Currently the idea is there will be a
shorter update on Tuesday and Thursday about anything. In three
weeks, I've only written to three, but it's a work in progress.
According to Gallup, public confidence
in Congress is at it's lowest point in the last forty-three years
(though it is not much worse than 2010 and 2008, and only a bit worse
than 1991). Support for the office of the President has also been
trending downwards since the 1990s, (but was actually lowest in
2007).
At the same time, candidates unworthy
of even the title of nominee, and demagogues unfit for government
entered politics. Sometimes willfully ignorant of facts, and often
menacingly manipulative of the truth these candidates have worked to
undermine the institutions of the modern democracy. Threatening
protesters with violence, a free press with jail, and trampling on an
independent judiciary, they have revealed the type of leaders they
would be if elected.
And they've achieved it because of
voter cynicism.
The last decade and a half have not
been the reward citizens of the Western world expected. An unending
war on terror, a massive surveillance state, the shredding of the
social safety net, and the devastating recession (which still
continues in most of Europe), wearied the middle class citizen. They
expected continued economic improvement and relative calm
internationally. They wonder, who did this to us? Who brought this
calamity upon us?
And while, in the United States,
Republican and Democratic politicians were partly to blame, many
factors were beyond their control.
But the voter has laid the entirety of
the blame upon those who have led them. In their cynicism they
reject the steady hand of the majority of officials who have led them
right.
As they remove experience, they favor a
desperate change, change for change's sake without regard for what
might come of it, even if it be chaos and division.
Instead of this, let the voter choose
skepticism. Let them observe their candidates and remove those who
failed to act justly, who have been cruel, or ignorant.
Democracy can not survive a cynical
public.
And so, while there will always be
those who are corrupt, assume a candidate has acted as best as they
could, until they demonstrate otherwise.
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