Why ‘politics sucks’ and how it impacts our representative bodies
Few people are willing to enter the fray of state- or national-level politics for fear of serving alongside a host of crazies.
“We’ll never get the best candidates in politics because they’ll never run. Why would anyone in their right mind run for elected office today when everything they do is picked apart by folks on their own side and they’re branded a RINO, or worse, a Democrat, when they don’t bend the knee to the mob?”
I’ve uttered the quote above ad nauseam with friends, family members, and acquaintances, usually when someone asks about my “political future” but just as often as an explanation for why we see so many wackos in politics today.
“What sane person wants to run and serve with these nutjobs?” I reflexively asked a friend via phone last week when discussing why more people don’t run for elected office at the state or national level.
Politics ‘sucks’
A recent episode of one of my favorite podcasts, The Dispatch, conveyed my feelings perfectly when they discussed what life is like right now in the U.S. Congress. The episode, titled “Working in Congress sucks,” shared how serving in the body sucks because, for many congress has become a “performative body,” a place where no real work gets done and where the most visible folks are known not for their legislative chops but because of their nuttiness.
And, they say, those members who are interested in passing effective legislation have grown sick of the duplicity required to keep from becoming a target of the former president’s ire. So they quit, soon to be replaced by more circus characters.
“If you are a performative clown, these are the good old days,” said one guest on the podcast. We can all imagine the long list of folks he’s referring to. “For some people who have a conscience or a soul, it’s too much. They don’t want to do it.”
That’s, candidly, how I feel. Who wants to go to work everyday with a bunch of wackos who won’t allow you to do your job? And, these are the folks on your own team. Nope!!!
DeSantis-Newsom spectacle of a debate
If you missed the so-called debate between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and California Gov. Gavin Newsom you didn’t miss much. It was what you’d expect from a Red State vs. Blue State shouting match. It was underwhelming, candidly, with each attempting to make the case that his state is preferable to the others.
I’ve written before that, though I wanted Sen. Tim Scott to earn the Republican nomination for president, I was hopeful that Ron DeSantis, the more likely choice, would grab the mantle and run with it, and in doing so put behind him the “Woke Warrior” veneer that’s worn thin in many (many!) conservative circles.
Alas, this has not happened, and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s rise in the polls has been a welcomed result. But while she appears to be picking up steam in early primary polling, so too is her real foe, former President Trump, who is currently polling at nearly 60% nationally.
Barring some unforeseen occurrence, Trump has a lock on the nomination. Anyone paying attention to his public declarations of what a second term will look like would be rightly concerned.
The idiocy Black politicians face
I abhor whiners, but I, myself, resort to what can be considered a whine when discussing the aerodynamic drag of expectations placed on Black politicians. In the eyes of the media and those on the left, we can either be Black or heterodox; we cannot be both. This was on full display recently when I listened Vice President Kamala Harrris being interviewed on the New York Times podcast The Runup.
The interviewer, who was also Black, used the occasion to ask her every question he could to challenge her role in California’s tough-on-crime posture during her tenure as state Attorney General. I took offense to the interviewers pious tone, one that reeked heavily of disdain for Harris having enforced the laws she was sworn to uphold.
What in the hell does any of that have to do with her role as the Vice President of the United States?
Harris, for all of her faults, has long been unfairly pilloried by Progressives for her role as AG. The fact that she not only locked up a disproportionate number of Blacks, but also meted out lengthy sentences, has long led many to question her Blackness. These same folks are willfully blind to some important facts: The period of Harris’ service at the state’s top law maker was one of the most violent in the country, with drug and gang violence at record levels and, because of it, the public—even the Black public—was clamoring for stiffer sentences.
I’m no Biden-Harris fan, but I resent the fact that she gets judged by a separate standard, particularly by Blacks and Progressives. She did, however, deliver a whale of a quote in the interview:
"I've never believed that I don't belong somewhere,” she said. I was raised to believe that I belong anywhere that I choose to go."
In 2019, after Harris’ campaign flamed out months ahead of the Iowa primary, I wrote “The failure of the Kamala Harris campaign shows why Democrats have a problem with Black voters.” The interview also reminded me of a quote I shared after reading Pres. Obama’s book A Promised Land.
“Being the first means you’re going to let people down.”
Republican debates are a sham filled with ‘zombie candidates,’ writes a Republican strategist
Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, writes in The Economist what I’ve been saying for months: The Republican debates are a Potemkin Village.
He says that “after the first three states, the game will be over…None of the candidates taking on Mr. Trump has the time, money or staff to build political operations, run ads or stage effective visits—those involving rallies or other major voter events—in the Super Tuesday states set to be contested on March 5th.
“On that date Mr Trump will pick up Texas (where he presently polls at 66%), California (59.6%), North Carolina (51%) and Michigan (50%). Two weeks later he’ll crush Ron DeSantis, the politically snakebitten and personally awkward governor of Florida, in his home state, where Mr Trump presently leads him by 37 points.
“Mr Trump’s primary rivals are, in short, zombie candidates. … The Republican establishment and others in the party opposed to the populist-in-chief had hoped the debates would matter. But the three held so far have done little to recruit members to the anti-Trump club. ‘Never Trump’ voters make up only around 7-11% of the party, with a larger pool of softer “Please Not Trump Again” voters representing another 15%. (The latter group does not favor Mr Trump but will vote for him if, or rather when, he becomes the nominee.)
“Mr Trump’s decision not to participate in the debates is strategic. It is rooted not in fear of attacks from rivals, but in a calculated understanding that his absence reinforces the debates’ inability to alter the campaign’s trajectory. The primary is over. It’s just that nobody on the debate stage, hoping for a last flicker of attention, wants to admit it.”
What I’m reading
The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time
The book started out slowly—I almost put it down—but goes on a tear after a few dozen pages as Yascha Mounk, Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, delves into the origins and consequences of the prevailing ideology that emphasizes group identity as the primary determinant of social, cultural, and political life.
His basic argument is that the identity-centric approach—which focuses on race, ethnicity, religion, et al., as the starting point for any and all interaction—while well-intentioned, has inadvertently fostered division, undermining the very ideals of inclusivity and equality it seeks to promote.
It’s a really, really good, timely read. Review coming soon.