There is a phrase I keep hearing in the media and reading in
the news and for the life of me, I cannot parse what they are saying. The words
alone are pretty clear but the meaning of the phrase is completely beyond me. The
phrase I keep hearing is “Throw the bums out.”
All through the run-up and throughout the aftermath of the
election the pundits have been telling us how “…mad the electorate is at the gridlock
in congress…” and how this election is delivering (or has delivered) a “throw
the bums out” message to Washington. I have no idea what this phrase means in
this context.
I know that colloquially, the phrase “throw the bums out”
means to oust the actual (or perceived) unproductive group. Usually, this
phrase applies to a group as a whole – but has some usage for individual
members of the group.
So why is it that pretty much every election for the past
decade-or-so has been labeled as a “Throw The Bums Out” election when the successful
defense of incumbent seats runs somewhere between 80% and 95% during that same
period!?
On what planet does the media reside!? Where can a few
senators and a hand-full of congressmen losing their jobs constitute “throwing the
bums out?” Interestingly, one report that I heard this morning came CLOSE to
the truth but just missed the mark!
(Or, as Maxwell Smart would have put it: “…missed it by just THAT
much!”)
On NPR this morning one pundit talked about the dissonance of
the electorate sending Republican senators and representatives to Washing while
also support Minimum Wage initiatives; something that the Republicans have
provided long, strong, and vocal opposition to. This pundit chalked-it-up to
people being dissatisfied with the ability to progress in the jobs they have –
or change to the jobs they want. But even that explanation rings hollow and
runs contrary to Ockham’s Razor. It is unnecessary to guess at what mechanism
might be causing a counterintuitive result to the elections.
There is a very simple and obvious explanation that does not
require any guessing at the motivations of the electorate. It requires only the
view of two variables. The first is the Gerrymandering of the map into unassailably
safe seats. The second is that the obscene amount of money spent getting people
elected has all but killed the small remaining democratic process that
remained.
You doubt me? Look at the case of Michael Grimm. Do you
remember when even the whiff of scandal all but invalidated a candidate? Michael
Grimm is under a 20-count Federal Indictment and yet – he still got himself re-elected
to his seat in congress.
The races in the so-called “battleground states” were awash
in half-truths and outright misinformation on all sides of the races – why? Well,
because of the Supreme Court’s “One Dollar Equals One Vote” (also known as ‘Citizens
United v the Federal Elections Commission’) ruling.
The belief that these things are not in play here is pure
fantasy. Our democracy has been sold out from under us. Why? That is the topic
for another day.
Wherever you are today, I hope that you are having a day
well grounded in reality.
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