Do We Even Need Politicians Anymore?
By: Kiana Johnson
Tags: Stimulus, Poverty, Politicians, Politics

It’s December of 2020 and we have been waiting on more Stimulus payments since the last bill passed all the way in March. In nine months instead of making sure the American people had substantial financial support (which while the first bill passed was a nice benefit still left out some provisions that could help the public completely) politicians on the right like Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul actually TOOK AWAY one of the major boosts already in place such as enhanced unemployment abruptly some months ago with open displeasure in the idea of giving anything close to that first stimulus package. Politicians on the left such as Nancy Pelosi in the meantime seemed to push for an organized stanch support of Joe Biden for President to get back these provisions and for months denied any bill that wasn’t substantial in her eyes for the American people (A worthwhile position to have) nor criticism about her actions. That fierce show of unwillingness to have the American people get less no matter the cost (such as Americans struggling in the meantime) seemed to cool off substantially however when Biden became President elect. I wonder why?

During these months of strife for the American people as we have watched politicians such as Donald Trump on a whim end possibilities of assistance for the people during a worldwide pandemic on a whim (If you recall when he decided to end stimulus talks some time ago then picked them back up the next day) and those like Nancy who have consistently told us to just “hold on” as help is on the way as soon as next week or next month for months now, as if the American people are one single entity and not an entire country where individuals of it will die without assistance as soon as possible, and the general foot dragging of almost all of our top leaders has many asking:

Do we really even need Politicians anymore?

Realistically why do we need them? The role of a politician is to represent the wants of the people and to govern the land and people but aren’t we extremely able to do such ourselves at this point?

We live in an extremely tech and traditionally advanced time in history. Mail-in voting options are viable and the internet has been proposed as a voting tool for some time now. Even where these options don’t completely encompass the American peoples ability to vote we can still fulfill them through means like in-person voting so instead of just voting on politicians in elections couldn’t we just move towards voting on legislation itself (which at times we already do) ? I do not think it would be that much of a change to switch from “chose politician to represent your choices” to “ chose which you’d like made into law” (which once again we already do at times on ballots).

Lets be real, most politicians are horrifically out of touch and don’t do much praxis and development wise to be more in tune with the people they’re supposed to represent. Politicians sometimes are looked at in the same vein as entertainers but they’re not. It isn’t that much important (cultural projects notwithstanding) for an entertainer to hear the opinions of others on their work, it is the absolute basis for politicians to represent the people and therefore should not only hear the opinions of the people but abide by them and yet a lot of times they don’t. Alot of times politicians go directly by what they want.

We have been waiting for more stimulus for months and both major parties point fingers at the other for why it hasn’t passed and honestly I couldn’t give less of a damn. Who would? On both sides it is a gross neglect to let us die out like this due to bureaucracy and caring more about the deficit than American lives.

I look at the major parties this way- Republicans want the marginalized to die if they’re not being peak useful to their whims and Democrats don’t care if you die.

Rand Paul ,who by some grace of this world I'm not sure how has dodged a lot of flack that his political peers caught for voicing the same sentiment or even anything close by it even by the most hardened alt-right republicans, has gone on record time and time again for months now rallying against anymore stimulus as he feels it less incentivizes people to return to work. Ignoring that not all people hit by the big burden of this pandemic worked in the first place and are still deserving of money to survive and people who were working before need the money now more than ever for their own survival on top of what they make to keep up precautions the idea that people returning to work is more important than them living is a disgusting praxis to have. To throw more salt in the wound Rand Paul has used his only family situation as an example as his children has continued to work and are just fine, never mind the fact that their father is a well connected politician (whose own father, Ron Paul, is also a well connected politician which means he himself didn’t have much need to “get out of the mud” and do hard, laborious work in normal circumstances let alone a pandemic nor ever did) with access to Regeneron whose net worth is estimated to be anywhere from around 775k to 2.5 million let alone that his children's work might not be as intensive as the average person, since his children can make it back to the workplace with his abundant amount of resources at play in their lives clearly the every person can do so too is what he believes.

To him the economy shows great promise in opening up but that has little to do with the individual. As much as politicians love a culture of individualism the second that it is time to think about effects on individual lives against their ideals here comes the collectivism under the economy but people do not automatically survive under an economy, and people cannot reverse their own deaths just because an economy not caring about human costs bounces back.

As mentioned before Nancy Pelosi despite appearances made it clear that for some reason she believes stimulus isn’t really a breaking point all that much anymore due to Biden being elected. No more Trump as president is great but people regardless of who is in office still need money. She denied months of stimulus bills with much greater perks for the American people such as stimulus checks and retroactive payments of unemployment only to now not be quite as willing to fight for the people about a bill with no retroactive payments and a cut stimulus check figure (even her appeal to Trumps call for $2000 stimulus checks came after her conceding to the previous extremely small amount). Many democrats despite some open disagreeing with her statements also openly say they refuse to go behind her back and despite being a party that plays up its progressiveness when useful to finds the idea that a woman who even before that comment was suspected as weighting the bills against the American public, denying much bigger and abundant bills before Biden was chosen as President-elect, just as much as Republicans (somehow in their minds) to get favor in their politician of choices because it would be too far left. Nancy like Rand Paul are seek collectivism when it is useful and individualism when it is not. It was about the damage little stimulus would cause until Biden became the people’s choice and now the individual lives of the people matter little to her as to her there is a new president now but people cannot survive off a new presidents alone.

Across the aisle Democrats and Republicans especially those that are more center than left or right have thought the idea of bipartisanship is important to the bills. I highly disagree. Bipartisanship is nice and self serving for both parties as a feel-good “look! We both want this and are willing to come together.” look yet that has been tried and tried for months now to no movement even with members of both parties backing bills upon bills. To those who tried to hang on to the democrats for a long time Bipartisanship to me always looked like Republicans stripping the people of rights and Democrats pretending to give a damn until they get their votes then no longer caring and back in the day it looked like both parties being pro harmful legislation like the horribly corrupt crime bills of the 80s and 90s.

Both parties are not all that interested in our survival. Even at their best and well meaning we are treated like playing chips and not living, breathing people they were supposed to support so we need to stop supporting them on our dime.

“People need to get to work” YOU work for us. “ We need Bipartisanship!” I don’t think anyone actually gives a damn about that as long as we get our just due money and support. “ The stock market and economy- ” fuck the stock market and economy. The people matter more than these numbers that we keep finding out day by day are very arbitrary.

(Study: Politicians listen to rich people, not you brought to you by Vox) https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-theories-of-american-politics-explained

We have let out of touch privilaged millionaires and billionaires run a country with a populace they cannot relate to and deeply loathe for being less privilaged than them and now we seeing it in 4k in front of our faces.

Lets look at some (considered depending on who you are) less dire wants of the public. The decriminalization of sex work, legalization of recreational marijuana, universal basic income, the end to harmful unnecessary imprisonment and the list goes on. Despite these key issues having country wide support they never seem to completely pass and why is that? Because the people at the head of this country don’t want them to on a personal level so what we want isn't important.

Politics in America is moving like a corpse. Not at all and festering. It is time we did away with these false representatives who do not care about our needs or lives.

What we need is assurance of our wants accounted for. We no longer need politicians. We have literally no joke surpassed the need for politicians. We will not survive them if they stay.

This is not a new concept. I have found journalists voicing this opinion as far back as 2013 (Ironic in that one of the soonest time we’ve seen mentions of the term “Coronavirus” was 2013) from various ideas that politicians are just not needed.

To quote William Dudley Haywood “If the workers are organized, all they have to do is to put their hands in their pockets and they have got the capitalist class whipped” I believe this can count for all underprivileged communities workers and non workers alike who pledge to not bow down to over-privilaged under-caring political rule.

If tomorrow we all got up and ignored politicians, stripped them of their access to departments of government, in their steed placed educators who would inform the public of the accounts and balances available to them with supervisory and managerial persons to implement these changes wanted by the people through legislation of our own making and choice majority rules I can guarantee we’d be in a much better situation.