An Ezra Klein must-read

Ezra Klein has an excellent breakdown of brutish political reality, writing in conclusion that

Congress, today, is driven more by intense minorities than checked-out majorities. It is probably rational for a Senate Republican to believe he has more to fear from the conservative activists who would be furious that he went along with the president’s gun-control agenda than from the broad mass of the public who would be vaguely pleased, but mostly unaware, and in either case, not all that interested. It is time for those of us who cover Washington to stop being surprised that this is how it works. It’s been working like this for years now. [Emphasis mine.]

Yes it's frustrating, yes it's heart-breaking, yes it's infuriating that a bantam bunch of motivated morons can thwart the majority will on a commonsense matter as near incontrovertible as gun control. Yet Klein is profoundly, refreshingly correct to admonish his colleagues to grow the fuck up: this is nothing new, it's no aberration, Congress' accountability system is sick and getting much sicker, and any happy, optimistic reporting or commentary to the contrary is both reckless and historically ignorant.

The ignorance is as self-explanatory as it is self-evident. But why reckless? Because feel-good expectations of representative democracy working reasonably well within a fundamentally broken democratic system are not only affronts to lucidity, they are, far worse, only contributing to delays in vital system repair.

Most of the money has got to go, the pay-to-play lobbying's got to go, discriminatory redistricting has got to go, closed primaries have got to go, the filibuster, especially in its current form, has got to go--and fair, national voting procedures must make their arrival.

Each is accompanied by self-interested enemies. For now, though, what's the greatest obstacle to any of these reforms? Much of the public's misguided belief, fed by the recklessly ignorant, that 'The People' still rule, at least now and then. They don't (which is not to be confused with "can't").

Perhaps the enduring horror of Newtown will finally, finally open some eyes.

Comments

[Peter G]

One cannot help but notice that the matters considered weighty enough to merit the attention of congress share one characteristic and that is their utility in fundraising.