Three Types of Politicians

Posted: Friday, December 12, 2008

by Joel Hirschhorn
http://www.delusionaldemocracy.com

The current outrage over Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich

pan> because of his arrest for federal crimes, which follows the conviction and imprisonment of three previous Illinois governors, should remind Americans just how delusional our democracy is.

I see three categories for politicians. First, there are the crooks that are stupid enough to get caught by law enforcement and prosecutors and eventually get convicted and jailed. It seems that in recent years there has been endless parade of convicted politicians, including many members of Congress as well as governors. The conviction of the arrogant Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens stands out. This is what public corruption is all about: It describes the use of governmental powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. It is all about behavior that is directly related to their official duties. Think of bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, graft and embezzlement. Also think in terms of the violation of a public official's responsibility to honestly serve their citizens and community. Usually you hear about an official that has accepted something of value or tried to get something of value in exchange for a favorable decision. Blagojevich wanted to get something of personal value for his selection of the replacement senator for Barack Obama, for example.

Second, there the crooked and lying politicians that find legal ways of corrupting their office. Chiefly, they take campaign contributions so that they can stay in office. In return, they give greater access to their big contributors to themselves and their staffs, and they also often vote for and promote public policies that their big contributors want. This is corruption but made perfectly legal by existing rules and regulations. The point is that these corrupt politicians sacrifice the public interest for their self-interest of staying in power.

Third, are the vast majority of politicians that routinely dishonest about what they say they support and will do. Dishonesty is just another form of public corruption that undermines public service and our democracy. Lying by politicians is so routine that is mostly accepted as normal by the public. All kinds of excuses and justifications for lying are given by not only the politicians themselves, but by just about everyone else. They lie to get elected, then they lie to stay in office. Bill Clinton has a special place in the history of political lying for how good he looked into the television camera and lied about his sexual affair while in the White House. Before him, of course, many other presidents, including Richard Nixon, had done pretty well in lying to the public.

My basic point is that when you think in terms of these three categories of elected officials you should understand that they make democracy of remarkable low quality. The problem with Americans is that they themselves are delusional and through their voting maintain a delusional democracy. They are delusional because they keep tricking themselves into believing that the politicians they vote for will actually reform our political and government system. All they keep doing is electing more Democrats and Republicans that will get convicted for crimes, will sell out the public for campaign contributions, and will keep lying to the public. So, every time there is a big media story about a particular crooked politician it is important to remember that our long national history of finding and convicting crooked politicians has done virtually nothing to stop the public from electing still more crooked, corrupt and lying politicians.

We need more paths to true political competition and reform, other than electing different mainstream politicians. We need more direct democracy that allows citizens themselves to exert political power, including ballot initiatives and constitutional conventions.

Joel S. Hirschhorn has succeeded as: a full professor, University of Wisconsin, Madison; a senior staffer, U.S. Congress (Office of Technology Assessment); head of an environmental consulting company; Director of Environment, Energy and Natural Resources, National Governors Association; now an author and consultant. Recent books are: Sprawl Kills - How Blandburbs Steal Your Time, Health and Money, and Delusional Democracy - Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government. He has published hundreds of articles in newspapers, magazines, journals and on many web magazine sites. He has given hundreds of talks at a wide range of conferences worldwide. He focuses on American culture, politics and government, and health issues.

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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)

» left by robert melaccio sr
3 years 58 days ago.

Joel a lot of great commentary that I agree with, but sadly and in my opinion this nation has gone way past the point of anything helping until we have a new change in the way We the People think and what we want.

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