“It’s breaking me. And there’s nothing that can be done for it, unless the president does something,”
This is a huge part of our problems right now. A lot of people look to the president to fix everything. The president is powerful, but they’re not that powerful. And thank god for that. If the entire US relied on just one person to fix everything, that would be absolutely terrible, and that’s even if that person were super smart and ethical, which of course our current president is not.
The people we should be looking to, at the Federal level, are Congress. But of course we all know how ineffectual they are. Feels like they might as well not even exist, sometimes. Though, there are some real structural reasons for their ineffectiveness: the incredible influence is moneyed interests in our politics, for instance, and the fact that a representative in the House represents over 700,000 people! For comparison, each member of the Canadian parliament represents about 120,000. Even that’s high compared to a lot of European democracies. Each seat in Norway’s parliament represents about 33,000 people.
But, the people of West Virginia have another representative body they can look to: their state legislature. Each seat in West Virginia’s House of Delegates represents about 17,000 people. You don’t have much of a voice at the Federal level, but you have much, much more of a voice at the state level. The people who can best help West Virginia are West Virginians.
The people we should be looking to, at the Federal level, are Congress. But of course we all know how ineffectual they are. Feels like they might as well not even exist, sometimes. Though, there are some real structural reasons for their ineffectiveness:
I love the detailed reasoning you’ve given to your entire post, thank you. The one thing I would add to your reasoning here is gerrymandering, which protects districts and allows Members to become ever more extreme, leading to increasing gridlock.
This is a huge part of our problems right now. A lot of people look to the president to fix everything. The president is powerful, but they’re not that powerful. And thank god for that. If the entire US relied on just one person to fix everything, that would be absolutely terrible, and that’s even if that person were super smart and ethical, which of course our current president is not.
The people we should be looking to, at the Federal level, are Congress. But of course we all know how ineffectual they are. Feels like they might as well not even exist, sometimes. Though, there are some real structural reasons for their ineffectiveness: the incredible influence is moneyed interests in our politics, for instance, and the fact that a representative in the House represents over 700,000 people! For comparison, each member of the Canadian parliament represents about 120,000. Even that’s high compared to a lot of European democracies. Each seat in Norway’s parliament represents about 33,000 people.
But, the people of West Virginia have another representative body they can look to: their state legislature. Each seat in West Virginia’s House of Delegates represents about 17,000 people. You don’t have much of a voice at the Federal level, but you have much, much more of a voice at the state level. The people who can best help West Virginia are West Virginians.
Just one more benefit of gutting education. These people have no fucking idea how their own government works.
I love the detailed reasoning you’ve given to your entire post, thank you. The one thing I would add to your reasoning here is gerrymandering, which protects districts and allows Members to become ever more extreme, leading to increasing gridlock.