PARIS BURNING

The world must be watching in disbelief! Paris burns and America takes another year to debate if one incompetent or another will take over the White House from Barack Obama. It defies logic that while ISIS attacks Russia in the air over Egypt and France in its capital, while Putin moves into Syria and China lays claim to disputed parts of the South China sea, while our national debt is creeping towards the $ 19 trillion mark and inequality of opportunity threatens the very fundament the nation was built on, America is preoccupied with meaningless TV debates between pretenders for the throne that for more than a year will still be occupied by the same guy who has resided there for the last seven years.

As if it is not bad enough that we parade a retirement age retread, a self-avowed socialist, an egomaniacal lunatic and an ultra-right wing neurosurgeon as front runners for their parties’ nomination across our TV screens—for the whole word, friend and foe, to see—we are essentially putting governance of the nation on hold until the elections are behind us and the new king or queen has been crowned. No wonder our nemeses are seeing a window of opportunity also comforted by the knowledge that the American people are tired of getting their military involved in no win situations.

The endlessly protracted process of American presidential elections is one of the worst aspects of a political system that is less and less capable of addressing the nation’s urgent needs and challenges. It puts just about everything on hold. Every politician is campaigning rather than governing and this will not change until we have changed the constitution to give the President only one (extended) term of six or seven years. Because without such constitutional amendment the next president will again only have about two years to govern before he/she goes back in election mode with the rest of the political class. Many voters watch this spectacle with approval: the ones who loudly proclaim that less government is good government. I am an advocate of small government myself, but one that is agile, smart and effective and always at work to make the nation and the world a better place. Not one that is disengaged from serving the people half of the time, while being engaged in fundraising for the next election all of the time.

Paris is burning, the Middle East is blowing up, radical Islam is spreading nearly unopposed and we are watching Hillary Clinton debating Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump ridiculing Ben Carson. Whatever happened to American exceptionalism and leadership?

Our elections are, like our military, by far and many multiples the most expensive in the world. Are we getting our money’s worth? That—of course—is a rhetorical question.