Jobs Report, Politicians, and Courage

Today the monthly job report for May was good news for anyone looking for work in this country.  The economy added about 223,000 net new jobs in May and the jobless rate hit an 18 year low at 3.8 percent.

This should please anyone who cares about the well-being of this country and its people.  Yet, in checking my afternoon news feed, the first headline I see is: “May Jobs Report is Great News for Everyone Except Democrats” and similar stories focused on how this will affect Democrat chances in November.

And therein lies a huge problem in this country.  Rather than caring about the well-being of the country, too many politicians care more about their own political success and power.  Rather than support and cheer successes of opponents when those successes are good for America, they prefer to cheer only when their opponent fails, not realizing that a failure of any politician, even an opponent, is a failure for the country if the opponent was working for the country's good. 

People, and especially the majority of politicians, take sides and rigidly sit there, attacking successes of those not in their own party and cheering failures of their opponents.  Am I crazy to think that there was once a time when people actually cared about the country, a time where politicians put that country first and above any particular party?

Currently in my state there is a race for Congressional Representative (the seat will be open because the current incumbent, a Democrat, is running for a different office, so the field is wide open).  The primary will take place next week and there are currently 5 (there were 6) Democrats vying for the chance to represent their party in the November election.  One would hope that any one of these people, if ultimately elected, would represent all the people of the District upon their arrival in Washington.  This, however, is likely not the case.

In a debate last month, the first question put to the field of 6 candidates was whether they would stand with the Democratic party and vote to impeach the president.  The first 4 answers were basically a simple “Yes.”  A fifth was more of a “yes, eventually.”  Only one candidate gave the thoughtful answer that he would want to let any investigation play out and then review all the facts before arriving at a decision on this issue.  Responses to most other questions followed a similar pattern.  Of course, the candidate whose answers were deep, thoughtful, and not just a regurgitation of party line is running behind in the polls. 

These 5 (previously 6) candidates are a microcosm of problems with politics and political leadership today.  Most simply say they will make things better or take care of this or that problem but provide no concrete plan of how they will do so.  Many voters seem to be willing to accept platitudes without more.  Most (candidates and voters) fail to see the depth and interconnections of many issues.  They seem to accept party rhetoric without thought or investigation of actual facts.  Many are playing the identity politics game:  the woman, the Native American, the son of immigrants, the homosexual.  While they (and many of their followers) may think that alone is a reason to vote for them, I would prefer to vote for someone for less superficial and more substantive reasons.  I would prefer to vote for a candidate with the courage to think for him or herself.

Sadly, across America we have candidates and voters who are willing to make major decisions based on such superficiality.  I realize it takes work to understand the duties of a particular elected office and to research and understand the substantive abilities and qualities of a candidate.  But this is work that it is any American’s responsibility to undertake.

Today we have many elected representatives not representing the entire body of their constituents, but rather representing their party.  Now it is fine to run on a party ticket; that allows voters to understand generally how the candidate will lean on various issues.  But, once elected, the representative is supposed to represent the people of the district – all the people – and not just those who are members of the same party.  But, because a majority of our politicians don’t seem to understand that, we have little more than robots in Congress:  individuals who fail to think for themselves but simple repeat and vote for the party line, regardless of whether that is best for their district or for the country.

And what is the result?  The answer is what we see daily:  two sides securely dug in, unwilling to actually carry on a dialog with those with opposing views and seemingly only capable of name-calling and otherwise attacking those who do not walk in lock-step with their and their party’s rhetoric.

I, personally, see this problem far more entrenched in the Democrats.  Perhaps that is simply because they are currently out of power or still looking to unseat the duly elected president whose election so shocked them to the point that many still think of him as illegitimate.  I don’t know.  But I do know that when we see things like Democrats being upset with a very positive jobs report, when we see them so focused on finding something – anything (as they grasp at straws) – with which to charge the president, when we see them and their supportive MSM ignoring the many accomplishments of this administration and/or actively tearing them down, then I do know that when I see this I become dismayed about the future of our country.   

So, today I will pray that there will be some Democrats, even those facing elections in November, who will have the courage to stand and applaud this jobs report along with other accomplishments of this administration that are positive for our country.  I will pray for the courage of politicians to care more about the country than their party of themselves.

(Note:  the specific election to which I refer above is that for Congressional District One in New Mexico; the candidate that I see as having courage to think for himself and go beyond mere party rhetoric is Paul Moya).