Cup of Morning Tea
Nov. 9th, 2010 11:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dexfarkinMusing thought of the day.
I wonder if the Tea Party and the other Libertarian offshoots to rise up over the last couple of years have had their roots in the 2000 election? Considering recent 'news', like Tea Party opposition to mundane elements like puppy mill regulation and singly sourced garbage pickup, when you combine it with the 'take back my country' meme and the perpetual trumping of discredited myths like Black Panthers suppressing white voters and ACORN illegally swaying voting, that the basic distrust exists that the American voting system can't be trusted.
I'm not saying that all of the elements of populism, both noble and ugly, aren't in play as well. But you have to consider that with the 2000 election, when the Supreme Court essentially installed a President based on their decision, it opened up on a national level that the democratic system as a whole in the US was fungible. It's not even a partisan thing, like the silly conspiracies of either side orchestrating systemic fraud to win (although certainly a pattern of fraudulent practices in the electoral structure and technology needs to be more carefully investigated). It comes down to the idea that elected leaders are not trusted to govern at all, and if that's the case, then participation in the democratic process is not about a critical approach to electing good government, but instead about electing a government that will not govern.
The idea of 'taking back our country' is especially close to this, considering the number of narratives that feed into the idea that popularly elected officials somehow are from the minority opinion, and that in their attempts to reflect the priorities of the voters who elected them into office, they themselves are out of touch. Protracted opposition to popular measures like repealing DADT and passing new campaign finance reform are being blocked against consistently high popular opinion, and the perception is that those people blocking it are the true voice of the American voters, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. When even local governments are facing protests over the philosophical justifications for a completely ordinary municipal decision, the question needs to be asked; is the US increasingly adopting the tone that American democracy is not to be trusted any longer?
I wonder if the Tea Party and the other Libertarian offshoots to rise up over the last couple of years have had their roots in the 2000 election? Considering recent 'news', like Tea Party opposition to mundane elements like puppy mill regulation and singly sourced garbage pickup, when you combine it with the 'take back my country' meme and the perpetual trumping of discredited myths like Black Panthers suppressing white voters and ACORN illegally swaying voting, that the basic distrust exists that the American voting system can't be trusted.
I'm not saying that all of the elements of populism, both noble and ugly, aren't in play as well. But you have to consider that with the 2000 election, when the Supreme Court essentially installed a President based on their decision, it opened up on a national level that the democratic system as a whole in the US was fungible. It's not even a partisan thing, like the silly conspiracies of either side orchestrating systemic fraud to win (although certainly a pattern of fraudulent practices in the electoral structure and technology needs to be more carefully investigated). It comes down to the idea that elected leaders are not trusted to govern at all, and if that's the case, then participation in the democratic process is not about a critical approach to electing good government, but instead about electing a government that will not govern.
The idea of 'taking back our country' is especially close to this, considering the number of narratives that feed into the idea that popularly elected officials somehow are from the minority opinion, and that in their attempts to reflect the priorities of the voters who elected them into office, they themselves are out of touch. Protracted opposition to popular measures like repealing DADT and passing new campaign finance reform are being blocked against consistently high popular opinion, and the perception is that those people blocking it are the true voice of the American voters, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. When even local governments are facing protests over the philosophical justifications for a completely ordinary municipal decision, the question needs to be asked; is the US increasingly adopting the tone that American democracy is not to be trusted any longer?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-11-09 10:32 pm (UTC)