Careful What You Wish For

Election Day, quite possibly my favorite day in November. Thanksgiving is nice and all, but honestly, I am just too much of a fan of our unique liberties as Americans for Election Day to not get favored status. This is a time when no matter what your political persuasion, we are united in our uniquely American right to cast our vote in the greatest democracy known to humanity. Never has any other form of governance done so much good for so many.

And yet, while we like to remind ourselves that our democratic traditions stem from ancient practice, the reality is that the world itself has been largely un-democratic until very recently. That is why I get so upset when I see low voter turnout on Election Day. Sometimes, less than half of all eligible voters turn out for these things, which just boggles my mind, because then people have the nerve to turn around and complain that the country is being ruled by special interests. No duh, Sherlock. When you stay at home and watch a re-run of Jersey Shore instead of fulfilling your electoral duty, then yeah, you get the democracy you deserve.

I doubt that will be much of a problem this year, though. There is an awful lot of voter anger out there at a Democrat power structure that has been able to accomplish some sweeping changes in what amounts to a very compressed timeframe. It all reminds me of an Economist editorial after W’s first year in office (when his ratings were still pretty good) that openly hoped he would not get as much done in the years to follow as he did in his first year alone. In business, we speak of the dinosaur syndrome: the bigger the organization, the tinier the brain gets. The federal government is a really, really big dinosaur, and when it runs full tilt in any direction, people are bound to get nervous.