How Did We Get Here?

Here we are in the middle of October, 24 days before the Presidential election. We have had two debates between the two major candidates. The Vice Presidential candidates have had their one and only debate. A tape has surfaced where one of the major candidates states that he has committed sexual assault and seems proud of it. Nine or ten more accusers have stepped forward at this point and the accused shames them by calling them liars and unattractive. Exactly what he said his opponent did to accusers of her husband's actions.

In the midst of all of this, otherwise decent and good people are either dismissing or defending language or actions that they know in their hearts is not defensible. Others are stating that these things are not defensible but then reiterating their support of the candidate.

Some of this is the nature of partisan politics which in itself is a sad state of affairs. On top of that, the other major candidate is not without her flaws or problems.

But what seems to be missing in all of the discussions by pundits, analysts, campaign surrogates and the candidates themselves is the answer to the question - How did we get here? What happened to our democracy and how do we recover? These are probably some of the most serious questions that will come out of our election in 2016.

I'm going to take a shot at answering these questions. I've written before about the lack of accountability on the part of Congress and I really think this goes to the heart of the discussion. The country has known, political parties, their leadership and the candidates have all known, how frustrated the American people are with Congress and its ineffectiveness over the past six or seven years. We have all known about and had to live with gridlock in Washington, DC. Did all of these leaders think their stupid and ineffective behavior could go on forever without consequences? If so, they are worse then we all thought. But that really is the crux of the issues we're facing today in our elections. People are extremely angry with the ineffectiveness of government, the gridlock and the partisan fighting that leads to nothing being negotiated with some level of civility.

The frustration level is so high that people have become what they hate and yes, decent people defend the indefensible.  So now we have an election and one candidate in particular who has been flaming those levels of frustration and anger. He makes big, bold pronouncements not only about everything that people think is wrong but also about his fixes to the system. The missing and most critical piece of course is how, with a divided Congress, will he get anything done? How would his negotiations with Congress be more successful then Barack Obama's or George Bush's or Hillary Clinton's. Most likely he wouldn't be anymore successful especially if he continues to insult most members of Congress.

I don't think anyone looks forward to gridlock continuing and if it does it will only continue to exasperate the country and perhaps lead people to more extreme positions. We need the opposite of that. We need efforts that will bring people together. We need efforts that will help us all to get some things done for the sake of future generations. We need a real shake up in Congress. The non negotiators need to be replaced. They have created our current reality.