Dirt_Dad said:
Yes, and no. As GrahamD said, it's all about power. That is exactly what it's about. We have career politicians on both sides that care only about managing their careers. They do care about catering to their campaign donors, but will not hesitate to replace one set of donors with a another set that will be more beneficial to their career. We don't have representatives, we have people who are experts at maintaining their own power at any cost.
Until there is true term limits I don't believe thing will get fixed. Maybe the reboot will fix it, but impossible to predict the outcome of that.
::026::
You hit it.
Single term limits are needed, but would take a Constitutional Convention, setting off a free-for-all on basic changes to our nation and society.
I don't work directly for any appointees or politicians but am senior enough to be in regular contact. An interesting thing over my quarter century+ as a Fed has been watching the change of attitude in most politicians and appointees who are re-nominated and keep a position for many years. It happens to some of the senior management too, especially in the bigger agencies.
When they first come to DC, few are pompous, they are almost ALL willing to listen, and every one wants to do "the right thing." It's actually pretty easy to spot who will lose it first, as they are the ones who quickest move from walking around, listening to staff (if ever), and enjoying hall talk; to becoming bosses who are seldom seen.
After the first term, nearly all become entrenched and like all humans, have developed a core group of supporters. What makes the politicians and appointees different is that they are all extrovert alphas with egos. To simply get to have such a job requires individuals who network incessantly as leaders. Sound like your peers at lunch on any particular day? What is highly visible to us as staff is that the pols & appointees ALL need external validation from other people. They draw supporters who tend to be "yes" people, validating their thoughts and comments to get some of that power. Nearly all people have some of this need for external support, but the pols NEED it to USE it. Power is a closed loop.
Over and over the majority lose the ability to listen. They are leaders, after all, making thing things the way they see and believe that life should be from their perspective. Think about what your view would be if you had most lunches and dinners with people who represent something constantly complementing you adn trying to be your friend. Increasingly with time, the pols and appointees make changes that they wouldn't have when they arrived.
On their departure I regularly ask how they think they have changed. The answer is almost universally that they feel they've had to learn the system but that they as individuals kept on "doing the right thing." We humans generally don't see our own changes very well, so yes, I totally agree that there are good solid reasons for single term limits.
And if a Constitutional Convention were to take place, let's just replace the entire House of Representatives with actual voting by the Electorate. That was the original intent. It was an impossible dream in the time of Jefferson, but over 200 years later we have electronic voting. It WILL unleash unintended new issues. And while very few people will actually vote for or against most issues, we already have a number of Congresspeople who miss more than 1 in 10 votes despite being paid to be there. There were almost 122 million people voting in the last Presidential election, which was 57% of the voting population. Even having 1/2% of that turnout would be a heck of a lot more representative of the real population than what we have now.
