Just Do It

It has become fashionable, in some circles, to point at some or another situation and ask: "Why can't the United States do anything about that?" And there are many such situations, even if the current topic is mass shootings. In my opinion, the answer is simple: many Americans don't see particular problems as theirs to solve, and the people who have to take action and/or commit resources to whatever solutions are put forward aren't interested.

And in many situations, this is understandable. There isn't much that the average citizen can directly do about pollution, inflation or any number of large-scale problems. But I think that it trickles down to a form of learned helplessness that often blinds people to indirect actions they can take. Consider politics. A lot of the things that people complain about in politics are driven by the general voting behavior of the public at large; things like moderate voters tending to skip primaries, or partisans tending to vote for whichever candidate their party puts forth in general elections, or not voting at all. In some places, choices are constrained; here in Washington, a lot of elections work on a "top-two" primary system, where all of the candidates run in a single primary, and the first and second-place finishers face off again in the general election. A setup like this tends to preclude "third parties" (of which their can be several) from making it to the general election; so if the candidate comes down to a single Democrat versus a single Republican, one can understand a partisan's dilemma. But even then, there's no real reason why independent candidates can't have a better showing in the primaries; which one can see resulting in more nuanced platforms from the "mainstream" candidates. (Not to mention a higher quality of independent candidates.) Given this, it doesn't need legislatively-mandated voting reform to change things. A change in people's behavior would suffice. But since many people who are worked up about the need to change the way politics work are also perfectly happy with their own behavior, that change is unlikely to come.

Granted, I'm not usually one for "people power." I find it trite and often used in scenarios that imply that simply showing up or speaking out can result in painless changes. But I do think that people who are willing to work to see changes, rather than simply wishing for change to happen, can have a measurable impact on things.