The Washington Limbo

How low can you go?

At The National Interest Amitai Etzioni opens with a bit of confused diction:

More people need to be aware that Congress exempts itself from laws that it imposes on the rest of us.
Congress has long exempted its own members from the laws and regulations it has imposed on all others. Most recently, this we-are-above the law position came into relief when the public learned the peculiar fate that awaits legislative branch employees who are sexually harassed in their workplace. They are subjected to a process unlike any other. It is hardly a small matter given that one in six female staffers on Capitol Hill said they had been sexually harassed in response to a July 2017 Roll Call survey.

but that isn’t Congress acting as though it’s above the law. That is Congress placing itself above the law. It’s constructing laws that deliberately exempt Congress from their requirements. It was his conclusion that I found interesting:

Only 13 percent of people approve of “the way Congress is handling its job,” according to a Gallup poll from October 2017. This is way below the low approval rating of the president. However, if more people were aware of the fact that Congress exempts itself from laws it imposes on the rest of us—the number may well be lower.

I think that’s wishful thinking. First off, 13% approval is essentially zero. You can find 13% of Americans who believe anything: that the world is 5,000 years old, that the earth is flat, that the sun revolves around the earth. But more depressingly not much more than a bare majority of Americans approve of their own Congressmen, just enough to elect and re-elect, ad nauseam.

That’s teetering on the brink. And it explains why so few Americans vote. It’s not because they approve of what’s going on. It’s because they’re in despair.