The Wrong Direction – What Is The Compass Again?

Americans have decided that they are not satisfied with how things are going, that the nation is going in the wrong direction. There are lots of reasons that are given: race relations, government, economy, jobs, crime/violence, immigration, National security, terrorism, guns, and maybe even taxes or healthcare. The order or priority of these reasons changes from time to time based on events in the news. So race relations spiked up with the police shootings of blacks, and the economy gives up a little ground as being the first place reason. But regardless of the ordering of reasons that people give the country is unsatisfied with the way things are going and are at only 17% satisfied.

Both Republican, Democratic and all the others Americans are unhappy. Being one of them, I can emphasize with the sentiment because I am not satisfied with the direction of the nation also. However, I haven’t been satisfied with the direction of the nation for decades, particularly with the political parties, the politicians, and many other facets of our society. So the current dissatisfaction level is not new to me, and it’s not new to the nation; we have been here before.  What then does it mean today and what rationale and logic would explain how we got here?

Race relations as an issue of concern and dissatisfaction has risen to a more salient and visible issue, so with the implied need to change the direction that the nation is going in, what would make the public happy? Change is required because: one, there can’t be change without something being different; two, the politicians are offering to make things better (which implies change); and three, there is something that the public thinks is wrong with how they see race relations affecting them. It’s this last one that is problematic. Why? Because I don’t for one second believe that everyone who is unhappy is unhappy for the same reasons, nor that the change that one politician would propose would suit everyone in the same way. If race relations were relatively stable over the last 20 years and have dropped of late then what restores the ‘status quo’ to where it was before and will that be sufficient? Recent events would suggest that there is not one-side to this and thus will require an approach that addresses underlying conditions. If those conditions can’t be agreed to then a solution is unlikely and thus the ‘change isn’t gonna come’.

On par with race is the government and the economy. Let’s take government first.

The dissatisfaction with the government has been a long-standing issue. There are those who are unsatisfied with government because it’s too big and some who thinks it too small. Government is rebuked because it’s too expensive and wasteful, and because it spends too little on critical national needs. Government is viewed as intrusive and abusive of citizens’ rights and lives, and it isn’t providing the necessary security and safety-net that citizens expect and deserve from their government. Yes, you’ve got it, the government is everyone’s “bad” guy. Of course this leads to a logical inconsistency; as they say, “You can have your cake and eat it to.”  But if government is bad and no one likes it, then who’s to blame? There is no element of the government that isn’t and wasn’t based on what the politicians that the “PUBLIC” elected caused to be the government. You can’t blame it only on the Republican or the Democratic party because both exist and have existed for decades (now you know why I am not satisfied with the direction of the nation) so the elected officials have collectively created the situation and conditions that the American people don’t find satisfying. Is this the “Establishment” concept that a large number of Americans are angry about and hate? These citizens are unhappy with the people who were elected in their states and for the presidency because they are politicians that don’t represent the people and don’t work for the people. 

Wait! They are angry with politician who were elected by the people who don’t want establishment types. Why then are they electing them over and over? You can’t have an establishment or an elite if you don’t elect them. It would seem that we have identified who some of the principle culprits are to blame for the government that we don’t like. That it’s the voters is an inconvenient thing to acknowledge so it probably won’t be viewed as how we expect and want our system of government to operate; we elect the government and we are responsible for what that gets us.

Now if you ask me do I think the government is well managed and effective; I will tell you, “No, I think that Congress and the Administration has failed significantly in how they have performed for decades.” But even here, there have been the occasional ‘blind squirrel finding a nut’ event so that not even our politicians have been 100% useless. This still doesn’t speak well for the voters who are so unhappy with things. If things are bad, then accept the responsibility and seek your elected officials on different terms than you have been using for decades.

The Economy is the more easily understood factor that Americans are unsatisfied about; but even here the reasoning and logic that is exhibited around the economy is disturbing. If the issue that is a more quantifiable area of America’s dissatisfaction than most, I wonder why it would be the case that we are more concerned and dissatisfied with the economy today than in the past without a reference to when in the past. Since the “great recession” in 2007-2009, the US economy has been improving which means that if the public is more dissatisfied today compared to when and why?  Would America be more satisfied if the economy were still in the shape it was in in 2008? 2010? 2012? 2014?

Now is the direction the economy is going in the wrong direction, or is it that we would prefer the economy to be farther along? So the direction is really the rate of change to a better and stronger economy?

I suspect that the issue of the economy being on the wrong track is more related to issues: jobs, trade agreements, financial stability, income inequality, and many other items. If this is correct, then the path forward needs to be solved around concrete issues and policies that can be acted upon. 

Unfortunately, here we are dependent upon the quality and talents of the elected officials that we vote into office. Again if we are dissatisfied with the results then we need to looks to those who we elected and put in charge. This is particularly a responsibility of Congress, since the President has less power to impact the economy than Congress. That Congress has been a spectacular failure in recognizing that they are the mechanism through which the government affects the economy comes as less of a surprise when one considers how willing the voters are to return members of Congress to their positions over and over.

If you don’t trust your politicians to do the job you want, then why are you voting for them? Isn’t that the “Wrong Direction” problem that we have in America?