Our current political and social system seems increasingly moody, to
me. There are wild swings of SCOTUS between decisions like the recent
Prop 8 and DOMA decisions to things like Citizens United. Congress is
swinging from left to right control practically with every election
cycle. The presidency is caught between class warfare and ideological
warfare. There is a fast-growing disparity between the upper ends of our
economy and the lower, and we seem to just be hopping from one bursting
bubble to another with dotcoms, real estate, etc. It is as if there is
no room for moderation in Washington, anymore. We don't seem to even
know who we are from one administration to the next. It is as if America
just hit political puberty.
The further we go into this realm of
extremes, the more convoluted politics and political action becomes.
With super PACs and corporations, and now even individuals allowed to
feed unlimited amounts of capital into parties, one wonders how much
equality the system still supports. More and more, our elections are won
only in name by votes, when in reality the choices of candidates are
made by a smaller and smaller pool of connected, wealthy interests and
their various lobbies in Washington. Left or right, American federal
politics is more and more a game of board room chairs, if not of
thrones. In a country built on money talking and other things walking,
is it any surprise that the rapidly impoverishing middle and lower
classes also see a diminished capacity for their own voices to reach the
ears of power? It's like the promises the POTUS makes are no more than the promises a class presidential candidate made at Anytown High.
It is not, however, that Americans have no
complicity in this system of extremes. Our memories have grown
increasingly short, and our reactions to crises, political or otherwise,
seem magnified, in all respects. Our political culture is riddle with affairs, and sexting scandals, and gossiping frenemies (I mean, why IS Nancy Pelosi's hair so big?). Our representatives seem to be cycling
rapidly between political polarities, but do we not elect them? Do they
not, by nature of our system, represent us? Do we not choose our Queen Bees and Wannabes? Though the laws in
congress lately seem to swing wildly from controversy to scandal and
back, is it any wonder, considering the wild swings of public opinion in
the last two decades? Twenty years ago, who could've imagined that a
federal judge in Texas would be striking down the state ban on same-sex
marriage? Poor sincere Cady--err--Barack, just a scrappy kid from Africa, with no idea how to play the game. Who could've imagined he'd become such hard, shiny, drone-bombing plastic?
America, it seems, has reached a strange political
adolescence. Checks between the branches of government are used often
and decisively like notes in home room. The Supreme Court regularly lays
down bitterly divided decisions like a prom committee on too many
stimulants. The first black president was elected as a liberal reformer
after a primary campaign of Mean Girls level backbiting (Hillary
Clinton: fugly slut? Pusher? Dyke?). Despite cheerleadery claims of hope and
change, Obama has in many ways presided over a slide to the right in
policies and decisions that nobody could've expected. Finally, for its
part Congress sometimes becomes so overwhelmed at the enormity of
everything that it, like, literally can't even right now, and has to
shut down the government for a couple of months and go up to its room
and cry.
Hillary somehow did look like a rock star, though, at the dance (even after that Bengahzi bus Boehner allegedly shoved her in front of).
And Barney Frank? Yes. Almost too much to function.
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