I’m pretty open about the fact that I have a number of issues with the politicians who run the country, supposedly in our name. This has been the case through at least two decades at this point.
Today there’s a story about a state senator from Virginia who’s resigning from his position. Ostensibly in order to take a more prestigious political appointment and to clear the way for his daughter to get an appointment that his current position precludes her from holding. That in and of itself is pretty shady if you ask me. I mean, the guy was elected by his constituents to represent them and now he’s all, “Oh, yeah, sorry about that… you won’t mind if I just step down and get a better job over here, right?”
Not. Cool.
What makes it even less cool is that he’s a Democrat and his resignation tips the balance in the state legislature in favor of the Republicans.
So, not only is he stepping away from the position that those who voted for him entrusted to him in order to pursue personal gain and glory, in doing so he’s effectively handing over his hunk of the legislature to the other side. That’s totally: “Oh, yeah, and by the way, all that stuff I promised I’d represent you about… I’m just going to go and let it get outvoted by the people you disagree with the most. That’s not a problem, right?”
Doubly. Not. Cool.
The final tidbit is just icing on the cake at this point. Seems that shiny new appointment he’s leaving for (and the one that his daughter will get now that she’s free to do so)… those are positions that the Republican party has the power to grant. The scuttlebutt, of course, is that they’ve offered him these perks in order to get him out of the way so they can have a clear path to blocking anything the governor wants to do. So we can just tack on to the above two sentences, “Oh, and I’m doing it at the behest of those people that you sent me here to fight against.”
That’s just beyond “not cool.” That’s downright traitorous. That’s a full and complete middle finger to anyone who voted for him and trusted that he’d continue to do the job he’s been doing for years.
This is politics at its worst.
It makes me a bit ill to read about it.
Because it’s happening right in the open and, so far, no one’s doing anything about it.
Because it’s nothing new. This is how things have “worked” on and off since the first time one person was put in charge of the well being of others.
But just because it’s nothing new doesn’t mean it has to be business as usual. We know about it. We can do something about it (even if it is just shun the hell out of this guy). We can speak up and say “This sort of thing is more than unacceptable, it’s reprehensible.”
And, really, I hope a lot of people in Virginia do that.
