From my vantage point, it looks like we'll have gridlock for the foreseeable future -- not because neither party has a decisive advantage (the Democrats did until recently) but because ideologies have poisoned governing like never before in our nation's history.
Politics is an inescapable yet necessary evil at all levels of government and, as the saying goes, it's "the art of the possible." Thing is, nothing is possible without collaboration.
Ted Kennedy knew that. Alan Simpson knew it and so do Orin Hatch, Bill Bennett and John McCain. Barack Obama knows it, too, but he's at the effect of sabotage beyond his control.
Harry Reid and John Boehner sure don't believe in collaboration. Neither does Nancy Pelosi or Mitch McConnell, Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh, Dianne Emiel Goldman Berman Feinstein Blum or...on goes the list. The only form of bipartisanship is obstructionism.
I hate to break bad news, fellow independent citizen-patriots, but nothing of productive consequence will be accomplished in the halls of our government -- perhaps not even during our lifetime. We're stuck in neutral, and since the world keeps moving forward, standing still is equivalent to going full-speed backward.
Intelligent, civil discourse and critical thought have all but vanished from public service. Collaboration for the sake of The People has been replaced by contrarianism intended to satisfy simple-minded, base-dwelling ideologues.
Our elected officials practice nothing more thoughtful than schoolyard disagreement. They pivot around their opponents' views instead of attending to The People's interests.
Altering the status quo would take nothing short of a revolution. It'd mean showing up at the polls and yanking the franchise from navel-gazing incumbents who espouse intractable ideologies or toe a party line. More important, it'd mean replacing each and every one with a citizen who talks and walks,
"I'm neither a Republican nor a Democrat nor an Independent. I pitch no permanent camp on the conservative-liberal continuum. I'm independent -- the lower case signifying a description, not an affiliation. I'm of, by and for The People, and the Constitution is not negotiable."That's what it'll take -- and it is possible. I have little hope, however, that we'll do what's necessary to save our nation.
