Pop quiz: which of the following statements does not belong with the others:
a) Washington is "broken"!
b) Partisan politics is ruining the country!
c) Things are worse now than ever before!
d) We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it any more!
Actually, it's a trick question. While d) is, of course, the famous catchphrase from Howard Beale's rant in the 1976 movie Network, it falls in with the others as oft-repeated description of the current state of affairs in our nation's capitol, and the American public's purported reaction to it. In fact, to hear some tell it, Beale's rallying cry now represents mainstream sentiment in America.
As I was scouring my pantry looking for some tea to toss out my window (I ended up just throwing out an expired Starbucks coupon), the thought occurred to me - is this really a new situation? Haven't we "thrown the bums out" before? Did the villains ousted in 1974, 1994 and 2008 just change jerseys, get some plastic surgery, throw a new letter after their name, and sneak back in through another entrance?
If that's not the case, then why are we continually in this kind of situation, where the federal government seems, depending on your point of view, anywhere from ineffectual to downright evil? Was the D.C. beltway actually constructed by aliens, designed to emit mind-altering rays that remove competence, principles and noble intentions from those that take up residence inside it?
To me, this is just another example of the pendulum that is American politics. Like a pendulum, American politics will only swing so far, before it inevitably comes back in the other direction. Like a pendulum, the further it swings in one direction, the further and more drastically it then swings back. And as with a pendulum, there is never a state of equilibrium, and the center is just something that gets passed on the way to the other extreme.
There have been moments in our history where this metaphor has been temporarily suspended - usually when the specter of something like collapsing buildings in New York, burning battleships in Hawaii, or an imploding economy prompts folks to set aside their normal tribal impulses of religion, ethnicity, or shared economic interests, and pull together as one bigger tribe of Americans. Inevitably, the crisis passes, and folks retake their assigned seats in their designated cheering section - either as party in power railing at the obstructionists across the aisle, or the party out of power, railing at the ineffectiveness of those in power.
It's always easier to be out of power - second-guessing the decisions of others, rather than making the decisions - and maybe even taking up Howard Beale's rant (or, as was the case a few years ago, threatening to move to Canada).
So, if this is the inevitable American condition, the logical question is - why? When virtually every political poll and pundit would indicate that the vast majority of of American voters gravitate toward the political center, why do we seem stuck in this vicious and seemingly endless cycle of back-and-forth?
I suspect that - as is so often the case in life - a major cause of the problem can be found in our own mirrors.
I think a lot of it is just a basic manifestation of human nature, more specifically a tendency toward intellectual laziness that is part of our behavioral DNA. It's the same thing that feeds our natural predisposition toward tribalism, bias and prejudice, the product of the evolutionary process that for centuries favored those that banded together and distrusted differing characteristics or viewpoints. It's always easier to fall back on our tribal tendencies, and pre-judge an individual based on whatever group we identify them as belonging to, than to take the time and mental energy to look at the individual - and the "content of their character", if you will - and make an individual assessment.
When it comes to politics, we're no different. We're all busy trying to navigate our everyday lives, and only have so much mental energy to devote to assessing officeholders, candidates and the situations they are dealing with. It becomes convenient to develop an internal political "template", constructed from the dogma that we feel suits our viewpoint and interests. Assisting in this process is the presence of so many talented national entertainers; it is easy to find one aligned with our template, and anoint them as our prophet du jour. We then proceed to use this template as a prism, through which we view every politician and political question we encounter.
Politicians know this - or soon find out once they enter the political arena. We're basically complaining about the players becoming adept at the game and rules that we've created, and continually enforce.
If we all would do the following, I think it would go along way toward breaking this cycle:
1. Be conscious of our own thought processes, and how we're evaluating a given situation. Are we blindly applying our template to the issue at hand, or are we evaluating it on its own merits? Many people automatically fall in on either side of certain political principles, such as big government vs. small government, personal privacy vs. national security, etc., and view these as absolutes. History is full of examples where the "right" answer, in retrospect, has changed with the situation. For example, the privacy vs. security equation resolves much differently when applied to the days of Watergate than when applied to Sept. 12, 2001.
2. Recognize our favorite political pundits as what they mainly are - and that's entertainers. The Rush Limbaughs, Glenn Becks, Bill Mahers, Keith Olbermanns, and Michael Moores of the world are talented entertainers that have cultivated a following by finding and pushing people's hot buttons, often using humor - today's most effective bully pulpit. I'm not saying that these people can't be right, it's just that they aren't prophets who are automatically right. What's more, just because they are good at criticizing those in office, doesn't mean that they themselves could govern their way out of a paper bag. We should question the views of those that we tend to agree with with more vigor than those with whom we don't.
Put it this way - Sheryl Crow's fairly talented too, but just because I like a couple of her songs didn't mean I was going to buy into her plan to limit ourselves to one square of toilet paper per sitting. What an inconvenient truth that would've been!
Oh by the way, if the above list of political entertainers elicited an emotional response from you - your favorite guy is nothing like those other guys - then thanks for illustrating my point.
