, kleptocratic system, while patting ourselves on the back for being part of a society that, while frequently dysfunctional,  has also been extremely successful. 

But we all agree, in a bipartisan tsunami,  that our system is broken and controlled by untrustworthy hacks that are hopelessly beholden to a corporate cabal that cares about nothing more than executive and shareholder appeasement. We denigrate other nations while we sit on our collective fat, lazy kiesters, watching the greatest nation in history fester with rot from within because it would be difficult, costly and, more importantly,  inconvenient, to do otherwise.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

I don't know exactly what a political class is.

A lot of people in Congress, especially in the House, are dopes. Many others are buffoons. Some are also imbeciles. But there are plenty of smart, knowledgeable, good people there as well, so it's hard to generalize about the whole group.

The executive branch has been solid lately, IMO.

 

[rockaction]

I don't know exactly what a political class is.

The political class is the lot of office holders, candidates, and aspiring candidates. I wouldn't get too hung up on exactly who. One can pretty much figure it out just from the sentiment expressed. 

The "political class" is a word used frequently by those outside the class to comment negatively upon it. It also implies that there is a disconnect, an artificial bulwark that separates those in politics from the regular people that vote for them. Be it campaign financing, the way democracy vets candidates, or the way our current system sets up barriers to entry for political aspirations, there is something there to denote that a "political class" is a separate class of people than the average voter. 

But there are plenty of smart, knowledgeable, good people there as well, so it's hard to generalize about the whole group.

I would say it's not only possible, but that the current state of our politics almost demands a generalization if there is to be any sort of mobilization toward a more workable politics. 

The executive branch has been solid lately, IMO.

I wouldn't disagree, really. But many people could point to many things that the executive branch has overseen recently, and those people could rightfully complain. But when faced with the rest of the choices from the political class, he's done extraordinarily well. The alternatives are horrible. 

 

[rockaction]

But we all agree, in a bipartisan tsunami

Nice turn of phrase for what seems to happen when you combine the elements of disaffection and politics into a cohesive action. 

 

[timschochet]

The political class is NEVER up to handling crises. Not once in history. What happens is an extraordinary individual appears: an Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King- and that person gets the necessary changes done. 
If we need somebody like that, he or she will show up. 

 

[quick-hands]

The political class is NEVER up to handling crises. Not once in history. What happens is an extraordinary individual appears: an Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King- and that person gets the necessary changes done. 
If we need somebody like that, he or she will show up. 

Timsochet?

 

[Long Ball Larry]

Isn’t this similar to what people have been arguing the benefits of an autocracy are?  The lack of checks and balances allow for more sweeping changes and movements.  But most would argue that those checks and balances are strengths of the country.

what do you/he mean by “the challenge of right now”?  

 

[rockaction]

Isn’t this similar to what people have been arguing the benefits of an autocracy are?

I think you're referring to Solzhenitsyn's complaint, and his is the second quote I quoted, about how democracy lurches forward. I had the same thought as you did, wondering if Aleksandr really had his wits totally about him when he wrote that passage. It's a valid complaint, but Solzhenitsyn's problems with autocracy should have provided him with a more critical eye than the one he used for that passage. 

what do you/he mean by “the challenge of right now”?

I would take it to mean the foreign policy challenges of the 21st Century, especially Chinese ascendancy and Russian malfeasance in the world. It looks like China, Russian, and Iran are acting in concert with each other as autocratic states that violate humanitarian concerns at almost every level. We will be having to deal with these nation-states in the future. 

It could even mean basic domestic governance, like getting basic bills passed without stuffing them with so much garbage that the other side has a filibuster veto for really any legislation that comes along. The infrastructure bills, titled as poorly as they were (there was no building in the Build Back Better portion), left so much to be desired from the perspective of the "other side of the aisle" that it was easy for the other side to reject these bills outright.

In addition, the hysterical reaction by both sides to cultural issues should not be underestimated. It says something about our politics that there are fringes of the body politic trying to do things like redefine male and female while the other side insists on an evangelical purity of spirit. Those sort of issues and feelings about them are extreme and counterproductive to real challenges facing society. 

 

[rockaction]

And who can really take a Congress seriously that has Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ilhan Omar?  If you do because you understand the logistics, great. More power to you. From the outside looking in, the people electing them are either broken in some way or the system is broken in some way. Either way, signs of rot are coming to the fore in any event. 

We know that it's a function of something broken that even safe seats are given to these people that often hold not just wrongly decided, but despicable opinions. 

 

[Dr_Zaius]

Very much agree with the title quote, less so with the Solzhenitsyn one.  While I think he has a point about the horse-trading and cajoling that tends to be required in a bureaucracy, I'm not sure that mediocrity is what ends up being selected.  Machiavellianism seems more likely.  Groupthink is of course a problem, but it is possible for an idea to penetrate the groupthink.  

There are a few defects of the "ruling class" that come to mind.  One, they have both generally not known truly hard times, and tend to be high up the socioeconomic ladder.  Hence, they are largely ignorant of as well as insulated from a lot of the problems that exist in society.  Humans being generally lazy, a person whose wellbeing does not to any great extent depend on his performance will put only a modicum of effort into the effectiveness of his performance.  Two, they have very little diversity of background, which leads to them as a group having large blind spots and biases.  If Congress was 90% made up of Iowan librarians, you would expect heavy subsidies of books, corn, and ham balls, and some shockingly bad hurricane preparedness.  In much the same way, our current government is very keen on things that are near and dear to them, and much less so about things that are more foreign.

 

[timschochet]

And who can really take a Congress seriously that has Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ilhan Omar?  

If you are basing your opinion of Congress on its most extreme members, you’re never going to like ANY Congress. And in truth it’s a skewed vision. The vast majority of the Congress are not bat#### crazy. 

 

[Sabertooth]

If you are basing your opinion of Congress on its most extreme members, you’re never going to like ANY Congress. And in truth it’s a skewed vision. The vast majority of the Congress are not bat#### crazy. 

No but the vast majority are extremely partisan which is almost as bad.  

 

[IvanKaramazov]

I strongly disagree.  "Political class" is way too narrow.  The people who run the media, higher ed, the entertainment industry, public health agencies, and so on are also not up to any challenges.  It's not just congress.

 

[Sabertooth]

Nobody is up to running anything unless they are a ruthless corporate overlord…got it. 

 

[timschochet]

No but the vast majority are extremely partisan which is almost as bad.  

I don’t agree with either point. First the majority aren’t “extremely partisan”. Second, being a thoughtful person with strong opinions for the left or the right is not bad in itself. 

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Nobody is up to running anything unless they are a ruthless corporate overlord…got it. 

Amazon at least works as intended.  Call me when we can say the same about the CDC.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Amazon at least works as intended.  Call me when we can say the same about the CDC.

That's not an accident, by the way.  If Amazon can't get me the stuff I want to buy, I'll find somebody else who will.  By way of contrast, the CDC can face-plant for two years during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic and the only consequence is that it gets a bigger budget.  

 

[Stealthycat]

when you care more about being re-elected to hold power to feel important the good of the USA becomes secondary.  this in my view has been happening for way too long.  Wondering if anyone here really believes the open border policy for illegal immigrants under Biden is really about compassion & the betterment of our country or votes.  that is a good example.  IMHO

good post and spot on 

do you think term limits would help ?

 

[The Dude]

If we are not up to the task, it's cause elections are won based on social appeal rather than qualifications..  We should be electing great minds - economically, entrepreneurially, diplomatically and morally (or as close as we can get)

 

[Dr_Zaius]

If we are not up to the task, it's cause elections are won based on social appeal rather than qualifications..  We should be electing great minds - economically, entrepreneurially, diplomatically and morally (or as close as we can get)

I agree that mass media seems to have changed the composition of our representatives for the worse.  For a potentially counterintuitive solution, Washington was apparently adamant that there should be no more than 30,000 constituents per representative, which would put our number of representatives north of 11,000(!).  While at first blush that seems crazy, for me that would mean my township would have its own representative, who would almost certainly be someone I at the very least knew secondhand.  It does seem like it would drastically reduce the amount of demagogues that got elected, at least to the House.  I think the fact that we really know very little about the actual personalities and strengths of the candidates we are electing leads to a lot of poor outcomes.

 

[roadkill1292]

Uncapping the House is one of the easiest things we can do to improve representation. Failure to do so, which I suspect is because it isn't in our Reps' personal interests (much like the pushback against owning individual stocks), really angers me.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

I agree that mass media seems to have changed the composition of our representatives for the worse.  For a potentially counterintuitive solution, Washington was apparently adamant that there should be no more than 30,000 constituents per representative, which would put our number of representatives north of 11,000(!).  While at first blush that seems crazy, for me that would mean my township would have its own representative, who would almost certainly be someone I at the very least knew secondhand.  It does seem like it would drastically reduce the amount of demagogues that got elected, at least to the House.  I think the fact that we really know very little about the actual personalities and strengths of the candidates we are electing leads to a lot of poor outcomes.

I wonder if having 11K house members would make them more normal by making them all sort-of anonymous, or if it would encourage them to be just that much crazier to stand out in such a large crowd.  (Keeping in mind of course that not all of them would react the same way).

 

[Sabertooth]

Amazon at least works as intended.  Call me when we can say the same about the CDC.

What’s your number? 

 

[Sabertooth]

That's not an accident, by the way.  If Amazon can't get me the stuff I want to buy, I'll find somebody else who will.  By way of contrast, the CDC can face-plant for two years during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic and the only consequence is that it gets a bigger budget.  

What are you comparing the face plant to?  What other time in history is the gold standard for pandemic response? It’s easy to say something sucked when there is nothing to compare it with.  I ain’t dead.  You ain’t dead.  
 

What would have been a truly epic response in your estimation….epic along the lines of 2 day shipping?  

 

[IvanKaramazov]

What are you comparing the face plant to?  What other time in history is the gold standard for pandemic response? It’s easy to say something sucked when there is nothing to compare it with.  I ain’t dead.  You ain’t dead.  
 

What would have been a truly epic response in your estimation….epic along the lines of 2 day shipping?  

Well, for example, not discouraging mask use in the early days of the pandemic.  Not screwing up your own test and then standing in the way of tests developed by third parties.  Not ignoring data produced by researchers in other countries.  Stuff like that.  

These are all things that people like me were hotly critical of at the time those decisions were being made, so none of this can be dismissed as Monday morning quarterbacking.

 

[Dr_Zaius]

I wonder if having 11K house members would make them more normal by making them all sort-of anonymous, or if it would encourage them to be just that much crazier to stand out in such a large crowd.  (Keeping in mind of course that not all of them would react the same way).

At the very least, it would make them more accountable to their constituents.  You can't really hide your actions or intentions from your voters when they are all your neighbors and live within walking distance.  I think my worry with a more unwieldly-sized House is who is driving the docket of legislation, as it would seem ripe for lobbyists to hijack the agenda.

 

[Manster]

when you care more about being re-elected to hold power to feel important the good of the USA becomes secondary.  this in my view has been happening for way too long.  Wondering if anyone here really believes the open border policy for illegal immigrants under Biden is really about compassion & the betterment of our country or votes.  that is a good example.  IMHO

It's 100% about votes.

 

[Dr_Zaius]

Also, to add to the earlier discussion about Bezos, I think he would probably be an improvement over most of Congress if we were doing a one-for-one swap with one of the current 435.  That being said, having overrepresentation of CEOs would be just as bad as what we have now.  Out of professions that immediately spring to mind, I think a decade as an engineer, nurse, construction worker, accountant, teacher,  or grocery store manager would be a fine qualification.  I would be inclined to support any of those resumes over another PoliSci major whose entire adult life was working in Washington.

 

[pinkham13]

Our political class doesn’t make decisions. Just like the bill passed yesterday for nearly two trillion. It has 7,000 pages and passed at 1:30 in the morning. You think they read this stuff? No way! It certainly wasn’t written by anyone in Congress. These politicians are all taking orders not making decisions. The policy makers are here….https://swprs.org/the-american-empire-and-its-media/

 

[Bottomfeeder Sports]

Our political class doesn’t make decisions. Just like the bill passed yesterday for nearly two trillion. It has 7,000 pages and passed at 1:30 in the morning. You think they read this stuff? No way! It certainly wasn’t written by anyone in Congress. These politicians are all taking orders not making decisions. The policy makers are here….https://swprs.org/the-american-empire-and-its-media/

I’d almost agree with you.  If you had said that the political class is not the politicians and bureaucrats holding office, nor even the lobbyists on K Street but the puppet masters pulling the strings.  

 

[Bottomfeeder Sports]

It's 100% about votes.

I don’t think so.  Reason being that most of the offices we are talking about are gerrymandered safe districts or are red or blue states.  There just isn’t enough “up for grabs” contest for this to be 100% about votes.  

 

[roadkill1292]

Also, to add to the earlier discussion about Bezos, I think he would probably be an improvement over most of Congress if we were doing a one-for-one swap with one of the current 435.  That being said, having overrepresentation of CEOs would be just as bad as what we have now.  Out of professions that immediately spring to mind, I think a decade as an engineer, nurse, construction worker, accountant, teacher,  or grocery store manager would be a fine qualification.  I would be inclined to support any of those resumes over another PoliSci major whose entire adult life was working in Washington.

I could easily make an argument and a selection process for replacing the Senate with a workable and non-crazy House of Sortition.

 

[rockaction]

I strongly disagree.  "Political class" is way too narrow.  The people who run the media, higher ed, the entertainment industry, public health agencies, and so on are also not up to any challenges.  It's not just congress.

Fair enough and point taken. Let's expand, shall we. The rot in media, higher education, the curriculum setters for lower education, and the entertainment industry showed in the late sixties. It was apparent then that communist/socialists and the new left in whatever form it took had pretty much taken control of higher ed at least, never mind the entertainment industry and media capture the new hard left was about to embark on. Those two institutions were just either just smarter or lagging indicators compared to the buffoons in higher education about their capture. The media and entertainment industry had to sell to the general public, after all, so one sold it in terms of justice and the other just prompted the Bacchanalization of youth and culture. Mission accomplished.  

 

[GordonGekko]

"A statesman who wants to achieve something important and highly constructive for his country has to move cautiously and even timidly. There are thousands of hasty and irresponsible critics around him; parliament and the press keep rebuffing him. As he moves ahead, he has to prove that each single step of his is well-founded and absolutely flawless. Actually, an outstanding and particularly gifted person who has unusual and unexpected initiatives in mind hardly gets a chance to assert himself. From the very beginning, dozens of traps will be set out for him. Thus, mediocrity triumphs with the excuse of restrictions imposed by democracy."

What say you guys to both quotes? 

Two sweeping changes would change American politics for the better

1) Make professional politics only accessible as a "second career"  via Constitutional Amendment. That means in order to run for office, you need 10-15 years full time work experience in some other industry.  People may or may not like Ted Cruz and/or Amy Klobuchar. But both were relatively successful in their legal careers before office. I don't have a problem with AOC being a former bartender. I do think the duration was short enough where she is going to be a lifelong career politician and that will not grant her, what would be hoped, as the benefit of having a long proven career track before attempting to run for office.

Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Joe Biden - Do you see a trend here?

Majorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Madison Cawthorn - Do you keep seeing a trend here?

Dan Crenshaw gave service to this country. He spent a decade in a leadership position in US Special Forces. And if he's VP one day, you think that won't color his view on war or how the average soldier is treated or has to endure on the battlefield? And Beto O'Rourke did what exactly? He's a failed musician and he skipped around working for other family members to the point where no one can really talk about what he did before he was perennial candidate.  There are some things to like or dislike about Crenshaw in general, but you would you rather have him planning the withdrawal from Afghanistan or a total zero like Beto?

How much different do you think Gavin Newsom would be as a politician if he had to spend 15 years first sitting in commute like everyone else? Scrubbing his own toilets like everyone else? Clipping coupons like everyone else?

2) After four years as an elected official, you are hard capped in your total earning power for the rest of your life, by Constitutional Amendment. If Pelosi makes 250K a year as a member of the HOR, after four years in office, she is now locked into that earning ability, barring whatever COLA or raises that happen, in total. That means she can trade stocks all she wants or seek any other revenue generating scheme she wants. But all the profits have to be sent to the poorest district in her state. Her immediate family is barred from trading stocks or working for any entity that gave political donations to her.  This would also mean removing zombie campaigns and Leadership PACs and Joint Finance Agreements.

On an aside, I literally laugh out loud when I see woke radical leftists shout "Let's Be Better!" and the endless virtue signaling. Here's what matters - If you want to change something and if you want to succeed at something, you need a plan with a functional logistical pathway. Whether or not people agree with the premise, a requirement of 15 years of full time work experience in a non politics related industry is a barrier to entry that has a pure logistical format involved.

"Virtue signalers" without a plan are the kind of people who get other people killed. If you had JJ Abrams Lost and had a bunch of people stranded on an island, the people who keep shouting about what people need to do to be "pure" without any kind of logistics or plan are the ones that will get everyone else slaughtered. Or they will be fragged by their own people eventually.

Over time, Elizabeth Warren has proven to be an unhinged pathological liar who has tried to drive this bizarre populist narrative when she simply operated on a much different marketing strategy than the mainstream. She zagged because she needed to "peacock" her way into the national daily media cycle while others zigged. There is close to no inherent "boost" value anymore in just being another heterosexual white woman in politics in today's modern political climate. It no longer operates as an automatic "plus" to separate you from the pack. But Warren did have a long and successful career as an educator and many people have come forward and said Warren really helped their kids in their critical formative years. Despite my personal distaste for Warren, I won't take her actual career record as an educator away from her. I don't have a problem with someone like Warren being eligible for public office.

The profession draws certain types. Narcissists. Sociopaths. Psychopaths. BPD. NPD. So you can't filter out all the scum. What you can do is make the profession a real grind. Pure attrition and hard cap the self incentive structure. Long ago I had a neighbor who was an architect. Schooling was long and expensive and difficult and there wasn't a ton of money for the majority who work in the industry. He was pretty clear about it - "This is just one of those things where there is close to nothing about the realistic lifestyle that's worth it except if you just plain love it"

If you want higher quality people as elected officials, you need to logistically raise the barriers to entry. If you want fewer grifters you need harder more stringent filters.  Some here will just start spouting that specific work experience requirements are too punitive or won't be legal and on and on and on. And my answer is always the same - How is the current system working out? Is it making a better world for your children to inherit?

What do you think is going to happen to your children if our country keeps up this consistent failure in the general pool of high level elected officials?

 

[The Duff Man]

All of the people I know that would do well at this would either never do it or would never get elected. 

 

[rockaction]

All of the people I know that would do well at this would either never do it or would never get elected. 

That's the larger problem that I was trying to get at with the Solzhenitsyn quote. Is democracy doomed to failure for the very reason that it has a fatal paradox? By that, I mean that if we posit that democracy is a system that needs the most closely-watched administration of affairs to keep things free and equitable, how can it survive if it brings or summons forth the worst and most venal of men to do that administrating? 

That's a tough one. I'm not sure of the way out of that sort of mess.  

 

[GordonGekko]

That's the larger problem that I was trying to get at with the Solzhenitsyn quote. Is democracy doomed to failure for the very reason that it has a fatal paradox? By that, I mean that if we posit that democracy is a system that needs the most closely-watched administration of affairs to keep things free and equitable, how can it survive if it brings or summons forth the worst and most venal of men to do that administrating? 

That's a tough one. I'm not sure of the way out of that sort of mess.  

As a pure concept, there is absolutely nothing wrong with modified democracy that has roots in the old Roman system.

The problem exists that the existing Constitution, major sections of it, are no longer functional for the realities of current modern Westernized society. The Founders couldn't plan for nor predict absolutely everything.

Of course this is when the woke cancel culture unhinged radical leftists, source police, low information voters and gaslighters will start shouting about packing SCOTUS and ending the filibuster.

No, the major changes are needed in campaign finance reform, demonetizing professional politicians and their families and creating a punitive structure for those who violate the greater good of the collective. Also the Founders did not envision close to 340 million people ( probably more than that) under one federal government.

One thing Mario Puzo got right when he wrote The Godfather ( I'm still under the belief he didn't write it, he stole it, nothing he ever did later comes close to the nuance and layers of depth) was when he talked about middle aged Don Vito Corleone spending two full years trying to broker peace and alliances and forming what would become The Commission. Then, when he realized there were too many factions and different grudges and complex self interests, he wiped out everyone except the 5 other families who were too big and too powerful to clean off the board.

America needs a new Constitution. Not written by lawyers because frankly 85 percent of all attorneys in America right now are hopelessly incompetent. Which makes the FBG forums interesting in that 95-98 percent of the openly admitted ones who regularly post are a hodgepodge of some of the worst collected legal talent I've ever seen ( I don't count you among this rabble, Rock)

And there needs to be a clear separation and subdivision within the nation. Five or six major zones that fulfill a particular core political ideology. Let like minded people live and be around other like minded people with shared values. Instead of arguing over whose values are more important, get past that logistically and geographically and get to the business of small scale local governance and problem solving.

The closest thing you can get under the current system is a POTUS with a heavy military background. I find Dan Crenshaw to be a very disappointing one trick pony in professional politics. I honor his service and sacrifice for our nation, but he has no real substance in terms of charisma and natural leadership. That being said, he's well versed in logistics. He understands if you need to reach a goal, you need man power and you need to be able to pay those people, train them, give them medical care,  feed them, house them, transport them, etc, etc, etc.

A new Constitution that enforces better logistics and more draconian level penalties is essentially changing the rules to the game. The old rules were around so long, that people learned how to game them and manipulate them.

Good leaders are always good tacticians to start. Run the JJ Abram's Lost scenario here. Put all the regular posters in the PSF on a deserted island. Who do you understand right away that is going to get you killed or put you in a situation to starve or will focus on issues that have nothing to do with staying alive and getting rescued? The modern age and technology has subverted natural selection, and in doing so, has falsely rewarded people who are not natural or hard learned problem solvers with survival.

In previous times in human history, those with poor tactics, poor planning, poor skills, and the general inability to problem solve just died off.

The world needs functional problem solvers who can lay an effective logistical and resource management based foundation. It doesn't need more psychotic woke zealots who have never managed nor lead anything in their entire lives. It certainly doesn't need more lawyers.

You can always spot a real problem solver based on the kind and quality of questions they ask.

 

[Sabertooth]

Campaign finance reform is tied to SCOTUS.  If I recall it wasn’t the radical leftists who argued a corporation was a person and afforded free speech rights.  Rightist judges handed us the Citizens United ruling.  
 

So you can write all you words and what not that nobody reads but they ring hollow because it was the rightists who put us here.  

 

[FairWarning]

Campaign finance reform is tied to SCOTUS.  If I recall it wasn’t the radical leftists who argued a corporation was a person and afforded free speech rights.  Rightist judges handed us the Citizens United ruling.  
 

So you can write all you words and what not that nobody reads but they ring hollow because it was the rightists who put us here.  

You’re correct - and neither side is giving any money or power back anytime soon.  It does bring to light why the left hated Bernie so much, they were afraid to get cut out of the spoils.

 

[BladeRunner]

Campaign finance reform is tied to SCOTUS.  If I recall it wasn’t the radical leftists who argued a corporation was a person and afforded free speech rights.  Rightist judges handed us the Citizens United ruling.  

So you can write all you words and what not that nobody reads but they ring hollow because it was the rightists who put us here.  

I see someone got their Offical DNC Talking PointsTM early today. 

We think the Russian Propaganda machine is bad, but they really are a distant second to your posts.

 

[Sabertooth]

You’re correct - and neither side is giving any money or power back anytime soon.  It does bring to light why the left hated Bernie so much, they were afraid to get cut out of the spoils.

Oh absolutely.  He’s trying to disrupt the gravy train.  

 

[FairWarning]

Oh absolutely.  He’s trying to disrupt the gravy train.  

50 years down the road, it will be interesting to see how history views him.  I think his legacy stock will rise.

 

[roadkill1292]

Is the question about our democracy producing ineffectual or corrupt representatives or democracy in general? If other democracies minimize the problem, then we have to look at the failures of our own unique systems.

But if all democracies suffer from these flaws, then I suggest that we learn to suffer from them. Because the alternative, while occasionally providing the Great Man, is unbearable for free people in the long run.

 

[rockaction]

Is the question about our democracy producing ineffectual or corrupt representatives or democracy in general? If other democracies minimize the problem, then we have to look at the failures of our own unique systems.

But if all democracies suffer from these flaws, then I suggest that we learn to suffer from them. Because the alternative, while occasionally providing the Great Man, is unbearable for free people in the long run.

The answer to your question is that this thread was framed and was meant to spur discussion in either area. Whether the ineffectual representation was either endemic to our democracy or democracy in general was part of the question. The other part, naturally, is who to look to and for what are we to look to them for. 

I would say I fully agree with the second paragraph of your post. 

 

[roadkill1292]

I believe that our political leaders have spent almost 250 years honing their skills in maximizing the flaws in our election systems. The advantage to the duopoly is now baked in and self perpetuating.

The self perpetuating rewards of power are why there is little motivation from our political leaders to improve our democracy for the electorate even while our systems have been surpassed by others.

People are beginning to realize this and the movement for change is growing, though it remains tiny. But all important movements started small.