Why American Voter Reform is a pipedream

Sometimes I despair. This is one of those times.

Picture the scene. You're in a sports bar, watching whatever sport happens to be your poisen. (Mine happens to be football, or Soccer as Americans insist on calling it.) It is a tight game between your favourite side, and their bitter rivals. As their rivals are pounding towards their goal getting ever closer towards making a vitally important score, there is a rough tackle from your teams defense.

And it is a foul.

Immediately the whole bar (both sets of supporters) shout their outrage at that foul.


It just couldn't happen, could it?

The more likely scene is that to one team, it is a blatantly obvious foul and the player should be penalised. To the other side, it was simply a rough tackle, and the "injured" player isn't even injured, he's faking, and if anyone should penalised it should be the great big faker.

When the game is over, the winners never say "We won because we cheated" or "We won because we played roughest". At best, they might say "We kicked their asses!" but never in a way that is less than supportive of their team. "Kicking their asses!" is not something to be ashamed of.

Since the election, I've been trawling through a large amount of websites from both sides of the fence, trying to understand their mindset. My exposure to those involved in the two-party system way of things, gives me every indication that the majority of Americans treat their politics like a sport. Two opposing teams, bitter rivals; with your team consisting of noble stalwart men and the opposition consisting of cheating whining craven crawlers who bring shame to the glorious game. And after each clash, whoEVER winds up on the losing side, sees the worst in every "rough tackle". Attributes the meanest of motives to their opponents. Vows the result will be different, next time. Scores will be settled.

Sure, there are exceptions. We heard quite a lot of them in the run up to the last election. People (and even politicians) who broke with tradition and their party loyalty to move to the opposing side. But one of the reasons those moves are news worthy is that they are so rare.

It is the same attitude that underlines the rallying cry of "My country, Right or Wrong!".

American politics is just WWE wrestling, writ large. Cheering our "heroes", Booing the "villains". When the villain smacks the hero with a chair, we scream in outrage at its illegality. When the hero dives into ring to assist a tag-team partner without being tagged, we cheer.

It's ridiculous. (Especially if, like me, you think that the games and results are orchastrated by those with the real power and money, purely to keep the masses occupied and the money flowing in.)

Until the majority no longer own such slavish loyalty to any party or political figure, they will be incapable of looking at any issue objectively. And I doubt that any winning party (or its supporters) will want to change the system that put them in power.
posted by Manchild at 4:00 AM