In theory anyway, Democracy’s simple: In self-government, the majority of the people get to call the shots. It’s understood that the majority is made up of a multiplicity of views because it includes so much of the citizenry.
“What do the citizens want?” That’s the first question. But it needs to be accompanied by ‘But, what do the citizens KNOW — do they understand what they want in its proper context?’ A citizenry yearning for Unicorns and Jetpacks for all might be a little too hopeful for their own good. We count on our elected representatives — we expect their perspective to be better than ours, In order to do their jobs representing us, they simply need to know more of the nuts and bolts details about how we run things.
Can we assume they went into that line of work because they liked it — and thought themselves good at it?
Some people go into politics for genuinely altruistic reasons. Yeah, sure — everyone wants to ‘make things better’. The question’s always ‘for whom?’ Guys like Beto O’Rourke — you can hear it in their voices and see it in the way they practice politics: He’s in it because he actually cares — about people, about the commonweal — about the whole notion of what ‘America’ is supposed to be.
Ironically, Beto’s opponent Ted Cruz is the cynical opposite. Ted thinks he’s smarter than the rest of us — and knows better. He doesn’t know better what WE need — but he knows damned well what HE needs — and what those giving him money need. Ted Cruz is ‘clearer’ than an Upper Thetan Scientologist on that.
American Retail Politics isn’t about doing what’s best for anyone. It isn’t about believing in anything other than getting more votes (however you need to accomplish that end). It is, by its nature, an exercise in anti-democratic cynicism. And yet — every two years (on a national level), we demonstrate to the world how little we value actual Democracy and how much we value money.
Our media loves the horse race. They ADORE it. They see it through the most narrow Horse Race-y lens. A zero-sum game where one group of Americans wins while another loses. Then they wonder — after crowing about winners and losers — whey Americans are perpetually at each others’ throats. Elections don’t take place in vacuums. This one certainly isn’t.
Yet the News Media wants to tell THIS story as if it’s happening in a world where the President of the United States — and his political party — aren’t TRAITORS. When indictments drop — whenever they drop — the News Media will act as if the crime started to be committed AT THAT MOMENT.
No — all the time the News Media behaved as if this was Normal World, a CRIME was being committed — right in front of them. They even asked some of the perps questions — and got lied to. The TRUTH didn’t matter, the ‘correct answer’ did.
It’s the ‘correct answer’ that drives Retail Politics. It ain’t about what anyone believes. It’s about the getting and keeping of power.
That’s NOT how Democracy works.
We are living inside PROOF that THIS — what we’re living in — is how Democracy dies.