POLITICO Playbook: Washington can’t fix this
A NATION THAT’S HUNGRY FOR HEALING, searching for answers, tired, fed up, angry and confused is going to get a resounding answer from Washington pretty soon:
WE CAN’T FIX THIS.
AT SOME POINT OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS OR WEEKS, the collective eyes of America will shift here, to the nation’s capital, to see if any political leaders have the faintest clue how to heal a country knocked off kilter by protests and riots fueled by racial and economic inequality.
HERE’S WHAT THEY WILL FIND:
A CONGRESS that’s stodgy at best, and slow and indifferent at worst.
A PRESIDENT who is focused on his base, and hardly willing to dwell a beat to acknowledge that many of his fellow Americans feel targeted by a government that is supposed to protect them. When he is criticized -- as he was Monday by the governor of Illinois -- he goes on the attack.
AND A POLITICAL SYSTEM that’s uniquely ill equipped and ill suited for quick action -- or, frankly, for action of any kind.
POLITICIANS OFTEN SAY the electorate moves quicker than elected officials -- and this era has proven that adage true. How can one expect that a Congress that cannot settle on something relatively simple -- how to conduct its own business during a pandemic -- will be able to quickly enact policies to help reverse decades of feelings of injustice?
LET’S PAUSE A SECOND TO REVIEW some of the other simmering crises Washington has failed to address: budgets that are out of control, gun laws that both parties agree need changing and an immigration system widely seen as broken.
NOW, the very same people who can’t agree on how to tackle these issues are going to have to come up with solutions to a far more insidious problem: social and economic pressure that has been building up for decades, leading to the spasm of anger Americans are witnessing on their streets today.
CONGRESS IS FILLED WITH lawmakers who, by and large, understand the struggles of contemporary America only in the abstract. The institution is led by 70- and 80-somethings who are far wealthier than the average American. Politicians are cloistered by staff and protected by handlers. Many barely know how to use their phones. They spend their days glad-handing and raising money.
PEOPLE FEEL HOPELESS. They will look to Washington for answers, and -- if past is prologue -- they’ll get none. America’s story over the next few years is how it erases 2020 and what caused it. That story has not yet begun to be written.
Good Tuesday morning.
MORE FUN READING:
Comments
Post a Comment