killer buffalo

Part I

So often countries’ names—the People’s Republic of China or that of Korea—falsely remind their citizens of what their governments are not. It seems political parties have the same effect on their constituents. Neither are Democrats democrats nor Republicans republicans. If our two parties believed in democracy and pursued it unconditionally, they wouldn’t need names like “Democratic” and “Republican” to remind us of it. That they have each trademarked and registered an alternate definition of America’s supposed form of government is a testament to their collective autocracy and the ideals they lack.

Partisanship is rather America’s answer to monarchy, and it’s only an ideological one; when successful, parties keep power in the hands of those who agree, the original intent in restricting governance to a family. While Europe’s medieval monarchies bred incest and with it the health problems that led to their self-destruction, ours have no human risk to check their power. By filling nearly all federal roles, they have instead overcome the only natural check that once stood in their path—the Constitution. And inter-branch agreements and inter-party blackmail, silent or otherwise, have allowed political establishments to stop enforcing the balances they were at one time required to.  You don’t turn your brother in when he steals.

The first results of the corrupted system are the now necessary qualifications for president. A media controlled race, and a special interest controlled media have made it imperative that presidential hopefuls  occupy government, specifically congressional, roles at the time in which they pursue their national campaign. In other words, presidential candidates can only be elected if they can control the airwaves and they can only control the airwaves with federal power and lots of money—both things they can acquire during a Congressional stint which would also double as political experience. Unfortunately, spending too long in Congress leads the electorate to associate politicians with the hugely unpopular legislature that manages to stay in power despite its 19% approval ratings.

Congressional stagnancy, the theory that an ineffectual Congress is the result of the high rate incumbency re-election, is the second contemporary effect of the absence of democracy. Even though the 109^th House of Representatives ended its term with an approval rating of around 23%, 98% of the incumbents were re-elected. This is the result of both the gerrymandering that renders votes meaningless in all but a few contested districts and the ability to raise massive amounts of campaign money that is associated with already having a position in Congress.

The likelihood you live somewhere where you can choose your representative is slim, and you probably can’t influence who becomes president. Remember too, that republics never get voted into power: it’s too late to re-elect democracy. For now we can be a spectators, let destiny unfold, and laugh at the hypocrisy and the irony that those of whom we disapprove will govern us, laugh when Mr. McCain criticizes Congress for going on vacation during economic turmoil despite that his presidential bid has amounted to a yearlong break from the job he was hired to do, and laugh when Mr. Obama accuses Mr. McCain of accepting money from corporate lobbyists. Above that we may hope, for our own sake or for our country’s, that the incest continues and the hemophilia bleeds the system dry. It will get worse before it gets better.

-David Lamb

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