Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Santorum: Reinforcing Negative Stereotypes and the Two-Party System

I recommend this very interesting NYT article (http://nyti.ms/wvpNLu) that was published late last week and relates how Rich Santorum has made tons of money since leaving the Senate (incl. $1m in 18 months in 2009-10) by working for the very companies that benefited from the legislation he lobbied for when in Senate… Certainly not the first one in Washington to do this but that does not make it alright!!

Two conclusions here - Santorum is the ultimate insider contrary to what he wants people to think. And, how can we expect that a story like this one won’t make Americans even more distrustful of anything government and even angrier at politicians in general?

The US is fortunate to have a two-party system. Given how mad a lot of people are right now there would be a lot of room for extremist parties. The Tea Party chose to join forces with the Republican Party to have representation in the Congress and to potentially put its candidate in the White House.

But had they remained independent they could be the biggest party in the US in a multi-party system, certainly bigger than the Republican Party and potentially than the Democratic Party if a more radical left wing had emerged from the Occupy Movement and other left-wing manifestations of rejection of capitalism gone wild.

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