Why Do Our Political Options Suck?

The stalemate over house speaker brings to mind a question: Isn’t it strange that in a nation of such ambition and inventiveness, our options for political candidates basically range from bad to worse, from senile morons with no understanding of basic economics to ditzy Marxists and outright frauds and crooks? Not every politician is awful, but I think most Americans now believe, as a friend of mine used to say, that if we could get fifteen or twenty ordinary people in a room, they could be infinitely more effective than Congress at solving national problems.

Some blame the lack of term limits. Those probably would help. Government doesn’t bankroll its own operations—citizens do. And citizens bear the burdens of laws and regulations. So we want people in government who actually know what it’s like to be productive, value-creating citizens, making their own money and subject to the same laws as everyone else—not spendthrift careerist technocrats hell-bent on burning through all our earnings and then some.

Others say there’s a deeper problem: too much fidelity to the supposedly “false theory” on which America was built. . . .

About Jon Hersey

Jon Hersey (@revivingreason) is managing editor of The Objective Standard and holds fellowships at Foundation for Economic Education, where he writes in defense of freedom, and at Objective Standard Institute, where he teaches courses and hosts the podcast “Philosophy for Flourishing.”

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