I am not a political person, but that seems to have changed recently. I, along with many Americans, have ignored political machinations for most of my life. I had no reason to disbelieve the stereotype that politicians are a self-serving, conniving, and distrustful group without the ability to empathize or resist the temptation of bags of money, eagerly offered up by hordes of mustache-twisting lobbyists.
Like most stereotypes, I learned to label politicians this way. My parents experienced the 1960s and lived through the disillusionment of the 1970s, seeing their hopes of peace and change flushed down the toilet as children of the Summer of Love traded in their tie-dye and activism for cell phones and junk bonds in the 1980s.
It was no surprise that my parents never held politicians in high-esteem; after all, they didn’t have a positive foundation based on their shared experience. Add popular culture to the mix – film, television, music – all held a great distrust and negative opinion of elected officials, and it is easy to see where a Generation X-er would carry the same views.
Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s didn’t change my mind. I recall the Reagan Years and its excess; the Cocaine Cowboys riding off into the sunset of Florida; AIDS; Oliver North; the collapse of Russia and the end of the Cold War. The 1990s were a blur, as the country was still nursing a hangover from the 1980s and wondering why we thought parachute pants were a good idea (only to be replaced by billowy harem pants – please Hammer, don’t hurt ’em).
Through Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama…I was on autopilot. Scandals came and went and wars were fought by volunteers who joined looking for college tuition and a steady job – no one wanted to even mention the concept of a draft; the sting of Vietnam was still fresh in the minds of parents who now had draft-aged children.
This was life up until the 2016 Presidential Election. I’d hear the same candidates spout the same promises that we knew were bullshit, but their bullshit was expected…and almost comforting in a weird way. Every candidate would say they were going to change the system; they were going to make their platform the People’s Platform, telling us that we had lost our voice to special interests and that they had they solution…they just needed your vote to make that dream a reality.
As time wore on and candidates fell short of expectations, we would elect a new panel of officials, and watch them ‘go along to get along,’ and not accomplish anything of note. This was comforting, though; we started managing our expectations and lowering the bar. Campaign promise not kept? Well, what did you expect? He/she is a politician…are you surprised?
Does this sound familiar?
Then came The Donald. Trump had danced with politics before, but no one took him seriously. He was viewed as a less learned version of Jesse Ventura, spouting conspiracy theories and getting fringe groups amped up on political Red Bull. When the GOP pushed Trump out front as their candidate, I thought it was their way of passive-aggressively taking their ball and going home. Everyone, myself included, thought that 2016 was decidedly Hillary’s year. Sure, Bernie was a blip for awhile, especially here in the northwest, but Hillary was going to win in a landslide. If the GOP was rolling with Trump, my feeling was that they were simply putting a candidate forward to avoid having a blank line on the ballot. The GOP debates were a circus, devolving into name calling and personal attacks. With no quality candidates to offer up, why not make the race entertaining?
Then he won. The guy actually pulled it off and is sitting in the Oval Office as I type. Clark Griswold nailed it, “…If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn’t be more surprised than I am now.” That was my reaction, and I’m willing to bet that I’m not unique.
I’ve heard the pundits, talk show hosts, and media outlets posit theories on why Trump won, but I have my own ideas. I think the reason that Trump won is because that’s how fed up our country was with the status quo. I’m not saying he was the right choice, but he was the only candidate that represented a change. Again, maybe not a change in the right direction, but that’s my point. Americans have become apathetic with their political system and are unable to hold their elected officials accountable for anything. Transparency was and is…gone. Now, decisions are shrouded in Executive Orders, classified briefings, attorney-client privilege, and special Congressional sessions. It’s impossible to hold a President or elected official accountable when you aren’t privy to the decision, its impact, or how it is affecting the world. Trump, in my opinion, represented the most radical antithesis of a politician that we could find, and America gave him a shot.
Trump was (and is) brash, misogynistic, petty, and thin-skinned. In short, he is flawed to a point where a common person can almost identify with him. If you ask a Trump voter, you’ll hear that they didn’t vote for him based on his alleged harassment accusations, the “bus tape,” or the Russian dossier. Rather, they voted for him because he wasn’t a politician…at all. He was a character on TV; a tough-love host on a reality show that seemed to know how to get things done. Sure, his personal and professional life weren’t laudable, but those weren’t motivating factors. People wanted change. Eight years of Obama didn’t yield enough; Guantanamo was still humming and the war was nearly old enough to drive. Add the bombshell dropped by Edward Snowden, and people’s trust in their government was at an all-time low.
Then Hillary’s emails popped up, and that fire was stoked by strategically placed and timed bogus news stories. Our Facebook Echo Chambers kept us abreast of whatever controversy we needed to copy/paste into a status update, and hashtags became more important than facts and figures. Instead of reading several articles on a given subject, we were happy to take the first Google hit as gospel.
So, while I was surprised by Trump’s victory, I should have seen it coming. So what do we do now? We’ve identified a problem…what is the solution?
Like everything in life, it is easier to criticize than come up with a solution. I have a few ideas, though. Below are my thoughts on how to turn help turn our current political crisis around (maybe).
- All elected officials must live in a low-income housing project in their district, and their residence must rotate every two years. If you are voted out or decide not to run a second term, then the residence must rotate to a new housing project – no homesteading allowed.
- If you are an elected official, then you should be in touch with your constituents, especially those who need your help the most. Mayors, Congressman, Senators – you can’t possibly understand the labor involved in digging a ditch if you’ve never held a shovel. Sure, you may have had a job flipping burgers in 1978, but times have changed. Congressmen pull down, on average, $173K per year – that is more than enough to outfit a low-income apartment. Oh, but Mr./Mrs. Mayor has security concerns? Maybe ask why your position is so reviled, then ante up some of your salary for private security – I’m sure your neighbors would appreciate that, and something tells me that drugs, robbery, and assaults will decrease dramatically the first week you move into your new abode. More importantly, you will gain an understanding of your constituents’ living conditions and just how effective (or ineffective) your policies have been for those who live with the decisions you make on a daily basis. If you are unable to live humbly and sacrifice your personal comfort for others, then you have no business representing a district, city, state, or nation. If you want to selectively represent people, then become a lawyer; hell, most politicians have a JD already, so I’m sure they will bounce back just fine.
- Publish your Inbox and Calendar online for public view.
- I know, this is a heavy lift. The knee-jerk response is that this is impossible, as there are facets to an elected official’s job that deals with sensitive and/or classified information. However, if you’re an elected official, your business IS my business, because I fund your salary, your pension, and your expense account. There is nothing that you do, wear, or eat that isn’t funded by a constituent just like me. If an intelligence agency doesn’t classify an email as important to national security, then I should be able to read it. There are exceptions; Privacy Act, staff personal information, etc. – we can be adults and admit that not everything that is sent in an email is fit for public consumption, hence the word, exception.
- Of course, we have to account for how wily our representatives are; think mouse and mouse trap. If they were required to publish their Inbox in real-time, they would simply side-step and come up with…wait for it…a private email server. That, or they would ensure the deal they brokered with a lobbyist was discussed in a classified email, that way it would be hidden and locked away for years before it is read by the public. To prevent this, I would make the use of private email servers to conduct government business a terminable offense. Again, if you are elected, you work for the people. Your personal vacation and dental exam can be kept on your iPhone; that shady lunch meeting you have scheduled with Big Oil will have to be published and viewed online. If you’re hesitant to admit to the meeting or fear public backlash, then maybe you should ask yourself why you’re having the meeting in the first place.
- At the end of every year, officials will be required to publish their office’s budget expenditures on social media, with clickable links for “drill-downs” into specific cost centers.
- This isn’t as hard as it sounds. Government budgets have become as easy to decipher as ancient hieroglyphs, and that’s probably because it is much easier to hide payoffs, bad decisions, and harassment settlements when you bury them under myriads of accounting codes and other financial sleight-of-hand. When I write, “publish,” I envision a simple pie chart with percentages and dollars. If you hover your mouse over a chart detail, it should allow you to drill down into the specifics of each expenditure type. Spent $100K on “miscellaneous?” What are those itemized expenses, or do I have to wait for MSN to discover that $95K was hush money because you like to text pictures of your dick to the intern?
Those are my ideas for now. As time goes on, I’ll revisit and update my ideas – I’m not one to think that I can’t be wrong or change my opinions.
It’s a start…
Thank you for reading!
Mark
Necessary Motto 