Big Mac has something about a Republican revolution in his signature. I think that this wish is incredibly naive, but it got me thinking over what would be necessary for there to be some sort of revolution (where a revolution is defined as "significant change"). Here is what I came up with:
- the influence of money in politics greatly tempered, probably involving campaign finance reform and the end of SuperPACs and/or all of their ridiculous loopholes in place today that Colbert has been mocking, but also involving corporate lobbyists and their influence in politics, how money transactions are regulated, etc.
- constructive politics, where politicians are genuinely interested in making things better and actively working towards these goals rather than just playing political games, being obstructionists, and making everything political football including brainless loyalty, retaliation, etc.
- budget conversations involving honest to goodness assessments of value, with great focus on the big things rather than dog and pony shows where politicians make it seem like they are all about cuts in ragging on NPR while ignoring the much bigger problems such as health care.
- constructive conversations about jobs, business regulations, tax code, and ways to stimulate an economy effectively - whatever means this entails providing there is a real RoI and a genuine interest to assess this. See item #2.
- tempering political distractions and stuff that doesn't matter. Republicans may have mocked Obama's disdain for distractions while he was campaigning, but it works both ways, the whole Gingrich past marriage thing will be a massive distraction that will not help him or serve any productive purpose. We all know how the media gobbles up gaffes, personal indiscretions and other problems, their relentless search for the flip flopping boogeyman, etc. It doesn't matter who benefits from this, this needs to be tempered too, because it is dumb. Any revolution needs to involve the people, but it is so hard for the people to persevere through layers of idiocy in issues involving flag pins, old newsletters and other publications, stuff said in the 70s or 80s, how churchy somebody is, past relationships, etc. Sure some of this has some value, but a great deal of it is just a parade of stupid.
I'd say that we'd probably need the first four things to have this revolution, the rest would be nice. Until we start to see inroads here, I maintain that it really doesn't matter who is elected. We may see changes that seem like they are putting us on the right path, but they'll remain in first gear for far too long.
Until we start to see these sorts of changes, let's not delude ourselves that elections really matter at all in the meantime. These changes entail work far greater than any one administration can do alone.
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