Cynicism and politics

This report details a former Bush Admin insider who has written a tell-all book about how Evangelical Christians are viewed as rubes who they have to fawn over so they'll get the votes needed to get into office. Well, yes. I think the only people surprised by this news are Evangelical Christians. This is something Andrew Sullivan also noted recently.

I'm cynical enough to think that both parties view virtually all voters are ignorant rubes who need to be led by their betters and they're just the ones to do it.

One thing that disabused me of my political naivete happend when I was in college. One of my roommates was working for a politician in on a particular piece of legislation. The politician directed a senior aide to contact the opposition special interest group to get their help to craft a bill that would be diametrically opposite to their cause and would simultaneously be unconstitutional. They were happy to oblige. It gave them both something to argue over and get their respective bases fired up over it.

Ever since then I've had a very jaded view of politics. To quote The Man:


It seems that every time I think I've seen the bottom of American politics today, that bottom drops away revealing whole new stygian depths lurking deeper below.


I think the Democrats think Kos and his minions are nuts, the Greenies are clearly nuts, the Teacher's Union are a bunch of inveterate spongers and the race-hustlers and poverty pimps are despicable. None of that matters because unless they cater to them, at least giving them lip service, they'll never get elected. So they stump and preen and shout and stamp their feet and then get elected and do whatever they really wanted to do in the first place. Republicans are no better and no different. Color me cynical.

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