Politicians spend money they do not have and in many cases money they have never earned, then they claim savings you may never see. Lawmakers exaggerate, double count and project unrealistic savings to far off dates hoping to fool the electorate into letting them spend the “estimated” savings or surplus to pay for new spending programs. The worse thing a politician can have is a budget surplus. They should always be forced to feel like they have to spend as if there is a government budget defecit.
Remember, like the banking and insurance industries, over the centuries, politicians have perfected all the legal ways to rob, steal and cheat you out of your wealth. Politics offers politicians indoor work with no heavy lifting. They will tend to react with yesterday’s answers to today’s problems. The electorate’s only defense is to learn to think for themselves, not merely accept things at face value.
Simply parroting popular opinion as fact is the politician’s easy way out when it may not be factual at all. Remember, historical truth essentially is all about who controls the power and the politics. It is not politics or religion but “force” which governs the world. Power is “just” and “natural” and may never be changed by idealists.
Power propagandizes, manipulates and may oppose all political, religious, philosophical, ethical and moral authority. Power can deny or question all. Those in charge of power currently may be wary of and try to fight off the electorate’s desires for idealism even though deep down they may agree that idealistic ways and means may be best for the long term future.
One who must operate in the “here and now”, more importantly to a politician than idealism is “might is right”. If you accomplish little or nothing in Congress you will be ignored, but if you try to get things done now instead of later, or if you have ideas that are not considered mainstream, the media and your political rivals will persecute you and brand you an insane radical and maybe even find a way to imprison you on some trumped up charges.
Your foes will feel it is their duty to get rid of you, drive you out or drive you underground and to brand your contradictory points of view and ideas as crazy, unpatriotic, disreputable, unworkable or conspiratorial. Unfortunately, biased-by-nature media reports have transformed the living room into a voting booth. Today, politics is theatre and the best actor often wins the hearts of the voters.
If our first President, George Washington, ran for office today, he would likely lose because he has bad teeth and does not look “Presidential”, as the media pundits and reporters put it. Even England’s greatest Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, would likely be chastised for being too short, fat, bald and for smoking big fat cigars.
Repetitive propaganda is plentiful and does sway the typically weak-minded voting public. Never underestimate the ignorance of the American voting public. For example, the media and many politicians have already convinced American voters that a 3rd political party cannot win. Talk is cheap but deeds are precious.
To destroy your opponent with negative attacks and advertisements, as well as with “dirty tricks”, like phony polls called”push polling” and “scare calls” to voters via the phone, does nothing to solve the nation’s problems which, by the way, never seem to get solved. If there were long term solutions to our nation’s problems, in effect, many government agencies and employees would be out of work.
Remember, everyone, no matter who you are or what business you are in, EVERYONE instinctively does anything and everything possible, even lie, cheat, steal and kill, in order to preserve one’s own security and “put bread on the table”. Self-preservation drives American politics and our current form of democratic government.