Is talking about politics becoming a waste of time?  We have just been in the midst of another off-cycle Senate election here in Taxachusetts, and I’m tired of it.  I fear that politics have been reduced to the following:

1.       Say whatever you think will get you elected, and keep in mind there is no accountability to/for your campaign promises if you are elected.

2.      Raise as much money as you can and spend it on:

a.      Enrolling knee jerk low information voters.

b.      Running smear campaigns that do not tell me why I should elect you, but point out real or made up shortcomings of the opponent.

3.      Clip your coupon and make your connections until you can either retire with fat government bennies, take a better, fatter govie position… or take a private sector position that is reciprocation for some favor you made happen based on your position of power.

You notice I didn’t specify Democratic or Republican politics… I said politics.  And all this would be fine if there weren’t constant scandals, jockeying for major society changing legislation (ACA and Immigration), and the often-overlooked-until-it comes-up-again sustainability elephant (budget deficit/debt ceiling/long term unfunded liabilities).  As if #1-3 weren’t bad enough, we get the death knell… the ridiculous fact that rule #4 of new politics is:

4.       Do not break ranks with your party under any circumstances.

Consider this excerpt from the following LINK:

“In D.C., if you give me a given member of Congress and tell me where they stand on gay marriage, I can guess where they stand on almost everything,” Broockman said. “If you give me a member of the public and tell me where they stand on gay marriage, I can do a bit better than chance in guessing what else they believe, but not that much better than chance.”

Translation: The public shape their ideas independently, based on what they believe is right, issue by issue.  Then they vote for representatives they hope will bring these ideas to Washington.  But the people in Congress don’t vote for what they think is right, or even what their constituents are asking them to vote for. They vote for what their party leadership tells them to vote for, which is why David Broockman’s research suggests he can guess where senators/representatives stand on all issues based on where they stand on one issue.  Some of this may be hyperbole, but I doubt it is that far off the mark. And that is what alarms me about the seemingly never ending parade of scandals coming out of Washington these days.  You can argue that this is how the system works, you need votes to get things done otherwise all we have is gridlock.  But it wasn’t always this way.  I would argue it is a leadership issue.  The “Leaders” set the message and the lemmings follow, or they are replaced… with consequence.

‘Big Jim Slade’ resides in Western Massachusetts.