Groupthink

Many of us have fallen into a groupthink trap. We can’t seem to get outside of that thinking box that elections are ineffectual. You hear a lot of it. “There’s no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats”, or “The Republicans are just as bad as the Democrats”. “No matter who we vote for, they do whatever they want, anyway”. “My vote doesn’t count”. Another theme you hear a lot lately is about term limits, but more on that later. All of this is a very dangerous way of thinking. It’s fatalism - or at least complacency. Every election is our voice. It sends, or at least should, a message to our representatives on the job they are doing. Why do you think they scream so much, and sling so much mud every two, and four years? They’re fighting desperately for your vote, even if you don’t know what (or who) you’re voting for. We’ve allowed them to tickle our ear, to tell us what we want to hear or give us to get elected. But that isn’t working so well anymore. We’re realizing that they can’t give us something without the rest of us paying for it. We’re starting to realize again that we do indeed have power, and it scares them.

All it takes is a little effort to pay attention to what our representatives are doing. There’s no need to be fatalistic, or feel hopeless. Your vote does indeed count. How many close elections have we had around the country for the last few years, where it came down to a few hundred votes? Tell me those few votes didn’t count. You know what I’m telling you is true by how many times they had to re-count those votes.

Believe it or not, just like our employers hold us accountable for our performance, we can hold our representatives accountable. We don’t need term limits to do it, either. Term limits are already built in to the system. It’s called the ballot box. We can limit a representative’s term every two years, or every senator six years. But for it to work, we have to be vigilant. We need to pay attention to what they’re doing. They’re certainly not going to tell us.

I know it goes against the common groupthink these days, but here’s why term limits are a bad thing. On the top of the list is we’ve limited the number of terms a person can serve as President. It has certainly not gotten us better presidents – just more of them. Next, however many terms we limit our representatives to, if they serve for all the terms they’re allowed to, their lame duck term will absolve them of any responsibility to uphold their oath of office. They’ll be able vote for all the unconstitutional bills they like because there will be no more terms to hold them accountable. They’ll be more apt to give preference to lobbyist influences because of that “immunity”. What if you’ve got a good representative? He/she is upholding their oath of office; they’re rejecting unconstitutional bills, they’re rejecting undue influence of lobbyists, etc. Can you keep them? Nope. After X number of terms, out they go. And there’s no guarantee that their replacement will be just as good. You’ll have to wait for two years to find out, and then the damage is done. You’ve screwed yourself because of artificial term limits. Term limits also destroy the experience a legislator gains that will aid their constituents when they end up being a victim of some bureaucracy, or their ability to maneuver through the intricacies of subcommittees for getting good bills onto the floor for a vote.

Granted, the name recognition of an incumbent does have a lot of power, and it’s only natural to want to clamp down on what we see as “too much power” with term limits. But term limits are inherently lazy. They allow the electorate to be more or less complacent until by law the representative has run out of terms. I think we’re smarter than that, though. We don’t need to have a crutch to do our job as an electorate. We have the power – the power – to limit their terms now. Or not, if they’re doing a good job. It’s very simple, too. All it takes is for us to stay informed and activated.