Sunday, May 21, 2023 | 2 a.m.
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Americans have a simple, long-held expectation.
If we follow the rules and work hard, we can earn ourselves a safe and relatively secure place in society.
And we expect government at all levels to keep its part of that bargain.
What we don’t expect is for government to fail repeatedly when it comes to meeting its obligations. This is true whether it’s governing at the School Board level, where evidence shows an unwillingness or an incompetence to do all that is required to teach our children in first-rate public schools, or at the national level, where a do-nothing Congress continues to do nothing when it comes to immigration reform, for example, that has been overdue for many decades.
Throw in recent actions in mostly bright red states to make second-class citizens of women — yes, I am talking about overly-restrictive abortion laws — and you get a stew of inactivity or the wrong activity that sends a clear message to the voters.
The message: Government is either inept, incompetent or worse, culpable, in an effort that hurts people who do nothing other than play by the rules and work hard. And that causes voters to lose faith in our democracy and justify that loss of faith by sitting out the next election.
That idea, by the way, has come right from the GOP playbook over the past 30 years. The only way the Republicans can win elections these days is not because they have better ideas, because they don’t. It is because they convince voters that their votes won’t count or won’t count for much so they might as well stay home.
Whether it is an immigration system that is obviously broken; or the challenge of homelessness that is easy to fix — yes, it will take hard work — but remains unfixed because of a lack of political will; or the murderous gun issues that people want an answer to, know the answer to, and can’t understand why politicians refuse to answer for their complicity in the violence that kills our babies; or the abortion issue where a minority of this country wants women to make babies but refuses to care for those babies once they are here — you know, not my problem — the reaction is the same.
Potholes need to be fixed. Otherwise, who needs government?
This is not an isolated theme. Homelessness, for example, and what to do about it has unwittingly pitted those who aren’t homeless — those who have managed through life — against so many people who for a myriad of good and bad reasons have fallen through the cracks and into the streets and onto the front doors of America.
Homelessness is fixable. But, so far, the solutions have lacked the political will, call it courage, to just get it done.
Polling on this and other issues has been consistent. Americans in every state agree that they want government to fix the problems that plague us and they agree around a reasonable set of solutions that will go a long way to make this union a bit more workable.
That is why I believe the cynics among us, the people who thrive and prosper on the continued discontent of the voters, may be in for some comeuppance. Those folks may finally be seeing the end of their best — and our worst — days.
American voters are generally not pro-active — which means it’s easier for them to vote “no” than “yes” on practically any subject. But, when pushed to the brink, they do react. And sometimes they do so with a vengeance.
Witness the last two election cycles when women, many of whom made up an anti-Hillary, pro-Trump voting brigade (even women get it wrong sometimes) came out in droves to turn away the MAGA midgets on ballots across the country. You don’t have to look much farther than Nevada to see how the Trump-led minions went down in electoral flames.
There is no reason to believe that the same won’t happen again, especially in light of Republican-controlled legislatures trying to out-gun each other as they aim to end abortion rights for women. Showing disdain and disrespect for people who are our mothers, our sisters, our wives and our children is just not a good, long-term strategy for winning.
We have seen that same reaction recently in states and communities where gunfire has destroyed the lives of children and their families. It has taken awhile, but the voting patterns are becoming clear. No more are women and some men falling for the gun manufacturer’s scare tactics — as told to us by obedient public servants — about government taking away our guns. Voters are finally more concerned about government doing nothing to stop people with killing machines from taking away our children lives and futures. Gov. Joe Lombardo, are you listening?
Yes, we all have expectations. We expect society’s potholes to be filled.
And so begins the time of America’s Great Expectations!
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.
