Guest blogs do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Insider staff, guest pieces are published as a courtesy for readers.
The TEA Party Challenge By Tim Lenox, RUV
There have been posts in Facebook groups asking, “Why do the American People tolerate …?” or “Why do the American People accept …?” or “Why don’t the American People do something about …?” or even just “Why doesn’t anyone do anything about …?”
I have something of an answer and it presents a challenge for all those who want more people to become involved in politics. It came from a veterinary receptionist back in 2009.
We would enjoy chatting whenever I brought my cats in, but she never wanted to hear about politics. During one of my last visits before relocating, I finally decided to challenge her.
I related what some have said about how more people vote for American Idol than President. Regardless of whether this is accurate or not, the sentiment is what is important. I mentioned that she can ignore politics as much as she wants but politics is not going to ignore her. Then I asked her how bad her life has to get before she decides to start paying attention to what her government is doing to her. The answer she gave me stuck with me and has become more relevant every year.
“The problem is that the worse my life gets the more I would rather watch American Idol because at least I feel my vote counts there.”
This is the nature of the problem. In an article published in the Middletown Insider last year, I mentioned the tendency of people to become more parochial and focus on their own lives as they feel less control over the larger issues facing the nation.
They feel that they have no power or control over the government at any level, so they try to focus on what they feel they can control to have at least some control. At the time, I thought that this indicated the solution of change at the local level rising up to change at larger levels.
But what if the parochial attitude is a slippery slope? If people feel unable to change anything, they stop trying. Separating themselves from the rest of the world, they hope the world will not notice them. Ironically, they relinquish ever more control of their lives to those who want to control them. They then feel even less in control of their lives and thus allow more control of their lives to be taken. This is a spiral into abject slavery that the slave feels powerless to stop.
Here in Connecticut especially, most people feel that they don’t even have a voice in their own political party. This is why the number of Unaffiliated Voters has been increasing.
The Connecticut State Republican Party has a major problem coming up next year. The number of delegates a state party gets to send to the national convention depends on who votes in the state gubernatorial election. For those of you in Rio Linda, that means the election of the Governor.
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