Government By Self Fulfilling Prophecy
“We need this policy because my constituents believe the lies I told them to justify it!”
The uncoupling of evidence from argument in politics is largely complete. Since the demise of the fairness doctrine gave rise to ultra partisan echo chamber media, ideologues no longer feel any need whatsoever to respond to evidence of the real world as they craft their arguments, or more importantly, their policies. Tribal narratives, gut feelings, and reflexive opposition to anything said or done by the other side of the political aisle are now quite sufficient to ram through an agenda. We have entered an era of government by self fulfilling prophecy. Or more appropriately, government undermined and derailed by self fulfilling prophecy.
A primary reason that government is inefficient is that conservatives — decrying for decades that government doesn’t work — have done everything in their power to make certain of it. US Republicans tell MAGA hatters that Democrats can’t make their lives any better, and then they “prove” it by using every dirty political trick and misused mechanism available to them (the filibuster being only the most glaringly obvious example) by throttling every single effort to improve constituent lives in its crib. Having declared that a Biden or Obama will spell doom for the country…
