Campaign 2010: No Way to Run a Democracy

[babylonsister]

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/10/campaign-2010-no-way-to-run-a-democracy/65232/

Campaign 2010: No Way to Run a Democracy
Andrew Cohen
Oct 31 2010, 11:45 AM ET 9

snip//


I am no political theorist. But here is a concept that seems obvious to me. If you populate government with ignorant people, or with people who avowedly disrespect government, or with people whose background and experience and public integrity in no way merit political office, sooner or later you will have worse governance. The same is true if you elect leaders following political campaigns that overflow with hysteria. Four billion dollars spent to scare voters. Four billion spent to preserve the lobbyists' hold on Washington. Garbage in, garbage out. "Everything is amplified," Jon Stewart said Saturday at his "Restore Sanity" rally, "so nothing gets heard."

Indeed, the 2010 crop of campaign insanity, unleashed by Citizens United, explains precisely why the "Restore Sanity" rally with Stewart and Stephen Colbert has resonated so well. A great many people, and especially a great number of younger people, want adults in Washington who will act with foresight and selflessness. And this includes the media estalishment. The ralliers are skeptical of a politics-centric media they see in self-sustaining partnership with the engines of the political campaigns. These people want smart candidates. They want even smarter elected officials. And they don't want to feel like they are being played by Establishment journalists. They don't see the wisdom they know democracy needs in and around Washigton; instead, they see high comedy, a tragi-comedy really, unfolding on their watch.

Democracy demands wisdom. But this year, all democracy seems to have offered is Christine O'Donnell, with her proud ignorance, and Alvin Greene, with his own baffling riff, and dozens of other candidates unworthy of our respect, let alone our votes. It has given us a candidate, California's Meg Whitman, who wants so desperately to be elected that she was willing to spend nearly $200 million of her own money to do so, a fact which ought to legally disqualify her from politics again. And it has given us Sarah Palin, the avatar of the naton's latest know-nothing movement, looming in the wings. Friends, this is no way to run a democracy, much less a wise one.

[OHdem10]

1. Aha:, if you intend to get rid of Government, you do not care if

things fail. Perverse thinking --it makes it easier to get
rid of government.

[babylonsister]

2. And then what-anarchy? Maybe that's what 'they' want, but

that would be disastrous, and most thinking people know it.

[FrenchieCat]

3. Kick!

[Lilith Unfair]

4. K&R

It hasn't been for three decades, sadly.

[salinen]

5. Sound words

I was thinking today that the Tea Party is nothing more than the violent, intolerant, anti-intellectual wing of the Republican Party. It's extremely well funded because of the Citizens United Decision. It's candidates must have a certain amount of lunacy to gain favor with the lunatic portion of the American Electorate.

It always bothered me that people were so easily manipulated by mindless appeals to their dark paranoia. But now it makes sense that the Hitlers and Stalins and Bushes can come easily to power.

Peace