Does the will of the voters matter anymore?

We like to tell ourselves that our elected representatives we send to Washington or to our state legislatures work in our best interest.  They have their finger on the pulse of their constituents, and if they want to get re-elected, they'll do what the majority of us want.  And if they don't, WE have the ability to send them packing at the next election.

Awww....how quaint.

All that may be textbook true, but it bears little resemblance to the real world that exists today.  Most of us are too busy struggling to put food on the table and pay the rent, or at the other extreme, out playing with all our expensive toys, to pay attention to what our representatives are doing for / to us.  I have many very educated friends who freely admit they don't watch the news because it's depressing.  When they vote, IF they vote, they just fall in line with the same old parties they voted for 10 or 20 or more years ago, no questions asked.

Do you question this?  Numerous polls said less than 20% of the American people were in favor of repealing ObamaCare without having something BETTER ready to replace it.  So what did the House of Representatives do?  They passed a bill that largely gutted the Affordable Care Act and replaced it with something that left millions more uninsured.  Then the Senate failed to pass their version by only ONE vote.  If they were truly concerned by "the will of the voters", all that drama would have been declared Dead On Arrival at the committee hearing level.

Today, by a two-to-one margin, numerous polls say we don't want the kind of tax reform Congress is on the verge of passing.  Every single analysis that has been done so far, by both liberal and conservative "think tanks", says the proposed plan is, long term, detrimental to the middle class.  Yet the odds are the tax cut plan now proposed will squeak through.

If our Congressmen and Senators truly gave a s__t about what their constituents wanted, they would listen to us more than the special interests.  But they simply lie and say they're doing all this for us.  They present numbers that affirm what they're selling, and ignore everything else, and we just nod and say, "Yep, sounds good to me 'ol buddy."  *Yuk yuk*

Of course, do read, do study the issues, be skeptical, and DO VOTE.  But honestly, don't look for much to change.  Enough of us are too busy having fun, or too busy just trying to survive, to pay attention, and that's what they're counting on.

All great empires throughout history have eventually fallen.  We'll be no exception, and now we know how it will happen. 

Carry on.

S