Hello everyone. Loooong time lurker here. Finally decided I had something to say that was actually worth sharing.
I think that most people here support the President is a true statement. I think that even more people here do not support Mitt Romney is a truer statement. There are many things that are being leveled at both men. There are many elements that are true and many more that are not so.
I want to take a moment to talk about a charge that is being leveled against the President in particular, but in some respect against Mitt Romney.
This will be a complex post...so bear with me.
Follow me below the fold if you'd like :-)
One of the big things that we hear is lacking in Washington is "Leadership". "If only someone would lead" is often the refrain heard from various "very serious people" (Republican and Democrat alike) in regards to what our economy needs. I happen to agree with them. Our country needs leadership. However, it is the populace who is at fault that we lack it.
(I am a geek and a nerd at heart. I love process. So bare with me as we get to my point. You can skip to the next () series if you don't like process).
Let us look at the definition of leadership:
Leadership, Noun: 1. The action of leading a group of people or an organization. 2.The state or position of being a leader.
Chemers M. (1997) gives us this definition:
a process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task".
Seems to me we now need the definition of leader:
Leader, Noun: 1. The person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country. 2. A person followed by others.
(Process over everyone! See...not so bad! I might have some more.....)
So we can define leadership as: the qualities needed to organize a group to accomplish tasks. However, I think we need to observe the second definition of a leader in order to properly base the argument. Leadership requires followers. Leadership requires the tacit agreement of being led.
This is where we reach the crux of the issue, and the reason I felt the need to move from lurker to sharer. If D.C. needs what we have defined as leadership, D.C. has only itself and us to blame. We know the following are facts:
1. Congressional Republicans and their allies have stated their primary and chief goal is make sure President Obama is a one term president.
2. Congressional Republicans and their allies have utilized every legal option to enact their primary and chief goal.
3. Congressional Republicans and Democrats have refused to vote on bills where the other party can have a positive optic at the expense of the party relenting opposition.
4. We have had the least productive Congress in most people's lifetimes.
So, we pretty much have an environment that is inherently HOSTILE to leadership. Everyone says they want bipartisanship, but hardly anyone actually supports the moderate in the primary because primaries are decided by the base of the party. No one wants to be led by anyone who is not already in their flock. There is no room for anyone to lead the opposition if they were not already in the opposition.
Let me take a second a explain where I think this stems from...and I promise it will tie back into the topic!
This is what I think President Washington and many of our other Founding Fathers where talking about when they warned us of the two party system that they foresaw. A two party system is not inherently wrong, but it only works so long as the only issues being debated are generally big, nebulous, and less impacting in daily life. Our system of government seems better served by multiple parties. It is almost as if it is not mentioned in the Constitution because it is so obvious how necessary multiple parties are! The Constitution is all about dissipating power. The Constitution (while flawed) was really good at making sure power would be kept in as many hands as possible, preventing a king or whatnot. It was natural that two major parties would grow from our first big debates on structure(Federal Power vs State Power). This is the basis of our two-party system. Unfortunately, we have also decided that every other issue is an either/or issue AND must be attached to one of the two preceding parties. If we had multiple parties representing the huge diversity of thought and self-interest it would be much easier to claim a mantle of leadership as well as have a congress capable of being led.
Now before you dismiss me with "we DO have lots of other parties, etc", not really. Election law on state and local levels makes it impossible for a real third party, short of a massive grassroots effort established by many rather than the few (something akin to Occupy or what people think the Tea Party is, lol). This is why leadership does not really work in today's congress/government. We have become the extreme (and getting more so) of the warning. I'll admit, that as an American History major, I know lots about the past and highly partisan times. I am NOT saying that this is new or unique to our times...America has always had a highly....entertaining...electoral history. But I am saying that we have created an environment hostile to leadership because it boils down to an either/or. If a candidate attempts to make a third option viable, the two parties seem to be able work together to eliminate the threat. This is the only time they can work together because they know how much change a true third, fourth, or fifth party would force to how Americans would have to understand government. It would force people to actually understand civics!! Then, we could actually have leadership. Then we could actually see people happy with their government, because there would be no need to go to the bottom of the barrel, AND the extremes of both bases will no longer determine the candidates for all of the offices. This would end the crappy gerrymandering thing. That should be illegal btw.
But, in the end...too many people don't care or expect elected officials to educate them. Ha. Elected officials work on misinformation. They keep the laws so students don't learn (all in the guise of freedom!). Frankly, I think the Constitution implicitly requires us to be knowledgeable so when we choose not vote or whatnot, we do so out of choice rather than out of ignorance...but that is only my opinion.
So in the end...don't blame anyone but yourself that we lack leadership in government. We the people allow all of this to happen. We do not have to accept the system the way it is. We do not have to allow things to happen the way they do. The Constitution is clear that we can decide for ourselves....we need to hold our officials accountable, but also provide them an atmosphere to actually LEAD!
Getting rid of money in politics and the allure of highly profitable post-congressional careers (cough...lobbying...cough) would go a long way in helping break the strangle on our government.
It's places like Daily Kos that keep me faithful in the idea that we can get to a better state. Places like this keep people informed. Places like this link people to the myriad ideas available on the internets. Places like this are the heart of democracy, regardless of its politics. It is places like this that will always win out over lies and untruth.