Why I don’t trust politicians

A look at our Catch-22 political system...

Every once in a while I’ll say something that makes sense to someone (even blind squirrels find nuts) and that someone will say maybe I should run for public office.

It’s happened at least twice in the last four decades, so to be perfectly honest the demand for my services as a political leader has been less than overwhelming. While I think those few people who suggest I might have a future in public office are nice – but mistaken – they do raise an interesting point.

It’s much easier for someone who isn’t running for office to talk sense.

Once someone decides to run for office they’re quickly going to find out they need money and then they’re going to find out the people who give money to politicians don’t give it to politicians who piss them off. So once a politician has a donor’s check in his or her pocket, they need to watch what they say and quit talking sense.

Representing too large a constituency can have the same effect.

I was once acquainted with a local politician who asked me what I thought of her chances at statewide office and I told her she could probably represent the desires of her neighborhood fairly well, but once her constituency got big enough she was going to have start talking out both sides of her mouth to please all kinds of different people with all kinds of different demands.

Her city constituents might not want the same things as her rural constituents and she’d have to find a way to please them both and then she’d start sounding like every other politician who’s trying to keep one foot on the dock and another in a drifting boat.

And she’d need more money to run a bigger campaign so sooner rather than later she was going to have to sell her soul to some contributor.

None of that outstanding wisdom, delivered after I had several beers and was feeling overly honest, stopped her from running for higher office and getting elected, so I guess my services as a political consultant aren’t in high demand either.

Catch—22 politics

In the 1972 Robert Redford movie The Candidate, Bob plays a politician who starts out altruistic and then bit-by-bit makes compromises in order to win an election. His campaign manager keeps pointing out that none of his do-gooder ideas will ever become reality if he doesn’t first get elected.

By the end of the movie that you’ve had 48 years to watch so I’m not going to worry about spoiling it, Bob has won but there’s so little of the originally altruistic dude left he asks: “Now what?”

That’s kinda how I feel about politics.

Hunter S. Thompson – maybe the first author I ever read that made me want to write – once asked just how low a man had to stoop to become President of the United States.

Good question and the answer seems to be pretty damn low.

In the Joseph Heller novel, Catch—22 (man, today’s literary and film references alone are worth the price of admission which last time I checked was zero) individuals cannot escape the system because of contradictory rules.

In our case, the only people who ought to be in public office are the people who refuse to run. Wanting to have power probably ought to prohibit you from having any.

I guess I could move to a deserted island and make a volleyball my best friend, but that doesn’t seem likely so I just keep making the best out of the situation I’m in and voting for the politician who seems likely to do the least damage.

Had Bernie Sanders become the nominee I would have voted for him with a bit more enthusiasm because somebody who scares the shit out of Republicans and Democrats can’t be all bad. And if you voted for Trump for a similar reason, all I can say is if you really want the swamp drained, don’t elect an alligator.

Today’s cartoon

Whenever I start to write one of these things I only have the vaguest of plans – kinda like a wagon train that just keeps heading West in hopes of hitting an ocean – and today’s cartoon got me off on a tangent so metaphorically speaking, our wagon train ended up in Boise, Idaho.

This cartoon was actually drawn a while ago – hence the reference to opening up the economy on May 1st, tomorrow – but it seemed worth posting now because things are opening back up soon and then we’ll all have to decide for ourselves whether or not to go back to normal.

Here’s what I think about that.

When they suspect someone has been exposed to the COVID-19 virus they quarantine them for a couple weeks to see if they get sick and I’m thinking maybe I’ll wait a couple weeks after things open up and see just how many Floridians develop a dry cough.

If there’s a new wave of infections, better to not get caught in a riptide; if there’s not, I can always join the party late. But one thing for sure: I’m not going to believe things are OK just because some politician says so.

Because when it comes to politicians; I don’t trust ‘em.

(I’m Lee Judge and I approved this message.)