I stumbled on a NYTimes.com interactive online piece which poses the question “What One Word Describes Your Current State of Mind?”. The piece asks you to enter the word that best describes your current mood, with the header of the frame reading “Election 2010”. When I first clicked to the page, I was simultaneously comforted, and perplexed: are we not listening to these “disgusted, sickened, powerless, anxious, worried, tired, and nervous” Americans? “I’m not alone! I’m one of them too!”, I thought. When I saw “worried” fly past the screen, I clicked “I also feel worried” What is worrisome is simple: The new face of Congress, and my inability to change it.
Washington Post reporter Ezra Kline called election day “The end of the ‘do-something’ Congress”. From historic health reform, something that the national government has struggled with for decades, to the 75,000 infrastructure projects that were initiated in the past two years, to the refinement and overhaul of financial regulation: it hasn’t been perfect…but it’s been ‘something’. No other time in the past 40 years have we seen such a prolific amount of legislation flow from Capitol Hill. Within a few years, over 32 million Americans will now be able to gain health coverage they once could not afford; fantastic.
..and it’s all ended, the progress anyway. Despite being a Congress that was able to legislate like no other, it seems that they’ve failed as politicians. Multiple polls show a widespread ignorance that the 111th Congress was successful at “getting things done”.
I’m worried, cynical, tired, and nervous. I feel disconnected, disenfranchised by the American political system. I’m not alone, but our voices seem to fall on deaf ears. But hey, we’re in this together, right?
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