Who Cares? Not Washington.

A reminder: most of the real power-brokers in Washington couldn’t care less about how you feel about a “government shutdown,” whether you get to keep more of your own money or not, your feelings about immigration reform, or what you think about pretty much any of the most important, pressing issues of our time.

What they care about is raising enough cash to put their name in front of you a billion times a day during campaign season so that when it comes time to vote, you and I, like good little robots, put our mark next to their name and send them back to their throne…er…seat in congress to keep doing the same thing they’ve always done which is looking out for themselves and each other.

Party affiliation doesn’t matter behind the closed doors of their conference rooms and offices. What we see on TV and online is theater. It’s largely a ruse to try and fool you and me into thinking that they really care about the same things we care about. The darndest thing about it is that we usually believe them.

Practically every election sees a new name on the ballot to challenge the status quo and upset the proverbial apple cart of power and, almost without fail, we check the name of the same person we’ve always checked because, well, it’s just what we do. Without thinking. Without educating ourselves. Without taking the one real opportunity we have to try and effect some small measure of actual change in the current, corrupt system.

All the while, we mock and deride our fellow citizens who might dare to write-in a vote or cast their vote for a candidate without the all powerful ‘R’ or ‘D’ beside their name. We call it a wasted vote or even a vote for the “bad guys.” (Plot twist…most of them are the bad guys.) Then we have the nerve to be shocked and perplexed when what we end up getting is the same thing we’ve always gotten: a bunch of self-serving blowhards running our country into the ground.

Blame who you want for the looming government shutdown. Until we look in the mirror and blame the person we see looking back at us, most of that blame will be misplaced.

And with that, my rant is over. Hope your Saturday is splendid. I know mine will be.