The Government We Deserve

I have to confess that I am absolutely enraged at the response of Governors Cuomo and Christie to America’s full-blown case of ebola panic.  The disease is clearly dreadful and I acknowledge that the anxiety is real but let’s make note that our anxieties are not REALISTIC.  I haven’t been impressed by the CDC in this crisis, but the WHO and Doctors without Borders do have a strong sense of how the disease spreads and how it can be contained.  President Obama has been measured and careful in his rhetoric.  Congress, busily campaigning for re-election after two years of doing nothing, has been virtually silent.  In the meanwhile, the nation has panicked.  In a way, this is a case study of the nation we have become, a group of citizens ignorantly lurching from one media event crisis to the next, with no sense that this is our government and therefore our responsibility.

At the same time, my daily inbox has been clogged with hyperbolic requests that I donate money to various Democratic political causes and candidates.  Many of them are political causes and candidates that I passionately believe in but this year I just couldn’t donate.  Even $5 seemed like a quiet endorsement of the ridiculous behavior of Congress.  I certainly don’t want Republicans to take control of the Senate so that they can run that institution are poorly as they have run the House, but I can’t fathom actually spending a dime to support the nonsense that has become Congress, no matter who is in charge.

I thought about voting against all incumbents, but my Representative (Rush Holt) has resigned and both of the candidates for the House in my my district are newcomers.  My senator, Cory Booker, has only been in office for a year.  He’s up for election to a full term in this seat.  I like and respect him and he has made efforts to reach across the aisle.  I will be casting an enthusiastic ballot in his favor this morning.

As for the rest of it, I feel like the nation is trapped in a cycle of irresponsible behavior as we wait for the bloodsport that will be the 2016 presidential election.  Harry Truman's famous do-nothing Congress has nothing on us.  I expect that Republicans will gain a narrow victory in the Senate and that the Democratic opposition will then take up the obstructionist tactics Republicans have used for the past two years.  The national interest will suffer, of course.  The list of serious issues we've failed to address (global warming, immigration, student loan debt, and more) will grow longer and more serious.  And we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves.