Impeachment, Wiretapping, Contumacy, & Learned Helplessness
(I apologize for the faux-academic title, but I really wanted to throw everything but the kitchen sink in there).
I can think of nothing more destructive of democracy in America (and that includes all election fraud and voter fraud put together), than the people lose trust in the efficacy of the democratic process and its institutions.
One of the most dangerous but most under-reported effects of the last 8 years has been a sense of <i>learned helplessness</i>on the part of the democratic party voters.
There seems a total disconnect between our aspirations and our legislator's voting records. There seems a total lack of accountability on the part of the lawbreakers in the administration. There seems to be no effective checking function of the Congress on the Executive. There seems to be an astounding disregard of the Constitution on the part of people who are sworn to uphold it.
Our legislators are mute and unresponsive, or alternately, give flowery speeches and then vote the opposite of their words. We have grown accustomed in a dreary depressed kind of way with evasions on their part to simple language questions.
In all, we are being taught a very harsh lesson that our votes don't count for much, our outrage even less, that the elected and the voters are no longer linked in any meaningful way and that respect for the law and the law's institutions has plummeted to new lows.
We are patronized by our officials, or stonewalled. We hear mendacious statements from people we trusted in. We see lawbreakers basically thumbing their noses at any attempts to bring them to brook. We see the agencies of the government perverted from their intended functions.
Learned Helplessness.
Probably the best way to disenfranchise an electorate and render it apathetic and powerless.
I don't know the solution, if there is one. Are we a democracy at the national level any more? I think it can be argued that in many respects we are not.
But we have been pummeled so many times that we no longer believe we can change things.
I can think of nothing more destructive of democracy in America (and that includes all election fraud and voter fraud put together), than the people lose trust in the efficacy of the democratic process and its institutions.
One of the most dangerous but most under-reported effects of the last 8 years has been a sense of <i>learned helplessness</i>on the part of the democratic party voters.
There seems a total disconnect between our aspirations and our legislator's voting records. There seems a total lack of accountability on the part of the lawbreakers in the administration. There seems to be no effective checking function of the Congress on the Executive. There seems to be an astounding disregard of the Constitution on the part of people who are sworn to uphold it.
Our legislators are mute and unresponsive, or alternately, give flowery speeches and then vote the opposite of their words. We have grown accustomed in a dreary depressed kind of way with evasions on their part to simple language questions.
In all, we are being taught a very harsh lesson that our votes don't count for much, our outrage even less, that the elected and the voters are no longer linked in any meaningful way and that respect for the law and the law's institutions has plummeted to new lows.
We are patronized by our officials, or stonewalled. We hear mendacious statements from people we trusted in. We see lawbreakers basically thumbing their noses at any attempts to bring them to brook. We see the agencies of the government perverted from their intended functions.
Learned Helplessness.
Probably the best way to disenfranchise an electorate and render it apathetic and powerless.
I don't know the solution, if there is one. Are we a democracy at the national level any more? I think it can be argued that in many respects we are not.
But we have been pummeled so many times that we no longer believe we can change things.
