The Status Quo -- A Career Politician's Line Of Thinking

This is going to be relatively short, I just wanted to explore this idea that's been bumbling around in my head.

This will also be very simplified.

Career politicians seem to have the same mindset when it comes to re-election or elections in general. Here's how IMO it goes in their heads.

Let's say they all have 4 year terms. In the first 3 years of being in office, this particular politician will take 90 cents from his constituency someway or another.

The people are up in arms and they discuss removing him when the 4th year comes around. Yet something amazing happens in that 4th year.

The politician gives you back 10 cents. And amazingly, the people forget about the 80 cents he took from you and only remember the 10 cents he gave back, so the people vote him back in thinking " What a great guy, I got 10 cents this year."

The status quo has never been so...what's the world, stale as of the last 20 years. It seemed as though people were beginning to be fed up and wanted real change in their politics and government, but the way I look at the national media and the national political scene this is more of the same.

Why do you all not remember the 80 cents?

~Tenth

I get what you are saying, and you aren't wrong. The problem is that every politician is a "career politician". Politics is a career path. It's like saying someone is a "career dentist." Nobody get into politics to serve one term and then move on to something else.

Now that we have established that every politician is a career politician, it falls on the people to pay attention to their actions. People increasingly have very short term memories for politics, and when it comes to Congress, may not even know why they are, or are not voting for any particular incumbent or challenger for any particular Congressional seat. Most often, they either vote party line or vote based on their dissatisfaction with Congress as a whole, without consideration to what the actual Congressman as done or not done to contribute to the problem.

While everyone looks for their change from the President, it is Congress playing the largest role in most matters. Unfortunately, most know very little about their Congressmen, although many will purport to know volumes about a Congressman from another district or state.

reply to post by usernameconspiracy


It's certainly more about being vigilant and it's important to know who your politicians are and what they stand for.

Unfortunetly most people just believe anything that comes out of the news. If we had a critical thinking population, hardly anybody of the last 25 years would have been elected.

~Tenth

Very good post, short and to the point, and exactly right! POTUS is really a figurehead, with Congress holding the real power. And Congress only worries about 2 things:

1. Keeping their jobs no matter what the cost to the country.

2. Doing everything they can to make sure that their party has all the power, country be damned.

Federal politics was never supposed to be something that you could make a career of. I don't think the Founding Fathers could have forseen how lackadasical, and ignorant our fellow Americans are.