Flutterby™! : On politics

Cross-posting from Facebook:

Sonoma County's Measure A, a 5 year 1/4% sales tax increase, failed. The pitch for the sales tax was, among other things, that we needed to improve our transportation infrastructure facilities, but it was a straight general fund revenue measure, because earmarked funds would have required 2/3rds approval and a general fund tax only needs a simple majority.

Full disclosure: I voted for it, but I wasn't a rabid supporter.

One of the sentiments ascribed to opponents of the measure was that it was giving more money to politicians who had already mismanaged the money we've given them. I have particularly seen this set up by proponents who complain that if we don't trust the politicians we have to spend money, we shouldn't have elected them. So I think it's worth doing a little musing on why politicians get elected.

Voters largely have a few hot-button issues. Many voters are single issue voters. At the state or national level, I confess I'm one of them: by the time we get down to the final election I will vote for the candidate who supports reproductive freedom.

The reality is that by the time we've gotten into the primaries, all of the sane candidates have been winnowed out. All of the candidates who are talking about reducing the influence of the military industrial complex on our government spending, who are against intrusive government surveillance or security theater, who are considering transportation and housing policies that don't encourage economically unsustainable sprawl, are gone, ridiculed into obscurity by a press paid for by advertisers who profit off of governmet silliness.

By the time we get to that final election, I'm holding my nose and voting for the least distasteful option.

So, yes: In some cases, I voted that person into office. That doesn't mean I trust them, or I think they should have any more power, or I should enable them to any further action. For the most part, it means that I think they'll do less damage than the other option.

This is particularly bad at county level politics because we have a local press which seems to be working even harder than the national press at keeping us uninformed. The editorial stance of the Press Democrat and its affiliated properties are, at best, the dead trees equivalent of internet trolls (even as I really respect some of the reporters). If we take the time, and it's a lot of time, to get out and shake hands and have conversations, to attend meetings, to read EIRs and dig through paperwork, we can learn a bit of what's going on, but that's a full-time job. For the most part, we get our voter guide and ballot, we do a little Googling, we choose the least odious candidate, and we get on with our lives.

And even then, if we do choose to educate ourselves, we realize that the system is so complex that trying to improve it is not just a life's work, it's a life's work that's only a living if we cater to the interests who are profiting off of it now.

We don't have time to be informed voters. We, largely, just want to live our lives within a system that works. When we do poke our heads up and look around we see a system that just barely works, say "well, why would I want more of that?", and get back to the world immediately around us.

So, if you think that Measure A failed because voters don't trust the county government to spend it wisely, you're right. If you think we should because we elected those officials, consider what it means to elect them.

If you want to help us be better informed so that we can elect better officials... well, there's a movement I'm sympathetic to.