GUEST COLUMN, J. Basil Dannebohm
Recently, a member of Congress who is infamous for the type of drama you’d expect to see during third shift at Waffle House attempted to have one of her colleagues censured.
The measure failed.
In response, the accused said to her censurer, "Would love to see you get the help you need next. You belong in rehab, not Congress.”
“We have to stop allowing members who are experiencing mental breakdown to continue to work without getting them the help they need,” she later wrote on social media.
While the latter statement is true, her post was no less a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black.
A week later, the Congresswoman who pushed for the censure was still festering over its defeat. So, she did what any mentally balanced person would do: vented her anger online.
Referring to a Republican colleague who voted against the measure, her post read in part:
“This guy definitely has a screw loose and shouldn’t be on Foreign Affairs or the House Armed Services Committee.”
To put it bluntly, they’re all crazier than outhouse rats.
In his novel entitled "Chapterhouse: Dune," Frank Herbert writes, “All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible."
In recent years, we’ve witnessed an uptick in censuring and other political theatrics, leaving many Americans wondering why.
The answer is simple: We're sending our worst to Congress.
We lament that Washington, D.C. is a cesspool of dysfunction. Yet we conveniently forget that as voters, we determine who comes to serve in these hallowed halls.
So, who have we sent?
Voters in red dirt country sent a pathologically dishonest senator who tries to intimidate witnesses during hearings by lying about things like recording devices.
A southern state sent a real peach who regularly peddles Q-Anon conspiracies.
Speaking of conspiracies, voters in the Golden Belt sent a senator who seemingly resides in another state, and who, against his own professional experience, promotes medical myths.
Speaking of the Sunshine State, voters there sent promiscuous men who allegedly roofied and threatened to blackmail their romantic liaisons.
Speaking of promiscuity, a representative from the Centennial State who rails on about “traditional family values” purportedly enjoys playing late night host to well-known rappers and rockers who pass through town.
Speaking of music, Motown sent someone who grandstands at every joint-session with one-liners printed on placards.
And that’s just a handful of Washington’s “pathological personalities.”
In fact, members of Congress are NOT authentic representations of the majority of the people in their respective states and districts. Rather, they represent the majority of those who voted. There's an old saying: "We do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate."
Though often misattributed to Thomas Jefferson, the adage is no less true.
Unfortunately, all indications seem to suggest that the majority of voters who participate have confused electing Congressional representation with choosing who advances to the next round of a reality television series. As a result, Congress has largely become shallow and self-serving. Though Democrats and Republicans don’t agree on which side incites more political violence, they appear united in their resolve to send the most narcissistic, dishonest, deranged, and sociopathic examples of humanity to Washington.
43 percent of American voters identify as independents, yet the two major parties would like us to believe that approaching politics from the middle is unacceptable.
But what exactly has hyper partisanship gotten us other than an increase in political violence, a stymied legislative branch, and fierce division among families, friends, and communities?
This nation enjoyed some of its most prosperous years when Congress met in the middle and compromised for the well-being of ALL Americans. If either party truly wanted to make this country “great again,” they would stop demonizing each other and start working together. But that’s a tall order for the mentally unbalanced.
The late Sam Rayburn, a Congressman from Texas who served as the 43rd speaker of the United States House of Representatives once said, “Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.”
Congress lacks good carpenters these days. Though, ironically, many of the jackasses presently serving have their offices in a building named after Speaker Rayburn.
For authentic representation in Washington, more Americans need to show up and vote in the midterm elections. When they cast their ballots, I hope they remember that there are far better ways to help the mentally ill than by electing them to public office.
J. Basil Dannebohm is a writer, speaker, consultant, former Kansas legislator and intelligencer. His website is www.dannebohm.com. Mr. Dannebohm is a member of the Virginia Press Association and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. He writes from the Washington DC metro in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
