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Zonie63 -> RE: Fix Congress, vote against the Incumbent (10/9/2013 7:33:31 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: MasterAutarch
Like a lot of people I am fed up with our legislators. They are more interested in winning than what is good for the populace. I am starting a campaign:
"Fix Congress, vote against the incumbent." [:D]
Note that the concept is bi-partisan... or is the term pan-partisan? :)
If everyone in congress and senate gets replaced, maybe the new guys will get the message that the people are tired of these games.
I'm still looking for just the right slogan... I'm also coming up with "Fire the legislators, vote against the incumbent."
Whichever you prefer, tell your friends.
I agree for the most part, although the slogan I would use is: "Fix the country, vote against Republicans and Democrats." If more people would vote for independent, write-in, and/or third-party candidates, it would break the stranglehold of the two major parties.
Another problem is the process by which political parties select their candidates, as even fewer people vote in the primaries than they do in the general elections. In districts where one party dominates, then it's the primary election which makes all the difference. That's where it can be difficult, since to unseat an incumbent would mean there would have to be a challenge within the incumbent's own party, which can be seen as a "betrayal" and often considered bad form within party politics. It's notions like these which the voting public will eventually need to abandon in order to truly fix things. It's not just a battle between political parties, but also within political parties as well.
As long as people are content to vote for the lesser of two evils, we deserve what we get.
As long as people gain their political knowledge and formulate their ideals on the basis of 30-second TV commercials, we deserve what we get.
As long as people continue to be suckered and fooled by the same lies election after election, we deserve what we get.
The public has to take some responsibility here. I've heard terms like "sheeple" tossed around quite a bit these days, but we really should hold ourselves and our fellow citizens to a higher standard than that.
The sad thing is, if the general public has deteriorated to such a point where they're nothing more than misguided, easily-manipulated fools, then probably nothing can save this country.
I also think that it's not enough to simply look at the current crop of politicians as bad people. Maybe they are, but I think it's also necessary to look at the kinds of ideas and political philosophies our politicians represent to us. Most voters don't get to actually meet or talk with their elected representatives (beyond campaign/hand-shaking events), so what they're really voting for is an image - something that's presented to them and represents something they feel aligned with or connected to in some vicarious way.
I often think about this whenever I see commercials or political flyers that try to show a candidate as a "good Christian" and a "family man," where they usually have pictures of the candidate and his/her family, perhaps some shots of them playing out back with the family dog. It's the image that people are voting for. The actual individual candidate is an interchangeable, dispensable component, not unlike news anchors on local TV stations. The names and faces don't really matter, since they're still part of the same organization and compelled to present the same image and set of ideals - which the gullible public will swallow at each election.
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