Well here we are after the election, and no matter who won you were going to end up with half the country with a huge pit in their stomach wondering what went wrong why did the other side win. And the other half breathing a sigh of relief. But no matter what side you we’re on the world is not coming to and end. Of that I am relatively sure…
But having these elections where we have such a polarizing feeling portraying total destruction by either side is a real problem. We really need an election where we feel like multiple candidates could do the job are running for. There are a few real problems in our elections:
One is a natural tendency people to want to gather tougher and support “their team” no matter what. Basically we don’t have political parties that represent policy opinions, we have “teams” that we rally around. Unfortunately given our American tenacity in pursuing winning at all costs we eat ourselves alive. Rather than looking at how to make the country and American’s thrive we get caught up in brining the other team down. And losing sight of the fact that “other team”, well it is made up of another set of Americans.
Making this tendency worse is how money gets used in politics. Money itself isn’t the issue, but that the vast majority gets spent in ad campaigns. Ad campaigns by their nature are trying to find the most effective way to get one candidate / team to win. Trying to present what the issues are, weigh multiple points of view and pick the best option is simply too long, tedious and uncertain for a political campaign, It is far more effective to tie your candidate / team to a brand and make it a right / wrong choice. So basically money in politics today is trying to make us all stupid…
Finally money in politics today has gone dark. The biggest problem I see with the Citizens United Ruling is not how much money is allows to flow into politics its that is misses the very important difference between free speech and money. When I speak out on a subject you know it is me speaking, even if I use a megaphone. But now people can “talk” via money and leave no trace.
We simply need to find a way to counteract this and work toward real information, discussion and debate on what is best for our country.
A Madman has Spoken…