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As a relatively younger person, I definitely had a much different impression/expectation of the American political system than what I'm seeing play out. It see
by askafriend 8y ago
As a relatively younger person, I definitely had a much different impression/expectation of the American political system than what I'm seeing play out.
It seems far more brittle and volatile than I had envisioned it growing up. Now, something sacred like the concept of checks and balances seems a distant ideal at best.
Was the "adult perception" that government is always this chaotic, am I just more perceptive to all the machinations now that I'm older, or are things really "different this time"? I'd imagine the Bush era was also very chaotic.
I guess the lesson learned here is how brittle of a foundation many power structures in the world are built on and how quickly those can shift.
- war1025 8y agoI think government is one of those things that is clean cut and beautiful in the abstract, and an absolute clusterfuck in reality. There are plenty of people who would say the same thing about the Obama era. It really just depends what team you're rooting for. The thing, in my opinion, that is the single biggest merit of the American political system is that reality that most people are self-interested jerks is built in. People are expected to not see eye to eye, the "checks and balances" are in place not to make us all agree, but to keep things functioning well enough that we don't turn violent.