No, and no.
Just get tired of the sorry cynicism that is looking for purity in politicians, of any stripe. There are no Unicorns, there is no Santa Claus and there are no pure politicians who "don't play politics" and "put country first" and "just want to serve". They have to get a gig to do anything, first of all, and if they do, they're gonna have to make decisions all the time that screw someone while favoring someone else.
There's a great scene in one of the flashback episodes of the West Wing. Toby's drunk and Bartlett's doing some rubber chicken dinner in New Hampshire and a dairy farmer asks then-Gov. Bartlett why he screwed him over on milk subsidies... Well, shirt, the whole thing is online.
Man: Governor Bartlet, when you were a member of Congress, you voted against the New England Dairy Farming Compact. That vote hurt me sir. I'm a businessman. That vote hurt me to the tune of maybe, 10 cents a gallon. I voted for you three times for Congress. I voted for you twice for Governor. And I'm here sir, and I'd like to ask you for an explanation.
Bartlet: [pause] Yeah, I screwed you on that one.
Man: I'm sorry?
Bartlet: I screwed you. You got hosed.
Man: Sir, I...
Bartlet: And not just you. A lot of my constituents. I put the hammer to farms in Concord, Salem, Laconia, and Pelham. You guys got rogered but good. Today, for the first time in history, one in five Americans living in poverty are children. One in five children live in the most abject, dangerous, hopeless, backbreaking, gut wrenching, poverty, one in five, and they're children. If fidelity to freedom and democracy is the code of our civic religion then surely, the code of our humanity is faithful service to that unwritten commandment that says 'We shall give our children better than we ourselves had.' I voted against the bill 'cause I didn't want it to be hard for people to buy milk. I stopped some money from flowing into your pocket. If that angers you, if you resent me, I completely respect that. But if you expect anything different from the President of the United States, I suggest you vote for somebody else. Thanks very much. Hope you enjoyed the chicken.
In other words, we elect these people to make these decisions, and many of them are not easy. Someone gets screwed. And of you want to distance yourself from that, fine. But know that it's a psychological ploy of your own. I mean, you can stay even more pure by not voting at all, right? Just stay out of the process entirely, and keep your hands entirely clean.
Except that's not true either. And, no, not even this attitude of mine is altruistic. The idea that government is inherently dirty and corrupt is the culmination of 30 years of right-wing talking points. There is no one who likes cynicism and unengaged voters more than the Republican party.
If we're ever gonna fix the genuine big problems we have, it has to start with everyone in this country realizing that the "government" isn't a foreign entity -- it's us -- and that we all have a stake in the people we elect and the policies we pursue.
So, no, it doesn't offend me because I work for a campaign. It offends me because I think it's the main problem. Even if any given election is between two corrupt Beltway hacks of the highest order, you, LTR, are not absolved for your responsiblity as a citizen to decide who is better and cast your ballot for that person. That's the principle on which America was founded. And it offends me as a matter of intellectual honesty. Cynicism is not criticism.
Saying you don't like talking points? That's a talking point.
