Keep the ‘Change’ – I’ll Take a Washington Insider, Thanks
Democracy is supposed to be representative of the will of the People.
The People, as a Nation, are not packed cheek-by-jowl in Washington, DC. That lovely little Emirate of Incumbistan that has so worked itself so as to control the Vassal State of Electistan so they don’t really have to represent those poor Electistanians anymore… just some fraction of them that can be paid off with goodies and promises and convinced to come out and vote.
The definition of ‘representative democracy’ at the founding was: knowing your representative so they could represent you. Not trying to get through a number of staffers and flacks that would dissuade you from even thinking of trying to communicate with your representative. Only at the Presidential and Senatorial level was that to be the case. Now at the Representative level we get 1:500,000 or higher which means your chance of actually knowing your Representative is: 0.0002%.
That is your ‘Washington indsider’ from Incumbistan. And they help to arrange things to that the payoffs to certain parts of their district will reward some and not others, and then they vote on things to provide ‘services’ to those without which would be called ‘bread and circuses’ but we call ‘pork’ and ‘social safety net’ and ‘sub-prime bailout’. This has helped to depress voter turn-out over the last 40 years to the point where a mere minority of the population, below 30%, is needed to win a ‘majority’. And that is in *Presidential Elections* with the elections between them needing less than 25%. By pure percentage turnout as a demonstration of the legitimacy of democracy, the NSDAP in 1932-33 did better in Germany than either of the two parties are doing, today, in the US. That should be extremely frightening for those liking the idea of democracy and governing by the consent of the governed.
Why would you choose an individual actively working, over time, to make the distance between the governed and those doing the governing *greater*? That being ‘Washington insiders’. If you don’t trust non-career politicians used to packing pork in, taking money from you and then returning pennies to keep the poor, poor and increase the lack of education… then *do* choose one. Just don’t complain about ‘gridlock’, increased taxes, you having less say in things, pork barrel projects galore, and the lack of accountability in the system of representative democracy.
That is if you go out and bother to vote.
Which the majority no longer do between Presidential elections… and this may be the first Presidential election to see *that* happen, too in quite some time… since the Civil War, I believe…
