This Aint Nothing to Fight For

The middle part of the twentieth century was characterized by constant changes in the social and political orders of nations worldwide. Grass roots movements coming from the student, religious, ethnic, and political communities were at the heart of organizing the actions that led to this social change, bringing to an end such injustices as Jim Crow, apartheid, and the Iron Curtain. Although these successes have necessarily left today's generation of young people with a distinctive cause to rally around, it is the actions of today's social and political leadership that have left us with a generation unwilling to participate in the political process. Instead of being a battle of ideas, today's political arena involves a battle against those ideas of the opposition. Today's politicians ignore what they believe in and instead focus on pushing back against that which they believe against. No longer is democratic participation about fighting for what you believe in. Rather, American democracy has become about fighting against what you despise. Without a tangible cause to take up, today's generation of young adults is left with no motivation to participate in the political process.

To but it bluntly, the politicians of today have acted much more like children on a school playground than distinguished citizens elected to a council supposedly comprised of the best and the brightest. In my mind, there can be little or no distinction between the irresponsible policy of constantly yelling "no" taken on by the GOP and the illogical decision by Democratic leadership to give in to the whining of the right. Because the majority of my dissolution from the political process stems from what I see as a failure on the part of my party's (Dem) leadership to pursue the change necessary for our nation to progress into the future, regardless of the actions the minority may take in response. We as a party were given a mandate with the 2008 elections not to pursue bipartisan (that term should be barred from the english language, but I will save that for another time) cooperation, but rather to fix the economy, reform the health care system, and clean up the messy conflicts in the middle east. The elections, and the "super majority" that resulted from them, were a message from the people that the policies of the left were the policies the nation felt necessary. Change was what we were craving, not compromise.

Instead of pursuing this mandated change, party leadership tried (in vain) to work with the GOP, a decision that played right into the hands of a minority party that had made a calculated decision to simply use the legislative process as a means of slowing down legislation and thus forcing this "change" to be whittled down by debate day by day. Time was the friend of the GOP and the Democrats in Washington allowed them to use it. But what should they have done? Was there another way in which this "change" could have succeeded without the cooperation of the right? YES, the answer is simply to ignore the whining and go ahead full steam with the legislation necessary to accomplish the goals set forth by the electoral mandate. The attention paid to the GOP not only lent their ill-reasoned objections an undeserved level of credibility, but more importantly caused legislation to become so bogged down in debate that it could not achieve its desired effect when signed, sealed, and delivered in its final form. The democratic leadership could not ignore the whining and is about to pay the price come November.

If there is one thing I could commend the GOP on, it is its political strategy. As awful as it sounds, the GOP know exactly how to make a majority party fail in its time running our nation's government. They are experts at bogging down legislation, flooding the airwaves with negativity, and ensuring that the nation hear there side first and the opposition only in response. Even with the president now residing on the opposite side of the aisle, the GOP continues to control the message and thus remains able to halt the progress of governmental action and administration. That said, their calculated decision to bring the US government to a 2-year halt is not only irresponsible, but downright traitorous. Rather than trying to quickly and effectively guide our nation out of economic recession, bring the two wars (that they started sans 9/11 leading to Afghanistan) to a responsible close, and reform a health care system that was and continues to bankrupt the nation, the GOP has chosen to make a calculated political decision to ensure that the Democrats fail in their leadership and are thus relegated to a loss of control come November. National progress has become secondary to party power in the minds of the GOP and to a growing extent even to the Democrats.

With political considerations now weighing down the progress of government, the democratic process no longer results in the legislation required to foster sociopolitical change, instead simply resulting in the people of one's choice holding the power. No longer are we two sides of the aisle, now we in essence are more like two sides of the trenches, unwilling to work together for the betterment of the nation and relegated to a constant battle for success at the voting booth. How are young people supposed to take a personal responsibility for using the political process to foster change if that process has been so corrupted as to become virtually useless? How am I supposed to fight for change when all I can change is the faces on tv? Today's political arena no longer allows idealistic young people to work to achieve societal change and is thus destined to face a dilemma in the near future when the best and brightest of our generation is no longer willing to take the route of public office and our government is without those best able to keep it going.

Much of the bickering in recent years has surrounded around the growing debt that those on the right (except when talking about taxes or spending that they support) claim to be setting the stage for an unfathomable burden being placed on future generations. Amidst this talk of letting down our children and grandchildren, our political leadership is engaging in behavior that is letting down the very future generations they claim to be trying to protect. Today's young people are no less idealistic, no less willing to participate, and certainly no less intelligent than generations before them. What is creating the lack of participation is not a lack of want, but rather a dangerous dissolution directly attributable to the childish acts of those in public office today, regardless of party affiliation. When it comes to the political arena, its simply not worth fighting for.