The midterm election season is upon us, and it’s a tossup whether the Republicans will win the Senate, or if President Obama, seemingly oblivious as conflict flares up around the world, will, through his continuous campaigning, keep Harry Reid in his majority leader seat.
The only thing we know for sure is that sociopaths will be elected.
The electorate must by now recognize they are electing incompetents at best, and at worst, crooks, but the constant, naïve, pro-democracy mantra is, “We just need to elect the right people.”
But, the “right people” aren’t (and won’t be) running for office. Instead, we will continue to have “the average American legislator [who] is not only an ass,” as H.L. Mencken wrote, “but also an oblique, sinister, depraved, and knavish fellow.”
The Sage of Baltimore had it correct that to be elected and stay elected in American politics to any full-time position requires the suspension of any ethics or good sense a person may possess. Even those who begin political careers with the best intentions and have measurable abilities that would make them successful in any field soon realize that the skills required to succeed in politics are not those required outside politics.
Lew Rockwell explains that, while competition in the marketplace improves quality, competition in politics does just the opposite:
The only improvements take place in the process of doing bad things: lying, cheating, manipulating, stealing, and killing. The price of political services is constantly increasing, whether in tax dollars paid or in the bribes owed for protection (also known as campaign contributions). There is no obsolescence, planned or otherwise.
Politicians clearly don’t seek office for the money. Most are already wealthy by most people’s standards. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that more than half of Congresspeople are millionaires; the median net worth of House members is just short of $900,000, and for Senators, it’s $2.5 million.
What makes the wealthy and successful want to hold office? Is it, as Charles Derber describes in The Pursuit of Attention: Power and Ego in Everyday Life, that politicians since “Caesar and Napoleon have been driven by overweening egos and an insatiable hunger for public adulation”?
The work of psychologist Abraham Maslow provides an understanding as to why people seek public office. Maslow is famous for the “hierarchy of needs” theory you learned in your college psychology, management, or marketing class. The theory is generally presented visually as a pyramid, with the lowest or most basic human needs—physiological needs—shown as a layer along the base of the pyramid.
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