Editorial
Americans Angry at National Leaders
The Radionian
By Ashton Pittman, Opinions Editor
March 2010, Volume 86, No. 5
The idea that elected officials in Washington are not operating as they should is not a new concept in American politics. However, that consensus is at an all time high. Rasmussen Reports indicates that voter dissatisfaction with Congress recently reached a record high.
A striking 71 percent of respondents said that Congress is doing a ‘poor’ job and only one percent said ‘excellent.’ Yet while independent and Republican voters were the most likely to give Congress low ratings, 48 percent of Democrats, whose part commands a majority in both houses, also said Congress was doing a poor job. The executive branch also received less than stellar ratings, with the president’s approval rating falling to 44 percent approving and 55 percent disapproving.
With the 2010 elections on the horizon, senators and representatives are retiring from Congress in droves. Fully ten percent of the Senate intends to sit out the next election. Some fear a massacre at the voting booths in November, while others are leaving out of frustration.
What does this mean for the American people? For those ‘leaders’ who have ears to hear, the American people are speaking loudly and clearly. If they truly are leaders, then the time has come for them start leading. They should stop lying about their desires for bipartisanship, even as they turn around and fight their political opponents tooth-and-nail without rhyme or reason.
They should stop stalling progress for their own political gain. For that matter, they should not support ‘progress’ that is not really progress just for the sake of being able to claim that their side “got there first.” It is time for them to restore the dignity that was lost as they devolved into what essentially amounts to ‘playground politics.’
Otherwise, if the people Americans once trusted to represent them cannot cease their adolescent ways and bring the change and progress they always talk about during election seasons, maybe it is time the American people wiped the slate clean and expelled all 535 of them from office.
That would certainly be a change.
UnWelcome Honesty 