TDB | 'Food For Naught'

Josh Patashnik, writing on 'The Plank' blog over at the New Republic, makes a terrific point that I've not really thought of before:

[Frankly], outside of Washington, I'm just not sure how much of a market there is for any coverage of Congress besides scandals and the occasional huge, easy-to-understand policy fight, like health care in 1993 or Social Security in 2005. This contributes hugely to Congress's approval ratings being chronically in the toilet: It's the epitome of an organization that gets noticed only when things don't go smoothly. And the institutional architects of Congress specifically designed it to ensure that things usually wouldn't go smoothly. Granted, I'm not sure they envisioned quite the level of dysfunction and gridlock that's characterized the last few years, but they surely would have preferred it to the alternative of an impulsive Congress unconstrained by many veto points.

His argument that there probably isn't much of a market out there for congressional coverage implies something even bigger: most citizens aren't interested in how their country is run - they're just interested about complaining when it's not running well - or, rather, when they THINK it's not running well. And, sadly, most citizens are simply not very good at thinking - at least not about this 'boring stuff.' But just such thinking is the essence of our system of government. People need a) to be informed, whether they like it or not; b) to understand what specific information implies or means when they are informed of it; and c) care enough to vote for people whose thinking is in line with their (now enlightened) thinking. As things stand, that just doesn't happen.

I don't have any solutions, really - so I'm open to at least listening to anything. I do think the heart of the problem lies with the media and with education - we could blame people, but people aren't fixable, really; institutions are. Though I hate to force the media to run specific stories - seems a bit authoritarian to me, even if its for 'good'. So I guess the only answer is to do something magical during a citizen's education to create a sincere and significant interest in politics - and in congressional and local politics, specifically; not just the alternative 'celebrity showdown' that the presidency has in essence become.

I've got nothing but complaints, it seems. Sorry - don't hate me.