Common Sense Questions on Politics and Politicians

Common Sense Questions About Politics and Politicians (You really do know the answers if you just stop and think for two seconds.)
Category: Do you think they might have a different agenda? 1.) Why do presidential candidates "blow" roughly $75,000,000 (million) each on their campaigns, to try to get a job that pays only $400,000 (thousand) a year? If you are a bit slow on the math, it would take them 187.5 years just to break even on this investment.

The Politicians Playbook "The Games They Play"
Playing The "Class Card." (rich vs. poor)
Why do politicians constantly play this tired old "the rich are bad and they are screwing you" card? Why do you suppose they manipulate you into the negative thinking, that it's really the rich that cause all of your problems?
They do it because it works! They know that most people will never think logically about this. It's one of the oldest emotional manipulation techniques in the book . . . they play that little jealousy chord that lurks deep within many of us like they are playing a fine violin! Politicians only want to convince you (long enough to vote at least) that they care about you and that if you vote for them they will "level the playing field"!
First: Certainly I'm quite sure you know that all national level politicians are extremely wealthy. Just check out their net worth (easy to do on the Internet). Senator Hillary Clinton for example has a net worth of $39.9 million, Senator John Edwards, $29.5 million, and Rudy Giuliani at approximately $20 million, and if you keep looking you will see that most are well over $1 million in net worth. From a common sense perspective: Do you really think they "feel your pain?" From a practical perspective: Do you believe, even for a second, that they are going to "get the rich" and penalize them so that you may have a better life? And, lets not forget that the large majority of their campaign contributors (and friends) are rich people . . . very, very rich people. Now I'm not saying that the politicians are bad people. And I'm certainly not saying that the rich are bad people (we should all love the rich.) I'm saying that they play the class card to their advantage because "we the people" have proven to them time and time again . . . that it works! By the way the "Class Card" is played by the media too. Especially when they think it will make their story more interesting, and sell more magazine or newspaper copies or get more viewers! (Yes, it's always about the money.)

Brinkmanship: The Dirtiest Trick One of the oldest (and probably the most sinister) political tricks in the book is ‘brinkmanship.’ It is the practice of pushing a dangerous or deteriorating situation right up to the brink of disaster in order to gain an advantageous outcome. It has been played out many times in International Politics. The technique is used universally by small under-developed nations or large highly-developed nations alike, size really doesn’t matter here. For example, it is quite common today for a country to threaten to develop and/or use nuclear weapons against one or several countries to get their way, or to foster their ideology. The concept is to intentionally push things to the brink ‘hoping’ that the opposition will back down and make concessions. Unfortunately, this game of “saber rattling” is centuries old, and as we all know, sometimes wars are averted and sometimes they are not. Brinkmanship is not just a tool in International Politics, it has of course been adopted by local and regional politicians around the world as well. They may not be threatening to fire any missiles, but they are still playing a sophisticated ‘game of chicken’ all the same. Chances are good that if you pay attention to local politics you will see this card being played close to home. Here’s a good example. A large U.S. city has a “Transit Authority” responsible for mass transportation. Let’s say that for some reason that the Transit Authority is struggling to stay on budget and maintain full service operations. Now, their problem may very well be due to miss-management, but what appointed bureaucrat would ever admit to that? Additionally, (in this example) the politicians have another ‘less visible’ budget crisis looming that they would prefer that the voters don’t know about. Logically thinking, the Transit Authority shortfall may be easily fixed by a modest 10% increase in bus, subway, or train fares, but then that would only fix the visible problem. To fix both issues they need a much bigger influx of cash that could not be clearly earmarked for only one agency within their government, as they need to be able to use the money elsewhere. To add to their challenge, the politician has made campaign promises of “no more taxes,” so what can they do? They need to convince people that they had no choice but to go back on their promises and raise taxes. Ah, enter the ‘Brinkmanship Card!’ What they do now, is allow the Transit Authority problem to continue to deteriorate and worsen. They put off any budgetary assistance or relief discussion (easy accomplished through political stalemate) and they allow the Transit Authority problem to go to the brink of crisis. They threaten that the mass-transit systems will come to a screeching halt. They will have to cut routes, they will have to lay-off workers, and they will have to shut down facilities if they can’t get the money to shore-up the Transit Authority. After all, the budget short fall was certainly not their fault . . . it was just changing (but undefined) circumstances that caused it! The key here is to get the voter worried about being able to get to and from work, or to get to their school, or to their doctors office. Wholesale panic is their friend if they are to make this strategy work! They need to get the ‘voters’ to the emotional point of saying “okay mayor/governor/senator save us, save our transit system!” Then of course, the politician says, “we can save the system, but we’re going to have to raise taxes.” The voters ultimately ‘roll over’ and the politicians have successfully strong-armed more tax dollars out of the public. Remember, it’s called “Brinkmanship” and it works!



by: Dr. Von Zuko 2007©