After a bit of boilerplate about how mean the White House Correspondents Dinner was, at The Hill Lara M. Brown opines:
Every issue is a “hot button†issue. And the staged, Jerry Springer-like partisan brawls on cable news have become so normalized that this ugliness is reflected across the public discourse on social media platforms. In the name of authenticity, savagery abounds.
But what’s wilder is that partisans on both sides of the aisle believe that on the issues that matter to them, they are losing. And even worse, few Americans trust the government in Washington and “fewer than a quarter (21 percent) say it is run for the benefit of all the people.â€
As far as I’m concerned both sides losing would be a consummation devoutly to be wished but, to paraphrase the late Mayor Daley, one side or the other will win. Look at the subjects on which there is consensus between the two Congressional caucuses: that we will borrow far more than is good for us, that we will not introduce structural reforms in any entitlement, and that military intervention will remain our first recourse in foreign policy rather than our last.
She also says this:
They also know that the majority of Americans who come to Washington to make a career in politics do so for idealistic, rather than self-interested, reasons. They come, hoping to make change on the issue they care about. From enacting new protections to repealing regulations, the specific changes desired or preferred by those who work in Washington run the gamut.
which is patently wrong. No one runs for the House or Senate for reasons other than self-gratification, self-aggrandizement, or self-enrichment. By the time their first campaign for the U. S. House or Senate is over any idealistic motives have been extinguished and with each successive re-election campaign personal good is further conflated with the public good.
And on that cheery note……..