I’m definitely not content with the flawed political system we have in America.
I don’t know what I can do about that, realistically.
I will vote, but even at that point the stupid electoral college system will mean that the State where I live will assign all of its 11 electoral college votes to the party I did not vote for, even if the split of the vote, in this State at least, might be more like 60/40.
That’s just one example of my voice not really mattering.
Most politicians appear to be bought and paid for, and instead of serving the public they serve themselves, and the primary objective appears to be to hold on to power at all costs, in a never ending cycle of continually running for office.
It is all aided and abetted by an extremely partisan media, which itself is bought and paid for.
I strongly suspect many millions who live here are dissatisfied with the status quo here, but it is difficult to know what can be done about it.
Ive read several pieces connecting the West Wing (the absurd idealism, the power of the bully pulpit, the belief in the green lantern vision of politics where one great man can fix things) with the modern challenges the Democratic party. IOW too many of the intellectual class of the party viewed it as a How To, or even an expectation setting experience, rather than a sickly sweet piece of silly TV and have adopted a political mind set based on what would or could happen in that show.
It’s an interesting theory, but if it is true, it’s even more interesting to see the vastly increased cynicism Sorkin displayed in Newsroom. And even trying to fix the issues they address pretty much killed poor old Charley
The West Wing was a great show, but at heart it was a rose-tinted take on the Clinton years (MS instead of a blowjob from an intern, etc). That said, the Democratic Party has never really come close to rebuilding that Clinton coalition, not even Obama in 2008.
I wonder if the freedom in West, that had such lengthy stability, has led to the majority sleep-walking into a bictatorship. For the majority the two options are largely irrelevant (beyond tribalism but in terms of getting things done beyond the stability) and so the party-entities have evolved and become sentient - demanding feeding and (opulent) survival - at the cost of the electorate largely. To me there is a clear parallel to the NRA.
Specifically in America, the issue is less one of becoming complacent over such long standing freedom, and more never being honest about what freedom they have. Americans learn about the civil war and only some of them accept it was fought over the future of slavery (It WaS StaTTES RIghTs). Of those who understand what the civil war was, only a small fraction understand that the outcome didnt really resolve the slave issue, and almost immediately after the end of the civil war the country essentially went back to slavery under another name. It took until 1964 before different voter eligibility rules for black people were officially lifted, but the practice of black disenfrachisement then just continued using different more stealthy means.
We have tremendous complacency, but it’s because we’ve collectively never been honest with ourselves rather than because its been too good for too long.
I think it’s just the mask has come off. Partly I think the result of the change in public discourse over the past decade or so, but also partly the increased realization of how untouchable the Supreme Court is in general and specifically the ideologically aligned Religious Majority are.
During the Cold War Kruschev decided one of the biggest advantages they had was a term he called American Exceptionalism. He meant it as a perjorative to illustrate that they’re simply not honest or introspective enough to understand their weaknesses. Instead there is just a knee jerk demand that everyone treats whatever America does as defacto the right way…the best way. Regan turned it into a non-ironic positive and since then the country has doubled down on the idea.
I think the cynical reading of the issue is that the status quo is best protected by convicting people things are already awesome because 'murica
It was interesting during the pandemic in the UK, that the slogan that reached people most vividly wasn’t “do this or that to protect each other”, it was more about protecting an institution, “protect the NHS”.
I mean the dysfunctional political system is aided by the partisan media. We need much better news media over here, something reliable, with standards upheld for having to be factual.
Instead, no matter what side you vote, you can select the channels of choice and digest your news, to suit. It is an echo chamber, and it reinforces the sense of them and us.
Often the various channels don’t even report on the same news items, or they major and minor on wildly different stories, so the sense of what is really going on is different for people, depending on which news source they go to.
Sorry if it wasn’t clear. It get what you mean about how a partisan media would be bad, but I’m not sure what you mean by the media being partisan. I’m well aware that its a commonly stated idea, but it just doesn’t jive with what I see. Obviously Fox is intensely partisan and no longer qualifies even as news, but as an opposition research and coms arm of the Republican Party. But there is no equivalent on the other side. Nothing even close. Yet those who benefit from Fox’s coverage bleat constantly about the MSM being partisan (i.e. left/liberal) as a way of not having to address questions to them from them or engage about how distorted or fake Fox is. People who value being reasonable then adopt that framing because placing oneself between what the right and left are saying feels most reasonable, without ever stopping to think whether that framing is actually reasonable.
“Most the journalists at MSM orgs are personally liberal that means their coverage is biased towards liberals”
“CNN and MSNBC are just the liberal version of fox”
“WAPO and NYT are liberal rags”
I am familiar with the arguments and how commonly they are stated, they just don’t remotely stack up and people who repeat them should understand they are doing the right wing media’s job for them.
