1- A recent diary discussed the abnormally high level of teenage suicides in the district represented by Michele Bachmann...
2- I don't need to tell you anything about the partisan impasse that is the debate on the debt ceiling...
Just two items on a list that could be very, very... very, very... very long!
Taking Michele Bachmann as an example of a very wide spread trend, I have, over the years, read many many diaries that exhorted people to oppose her (her candidacies, her proposals, her actions...) in one way or another...
But what if we had the wrong target? What if we were fighting the wrong fight? What if we were doomed to lose precisely because we are not fighting hard enough on the root cause of this disastrous political climate?
Let's see...
I we really want to "win", we need to clearly identify the enemy, the root cause of the problems that are discussed day in day out on this web site...
Let's postulate that "Michele Bachmann" is the result. Then: what is the cause?
If Michele Bachmann is the result, we may be fighting her in vain, because all the energy spend against her would not necessarily help in uprooting the cause of the problem. Sometimes on the contrary: we may unwittingly be perpetuating the problem!
Thus it is critical, essential!, to find the cause!
So I ask again:
What is the cause that create politicians like Michele Bachmann?
Some of you may believe that the answer is obvious. I am not sure it is. When browsing through some of the hundreds of diaries that are added daily in this web site, it appears that different people would answer the above question very differently.
And I certainly won't claim to know better than any of you. However, the question seems to me a very pertinent and very important one.
Let me give you an example of one thing than give rise to legislators like Bachmann: gerrymandering! I am not sure if Bachmann's own district was ever gerrymandered. It remains that, by definition, gerrymandering puts together into one district all the people who tend to vote one way. Thus, in those districts, no dialogue need to take place between the two sides of the legislative aisle. If any compromises are ever done, they are done during the primaries of the party that "owns" the gerrymandered district. In a "red" district, the real election is not between the Republican candidate and the Democratic candidate. It is between the right and the extreme right primary candidates. And as we have seen in 2010, the extreme right often wins!
Thus extreme candidates like Bachmann get elected.
In this example, the cause of the TEA party caucus would be: gerrymandering. Thus, if we are ever to restore some semblance of respectful political debate in Washington, our efforts should be focused on educating people on the ill effects of gerrymandering and getting legislation passed to ensure that districts do not get too much distorted beyond a reference geometrical shape or beyond reasonable geographical boundaries (state boundaries, rivers, mountain ridges, coasts, etc.)
But again, this is only one example answer to the main question.
How would you answer the question:
If Michele Bachman is the result, what is the cause?
If we understand the cause, then the course of action should become more obvious...
Please give your answer in a comment below or in your own diary (cross-linking this one and yours). Maybe each specific answer should belong to its own comment thread... (provided I am lucky enough to have the constructive debate I am hoping for...)