Saddened liberals can pull out the tissues, and crazy conservatives can rest easy — the House is won.
I wish I could tell you who won exactly, because it might predict the successes of America for the next two years. All I can tell you is that Republicans “won” the House and nearly leveled the scales in the Senate.
Of course I understand the implications this has on the civics of the situation, but it means little for the country besides percentages shifting closer to 50 in the bicameral legislative body.
Tea Partiers are claiming victory in the battle to take back America, and left-wingers are calling for a resurgence of the passion that got them to Washington back in the good ole days of 2008.
No matter what, it’s all a giant crock.
Of the four labels used to describe the political landscape, zero of them had a purpose. It’s the same meaningless type of thought process that equates skin color, nationality or any characteristic to another characteristic — correlation is not causation.
Democrats and Republicans both have a national platform, but why? Perhaps it’s so they can unify themselves to trick uniformed voters into perpetuating the broken system that has put us in this mess.
I stumbled upon the debate between senatorial candidates Charlie Melancon and David Vitter last week, and it was truly entertaining. Melancon was prepared and ready for what Vitter had in store. Vitter, on the other hand, sounded like a broken record caught in the headlights.
When reporters asked Vitter whether or not he violated the law with his involvement in a prostitution ring in D.C. in 2007, he squirmed for about a minute without giving a yes or no answer. The moderator even stopped Vitter after he claimed he couldn’t make the judgment to inform him that he has a law degree.
Vitter never answered, but he didn’t need to. Why? A friend pointed it out to me — neither his ethical nor moral standings make him qualified to legislate, especially for economic issues.
Every bit of this sentiment make sense. Even if Melancon gave Nancy Pelosi the finger in session, that big blue “D” in front of his name makes him a liability to voters in Louisiana on election day.
With party clout and campaign money at stake, voters have every reason to assume every other politician will do what their party requires of them in lieu of what actually serves voters.
That being said, voters don’t have any legitimate source of candidate information. Campaign ads are blatantly exaggerated, worth less than Vitter’s “escorts.” The big red “R” is what got the ethically crippled Vitter elected, not any of his stances on issues. All voters heard was how he is a Republican backed by the Tea Party, and in these economic times, any party other than Democrat is golden.
I still don’t know Vitter’s true stances, and I hardly know Melancon’s after the hour-long debate. Government has become both a dream and nightmare for a marketing major — where people buy products with zero research but turn on a dime because of who knows what.
If our elected leaders really wanted to make government more efficient and effective, they would do a few things:
First, eliminate parties. Parties replace logic and reason with “strategic” self-serving decisions to promote bodies that do nothing but polarize America.
Second, eliminate campaigns — the money-sucking, marketing debacle that displaces public scrutiny from subjects worth investigating. Meg Whitman poured 150 million of her own dollars into her campaign for governor of California alone, which is respectable, but that money would be much better off somewhere else.
Campaign money isn’t spent to inform voters — it’s spent to persuade voters.
Ignorant democracy is doomed, and that’s where America is headed — even if you think the House is won.
Matt Lousteau is a 21-year-old mechanical engineering senior from LaPlace. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_Mlousteau.
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Contact Matt Lousteau at [email protected]