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| Freedom To Speak Out; A Root Of Democracy |
I’m not going to go on about Trump. We elected him. Now here we are. “We” does not include me. If you follow my blog, I posted about January 6 at the mid-term elections in 2022. Simply put, anyone who supported the lie that the 2020 election was stolen and committed crimes trying to change the outcome of the election is a traitor to our Constitution and Country.
https://electricgrip.blogspot.com/2022/09/sixty-percent-of-americans-will-have.html
I was cautiously optimistic in 2022 that we were going to do the right thing. There seemed to be a general rejection of election deniers in the mid-term elections. I was astonished in 2024—in a bad way—that we re-elected the man behind the lie. The man who violated his oath to us and the Constitution.
What I really want to talk about is, why do we elect our politicians like we are in grade school? In grade school, we would have an election for a class president, but it really didn’t mean anything. There were no duties or responsibilities. The election was not based on merit. It was just a beauty contest with the best-looking and most popular boy winning. We elect our politicians the same way.
I checked online the approval rating of Congress. It’s 17% according to the Gallup Poll (2/2025). It seems everyone, including me, does not like the job Congress is doing. If we don’t like our Congress, why do we keep re-electing the same people?
I give Congress a grade of “F minus”. There is a long list of important problems facing all Americans, from healthcare to the deficit, that Congress has never successfully dealt with. In my lifetime, for example, they have never been able to tax and spend responsibility. This should be one of the simplest things. They act like teenagers with their first credit card. They spend recklessly while cutting taxes for special interests and the rich. It has left us with a huge, unnecessary debt that is hurting our economy with massive interest payments.
We, the voters, are responsible and in-charge of our democracy. We should not be electing our politicians like we are still in grade school. We do not elect on merit. We elect the best looking. We elect the popular personality. We elect politicians from sound bites from 30 second commercials. We elect using falsehoods, innuendoes, and unsubstantiated information from social media.
We are the problem. We are not electing the best people to represent us. We are not electing the most qualified candidates. We are not electing politicians based on merit. It’s not a beauty contest. It’s a job for the best people who are motivated to make things better for us; people who understand they are working for us, the people. They must represent our interest and not their own.
We can do better:
- Elect qualified candidates. This seems obvious. Candidates must intelligent, educated people who are interested in improving our lives.
- Elect candidates with agendas for improving our lives. Saying they are for freedom, anti-woke, cutting taxes, etc., are catch phrases without meaning. Having a specific plan for improving health care, cutting the deficit, border security, etc., are real agendas.
- Remember politicians are not our “friends”. They are working for us. They have a job to do. Don’t vote because you “like” someone. You vote for someone because they are doing, or saying, they will do the job for you. If not, don’t vote for them. They are not your “friend”. They are our employees.
- Re-elect candidates for their record. What did they vote for? How often did they vote? Did they write any bills? Was it a bill to help us or some special interest? Who is paying them (what lobbies)? Simply, are they doing the job you sent them to do, or are they just interested in keeping power and staying elected? What are their priorities; healthcare, education, reducing the deficit, etc.? If they do not represent your interests, fire them; don’t re-elect them.
- Ignore social media. Social media has exacerbated the problem logarithmically. We ban social media for school children because they cannot responsibly use it. Some will say wildly inappropriate things. They lie. They troll. They hurt. They are irresponsible. Ironically adults are worse.
- Don’t elect candidates based on a 30 second TV ad. That’s voting like it is a grade school beauty contest. Do some research: what is their background, what is their experience, what will they do for you if they are elected, etc.
- Ignore third party, special interest commercials and advertising from PACs. These are special interests that generally hide behind silly grandiose names like “Americans for Democracy” (Who couldn’t be for that!). They generally have deceptive advertising. They almost universally invoke our base emotion of fear to support their interest. Their interests are almost always, implicitly, not in our best interest. Their only interest is their own.
Things that need to change:
- We must have campaign finance reform. The wealthiest few should not be paying to elect politicians for their special interest at the expense of the interest of most Americans.
- Congressional terms of 2 years are too short. Congress spends most of the time working on getting re-elected instead of doing their jobs. It should be changed to 5 or 6 years.
- Being in Congress or the Senate should not be a lifetime job. Demand term limits. Two terms for the senate and congress. If Congress and Senate can’t do this, we can provide the term limits by voting them out!
- Election primaries should be open to all voters. It has been shown that one reason we elect people with extreme views, that do not represent most Americans, are closed primaries.
This is just a start. We don’t need to accept that our elected officials are not doing the job. We are in charge of them. They work for us. Using our votes we can change things. We can do better; much better