What Kind of Year Has It Been?

Let's just say it has not been this kind of year.

(Apologies to Aaron Sorkin.)


It has been a pretty bad year in American politics.  I mean, yes, good things and bad things have happened for each of us.

But writ large, it's felt like a negative, bad-process-filled, unfulfilling, combative-without-resolution kind of year.  Things aren't working right.  And they don't seem on a trajectory toward working better.

It feels yucky.  Depressing.  Unwell.

Some favorite recent headlines (and by "favorite," in this case I mean "most distressing"):

• Princeton Study: U.S. No Longer an Actual Democracy.  Nice.  That's a happy conclusion.  To sum up: we're an oligarchy.  This will shock nobody who is paying attention.  But maybe C.J. Roberts could pick up a copy before he goes on another "let's ignore reality and reaffirm Citizens United" spree.

• Worst. Congress. Ever. (And this one is by Norm Ornstein, who arguably would know better than almost anybody else.)  If you like your condemnation by the numbers, here's the Politico version, replete with facts like: 

"40: Percentage of calendar days the House was in session over the course of the 113th Congress, less [sic] than 147 days per year, on average. The Senate was in session 141 days per year, on average, just under 39 percent of the time."

...And my personal fave: 

"234: The number of bills passed by the 113th Congress, the lowest recorded total in congressional history. The number is down 18 percent from the 112th Congress and is only about a fourth of the 906 public bills legislation passed by the 80th in 1947-48, which President Harry Truman dubbed the 'Do Nothing Congress.'"

• Why Democrats and Republicans Don't Understand Each Other.  (Spoiler Alert: the underlying researchers believe that "the Republican Party is dominated by ideologues who are committed to small-government principles, while Democrats represent a coalition of social groups seeking public policies that favor their particular interests." - I largely disagree with this conclusion, FWIW, but it is interesting.  Why do I largely disagree?  In a nutshell: this is too much of a simplification of too-large bodies of people to work effectively as a tool for understanding why people favor one party or the other in U.S. politics.  It is pithy, though, and there are subgroups for which these ideas are more applicable.)  It does have neat charts like this one:

• Why Our Democracy May Be Hardwired to Fail for a Generation.  Basically: Demographic trends have not caught up with our current electorate.  But see: young people utterly failing to vote in 2014 because, what, they were sad?  Disappointed?  Thought better things would happen if they didn't show up than if they did?  Have no understanding of the fact that the big stuff happens in Congress?  (Can you tell I'm still angry about this - to me - petulant brand of fair-weather voter?)  We're failing because most people aren't engaged and the system has gotten less representative so it's harder to feel well-represented.  Also because some people feel underrepresented when in reality they are overrepresented.  There is a seriously out-of-whack political culture being fed by a seriously-out-of-whack actual political system.

So... yeah.  

New Year's Resolution: We could use a tune up...  

I mean, unless you are enjoying your oligarchy?