Duane Gundrum Politics Perfect Storm versus Continuous Apathy

Perfect Storm versus Continuous Apathy

There was an article today in the Salt Lake Tribune that points to its poll that indicates 1 in 5 people in the US right now trust the US government. This is at a major low in this country, but what should really be concerning people is the apathy that exists from several perspectives.

First, there’s apathy in government towards the mindset of the people. Even though 4 of 5 people distrust the government, the people in charge of government don’t seem to care. Oh, sure they’ll use it to their advantage to get votes, but overall they’re apathetic towards the way people feel about them. And the reason for this is because they realize that no one can do anything about it. People are stuck with the representatives they have, and those representatives know that. There is never going to be an election to just “kick the bums out” because every election in this country is designed to put new “bums” in even if we get rid of the old ones. The people we keep trying to elect to change things, to shake things up, don’t ever do it and end up becoming part of the system and then corrupted by the very nature of the system itself.

However, the real apathetic factor that needs to be paid attention to is that of the people themselves. There’s a reason why things don’t change in this country, and that’s because the majority of the American people are generally too lazy, or just don’t care enough, to do anything to make a difference. Americans, for the most part, are apathetic souls when it comes to politics. And that’s been a benefit to the power brokers who keep going to work every day living off the trough they continue to award themselves as a part of their power base.

But the 2008 election should have woken up the politicians to the realization that something has changed. Up until this election, politicans were the power, and they pretty much set the stage for exactly what they wanted, when they wanted. In 2008, the normal power brokers were unable to push forth their usual candidates for president, which is a major reason why Obama was elected in the first place. A lot of grass roots organizations made themselves seen, and they got this somewhat unknown politican elected over the “accepted” candidate Hillary Clinton who years before was all but guaranteed the presidency at the end of President Bush’s 8 year debacle. It didn’t matter whether or not the politician being elected was the “right” politician; he was different, and that’s what they wanted.

Well, it turns out he wasn’t different enough. Once in office, he became exactly what every other politician tends to be, and his public opinion polls are diving into an abyss of never-ending freefall. He might pull things around, much like a Clinton-like turn around, but for the most part, he has destroyed the fiber of what it was believed he was: An outsider who was going to change the status quo.

So what does any of this mean? Well, it means that something happened in 2008 that may end up becoming very important over the next decade or so. People woke up and started paying attention. Now, a professor of government might think this is a great thing (they’re always wishing more students would pay attention to politics) but to a person who desires stable government, this might be a horrific time to be around because waking up this apathetic public might be the worst thing that could have happened for the current paradigm. Because nothing changed, and people wanted change. If people realize that they can do nothing to change the political system, one of two things is going to happen:

1. People become apathetic again and give up on changing their environment.

2. People become angry and look for alternative ways to get what they wanted in the first place.

The first alternative is what we expect. The second one is dangerous, the kind that leads to revolutionary thought. Now, not all revolutions are 1776 kinds of revolutions; sometimes they’re as revolutionary as the iPod in a sea of MP3 players. But there’s no predictability when it comes to an impassioned public. In 1787, the public sent representatives to a Constitutional Congress to fix the government and ended up with a brand new government instead. I seriously doubt that the people back home were actually expecting that to happen at the time.

But with a public that is rearing for change and no change actually taking place, the future might be a very dangerous one because revolutionary thought is never really a polite process. I was watching the miniseries John Adams over the weekend, and one thing I kept coming away with from the series was that the average American in the 1770s was a hot head, just looking to burn something down. Even the big names that we attribute to some of the greatest moments in US history were essentially just angry men and women who carried clubs with the intention to bash in someone’s skull if they didn’t get their way. And that’s just the enlightened ones. Underneath every revolutionary movement is a huge segment of the undesirables of society who use that time to do some of the most despicable actions imaginable, and they do it believing they are justified because everyone else is pissed and doing revolutionary things.

Unfortunately, the current civilized man and woman has no idea of what his or her neighbor is capable. But as people become less and less apathetic, some attention might be paid to those around you, because once a movement begins, there’s usually not a lot that can be done to contain it until it succeeds in running its course.

3 thoughts on “Perfect Storm versus Continuous Apathy”

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