Social media as
well as the regular press and broadcasters are outdoing themselves in
proclaiming the unbridgeable chasm in American social, cultural and political
life. According to the blaring headlines the country is about to break out in
yet another civil war – Red vs. Blue, Urban vs. Rural or any other opponents
one can think of. How much of this hysteria is based on some semblance of
reality and how much is merely overblown self-important rhetoric from observers
who need to spend more time outside Washington, D.C.?
Yes, political
representation on the national level is evenly balanced between the Republicans
and Democrats. That balance in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing. And
each party has its fair share of loons who forgot to take their medication.
They yell and scream in front of any media outlet they can find in a vain
effort to seem relevant. And the Republican agit-prop nonsense going on now as
they try to elect a sane Speaker of the House only strengthens this image of
total ungovernable confusion.
And the media, for
its part, is just as guilty. It loves the noise and pseudo-excitement. Instead
of bothering to investigate and report on serious trends in American life they
focus on the low hanging fruit of the ridiculous antics of some of our elected
representatives. Just look at the front pages of national newspapers or banners
screaming across many websites. Their whole focus is on superficial politics –
who is gaining in the polls, which congressperson was found in unnatural acts
with a goat, who is proposing that his or her opponent should take a one-way
trip to Mars? And who – hold your breath – was caught in a lie? Who needs the
sports pages or comics when we have this entertainment on a daily basis?
Listen to this
cacophony long enough and one can be forgiven for thinking the country is on
the brink of disaster. A lot of this noise is due to what I call the ‘Trump
Effect.’ Narrowly elected by the revulsion against ‘politics as usual’ Trump
soon revealed the truth of the saying by journalist H.L. Mencken more than 100
years ago. ‘On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will
reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a
downright moron.’ Now it appears that the worst of the Trump effect may be
passing. His faithful, the same ones who have followed every loud-mouthed huckster
throughout American history, may cling to him but as we saw in the midterm
elections normal Republicans are looking and voting elsewhere. There will be
deeply conservative candidates in the future but most of them will not manifest
the same deep personality disorders that plague Trump.
If those
Washington-obsessed observers would take the trouble to look beneath the surface
they might find something interesting, counter-intuitive – the country tends to
work. What the observers miss is that the American federal system
means that the individual states, counties and municipalities actually control
most of the things ordinary people care about – schools, public safety,
transportation, public works, planning permissions, zoning. Unlike most of
Europe, almost all the expenses related to those issues are raised through state
and local taxes - not from the federal government. Folks in Washington can yell
and scream and dominate the headlines, but if you want a road repaired or school
improved you talk to local administrators. It really doesn’t matter if you’re
in deep red Wyoming or electric blue Massachusetts. The local issues are pretty
much the same. The solutions may vary from state-to-state but that’s the
strength of the federal system. One size does not have to fit all.
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| Town meetings work much better than Washington |
If the UK is serious about giving the regions
more power the first thing it could do is give those regions more power to
raise local taxes. The much-discussed
devolution in the UK is toothless without local taxing power. I once asked the
mayor of Atlanta, Georgia how much of the city’s budget comes from municipal
and/or state funds. ‘More than 90%,’ he answered. We were seated next to a council
member from a large English community. He sighed in envy at his Atlanta
counterpart and said those figures were reversed in his town where more than
95% of funding came from the central government. |
| State Houses like this have as much clout as Congress |
Years ago, I
covered local towns in Connecticut as a very junior reporter. I learned first-hand
just how much people in those communities cared about town meetings where taxes
were determined, school board meetings where difficult budget decisions were
made or – most heated of all – zoning board meetings where issues like green
space, industrial or commercial space were discussed often until the wee hours
of the morning. No one cared that much about what happened in Washington, D.C.
So the next time
some blaring headline hollers about America coming apart at the seams just take
a deep breath and find a story about local citizens coming together on a local
project. Those stories don’t often make the front page, but they’re much more
important and affect many more people than what passes for so-called news these
days.
