Oh goodness yes. The parties have finally found ways to mitigate our civic and financial cross-cutting cleavages and turn us against each other. Luckily, divided (and limited) government have been the only adults in the room for the past decade.
What we need is more political parties and in fact a bit more than that. It need to be more of a possibility for a new political party to join the competition and have an opportunity to inject new ideas. Instead we have only two parties, with both of those parties being dependent on big money donations for getting re-elected.
Competition is a good thing. It would be a good thing for our government just as it would be a good thing for our economy. But big money brings great power with great influence over both the economy and government. What we need now are some big ideas that could shift the balance so that ordinary people have more of a say in government and in the economy.
It kind of depends. Divided government slows down the policy process and impedes any radical changes. This plays to the natural conservatism of populations - rapid change introduces unwanted uncertainty.
But then one can’t blame divided government for not making wanted or needed policy reforms in a time-sensitive manner.
Democratic politics is all about trade-offs, while the world keeps turning.
Frankly, there are some really radical ideas floating around our national political conversations - most of them not well-informed from experience. And some quite seditious.
Years ago I met a guy who always voted against the incumbent. That was his entire political strategy.
It seem simplistic and foolish to me then. Today, I'm not so sure.
Oh goodness yes. The parties have finally found ways to mitigate our civic and financial cross-cutting cleavages and turn us against each other. Luckily, divided (and limited) government have been the only adults in the room for the past decade.
What we need is more political parties and in fact a bit more than that. It need to be more of a possibility for a new political party to join the competition and have an opportunity to inject new ideas. Instead we have only two parties, with both of those parties being dependent on big money donations for getting re-elected.
Competition is a good thing. It would be a good thing for our government just as it would be a good thing for our economy. But big money brings great power with great influence over both the economy and government. What we need now are some big ideas that could shift the balance so that ordinary people have more of a say in government and in the economy.
It kind of depends. Divided government slows down the policy process and impedes any radical changes. This plays to the natural conservatism of populations - rapid change introduces unwanted uncertainty.
But then one can’t blame divided government for not making wanted or needed policy reforms in a time-sensitive manner.
Democratic politics is all about trade-offs, while the world keeps turning.
Frankly, there are some really radical ideas floating around our national political conversations - most of them not well-informed from experience. And some quite seditious.