Cheap Seats 2023 By Rich Trzupek

Accountability

By Rich Trzupek
  It's a common misconception: we think American government is a representative democracy. That was probably the case at one time in our history, but it has not been the case in anything approaching recent times. Most American elected officials serving in the United States Senate and House of Representatives do not actually channel the beliefs and hopes and wishes of their constituents. They are rather servants of the party infrastructures to which they belong. This is overwhelmingly the case among modern Democrats and is also the model that many Republicans, whom many conservatives commonly refer to as RINOs, follow. When we group these politicos together many of us call the result the “Uniparty”.
  Professional “Republican” politicians like Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney are charter members of the Uniparty. While they don’t agree with progressives like Adam Schiff and Chuck Schumer on many issues, their core values are not about standing up for core principles – whether popular or not – but about solidifying electability as they see it.
  That's the critical decision point. One can decide that the most important thing about one’s public service journey is to ensure they remain in public service. It's easy to self-justify this position. The logic is essentially this: I want to do good, if I have enough influence I can do good, these people around me understand how to put me in a position of influence, they can do that better than I, therefore I need to listen to them when they tell me what I should or should not say or should or should not stand for in public. Following their guidance will ensure that I can continue to do good.
  That thought process surrenders control of the vast majority of the Democrat party and something like half of the Republican Party to staffers and public relations professionals. For these groups representation is not about the representatives, it's about the people that the representatives count on to keep them in their positions of power.
  Consider, for example, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin. Durbin is currently the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. There is more then a little bit of irony to that appointment, considering that Durbin hails from perhaps the most injudicious state in the union. Yet being a prominent Illinois Democrat and having cleared the extremely low bar of not being a prominent Illinois Democrat whom has yet been imprisoned, perhaps his colleagues believe that Durbin’s talents are unique among prominent Prairie state Democrats.
  If you watch a meeting of Durbin’s committee on the web it becomes very clear that the Senator doesn't act as chairman, but acts as a mouthpiece for the Democrat staffers who tell him what to say and how to say it in his appointed role. It appears as if staffers are instructing him on not only what to say, but who to allow others on the committee to offer their views, if at all. If anyone whispered in my ear as often as Durbin’s staffers whisper into his I would seriously entertain a constraining order.
  The way Durbin surrenders his responsibility is hardly unique. He is a symptom, not a cause. And he's an unfortunately common symptom that appears on both sides of the aisle. Someone like Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who chooses to buck the official party line now and again, stands out all the more given the nature of the commonly absurd exercises in supposedly representative democracy to which we have grown used.
  How many people are still interested in knowing what their electorate representatives truly think and how capable they are of expressing their intentions and acting upon them? I hope I'm wrong. But I believe a majority of Americans no longer care about examining their government and their representatives to that degree. It's too tiring and time consuming for the current generations in power.
  There are pitifully few of our elected representatives in the United States Congress today who can and do think independently today. Two of my favorites our senator Ted Cruz from Texas and senator John Kennedy from Louisiana. Unlike virtually all of their colleagues on the Democrat side of the aisle and far too many of their Republican colleagues both Cruz and Kennedy can legislate without a net. Their positions are not defined by staffers. Instead, they use staff generated information to enhance their personal positions. There’s a difference between deciding what to say after processing all the information available and being a parrot.
  In an ideal world any staffer or other advisor would be required to wear an hot microphone when talking to a United States senator or representative during a floor discussion. Let’s all hear what they’re talking about. Isn’t that the way representative government is supposed to work?
  E-mail: richtrzupek@gmail.com