I'm With Evan

I wonder if the snowstorms that pounded Washington D.C. weighed into Evan Bayh's decision to forget about a third Senate term. After all, our government seemed about as effective whether shut down or in session.

Bayh asserted little place remained in Congress for centrists, a point I find hard to argue, and has nearly stamped out my long love of politics. American politics has always revolved around incremental progress; our patchwork, broken healthcare system owes thanks to that notion. 

Look at the tiny steps at appeasing slave states which preceded the Civil War. Americans can't make a firm decision, and when they do, it comes off as rash and ill-advised. Cut our taxes to the bone, but don't dare cut back services in national parks. Or funding for the handicapped. Or space exploration. Everyone has their pet project they don't want elbowed out of the budget. We criticize our congress members for inserting pork into spending bills, but if that pork happens to fix the treacherous rail crossing down the street, your new hero will get two more years in Washington. 

We want everything to stay the same forever, we don't want to pay any taxes, and yet we complain when jobs go overseas. Every factory my father ever worked in has shut down, their jobs sent to Asia - even the Vise-Grip factory in DeWitt, Nebraska closed after 80 years. We have a coast to coast shopping mall, plenty of low-wage jobs, and all the factory jobs has departed for the Third World. Now that journalism has followed manufacturing out the door with 3 decades before my retirement, I can understand the rage. 

I used to love political debates and watching the gears of government turn, but without quality journalists to challenge them and Senate leadership which essentially refuses to govern without 60 votes, that feeling rapidly faded. Friends have encouraged me to make a move to the East Coast or D.C., but the truth is if I move anywhere, I want to land as far away as possible from that drained Potomac swamp. I couldn't fathom the East Coast or its dismissal of the Midwest, Plains and Mountain states as "flyover country." 

Aside from an angry fringe on both sides, people just seem different out there. Part of it is location. Nashville has slowly crept toward the fringe right. Just as Columbus news never seemed far from Columbus' North end - heavy metal guitarists slain onstage, murderers captured at the run-down hotels - it doesn't stray far in Nashville. The Tea Party convention, the for-profit extravaganza which drove away even extreme-right stalwarts Michelle Baughman and Marcia Blackburn, occurred just miles from my house. Nashville has evolved into Tea Party Central, whether at Opry Mills or downtown. 

How we got here from the eye gouge Evan Bayh gave to Democrats ... well, even I'm not sure.  But I know all these thoughts have bubbled for a long time. Realizing that the further one gets from Washington the less relevant it becomes has cemented these attitudes. A rant was brewing. St. George of Carlin wrote a lot about Americans bullshitting themselves, and rarely does it exceed what goes on in our politics. While our lawmakers were bought and sold a long time ago - you have to sell out a hundred times over to win a Congressional race - they still come from us. We want to act like we're better than them, but we aren't. From elementary school onward, we're taught to put those politicians on pedestals, and in the process, we just lower ourselves. 

Even those of us confined to stream-of-conscious blog posts.