Charles Pierce:If our politicians are not responsive to our needs-then it's time for new politicians
The Abandonment Of Self Government
By Charles P. Pierce at 9:15am
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..........is the country ungovernable right now because the Republicans have made it so, or are the Republicans merely taking advantage of the fact that, through its creaky institutional structures and through an unforgivable lassitude towards the obligations of self-government on the part of the American people, the country has become ungovernable in and of itself. The apparent lack of oversight and preparation in the implementation of the ACA is unforgivable, and the president and the Democratic party will (and should) pay something of a political price for it. But the fact is that the country wanted its massively fractured health-care system fixed, and it had wanted that system fixed since before Bill Clinton tried it back in the early 1990's. A completely ludicrous percentage of the country also wants criminal background checks on gun purchases. Right now, if you believe the polls, it is massively in favor of raising the minimum wage. And, actually, if you go below the surface of the polling on the ACA and health-care reform, you find a substantial portion of the country that doesn't like the embattled law because it doesn't go far enough toward health-care's being a right, not a privilege and, in any case, the country repeatedly stated throughout the last 20 years that the status quo ante was an unacceptable combination of corporate avarice and personal tragedy. And yet, that is where the debate is right now, no matter how much Fred Upton says otherwise from deep in the pockets of the people who make money off human misery.
It has become remarkable how the people of this country, an ostensibly self-governing republic, fail to get what an overwhelming percentage of them say they want from their government, over and over again. You can argue, and I have, about the power of money, increased by an order of magnitude through the egregious Citizens United decision. You can argue, and I have, about the unforgivable vandalism practiced by the Republican party and the modern conservative movement that has been the prion disease in the party's higher functions that has driven it mad. But the fact remains that, dammit, there has to be a political price to pay for actively opposing something 66 percent -- or, in the case of the background checks, 91 percent -- of the people say they want. And the electorate is the only body of citizens empowered to exact these penalties, and it has been shamefully lax in doing so. Parts of the country have contented themselves with electing morons and crazy people. (How in the name of god does a buffoon like Louie Gohmert ever run unopposed?) Great portions of the country can be duped, or frightened, into voting against their own economic interests. And the great undifferentiated apathy that attends most of our elections is a deadweight on the democratic process that grows heavier by the year. If our politicians are not responsive to our needs, then it's time for new politicians, and we're the only ones who can bring that about. And yet, it's easier to complain about an inconvenient website, or a scary letter from an insurance company, or bullshit anecdotes that fall apart under the barest scrutiny. The country is ungovernable because we, The People, have decided not to govern it any more. That, to borrow a phrase from the president, is on us.
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Abandonment_Of_Self_Government
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