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How did we get here? The well is poisoned. [1]

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Date: 2023-01-21  

Another day rotting in vain…

I’ve seen several stories since the right wing wackos took over the House suggesting it is somehow mysterious as to how we ended up here. Between TFG, and this oily Santos dude, things seem entirely, well, surreal.

Surreal, yes, unbelievable, almost certainly (reads like a bad novel, it does), but a mystery? Not at all.

There are two items which, more or less, drove us to this strange place.

The first item is the lack of term limits. While the entrenchment of power is one of the principle concerns cited when it comes to this issue, this turns out to be secondary to how petty resentments, long-standing bitterness, personality conflicts, and personal feuds have come to define both the House and the Senate these days. It is difficult to get anything done, when animosity and angst are the starting point in sometimes decades-old relationships.

The second item is unfettered money. Since Citizens United opened the floodgates, the problems caused by all of the money in politics has only gotten worse…and there is no end in sight. As long as political campaigns remain primarily funded by donations, the chance of making any meaningful change in our country is pretty much nil. And you can forget about making progress against the truly big problems we face while all of this money is sloshing around.

And there is no real appetite to address either of these items in Washington; the voters have certainly not made an absolute demand to change these items.

So we sit here, stewing in animosity and distrust, hoping beyond hope, every election cycle, that THIS will be the one that breaks the other side, that THIS will finally bring enough power to the right people to change things for the better, all the while ignoring the poison in the well…

It seems things will continue this way, until AMERICANS decide they’ve had enough of this shit show our politics, and culture, have adopted as the new normal.

And that, is how we got here.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/21/2148300/-How-did-we-get-here-The-well-is-poisoned

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