It is abundantly clear that finding actual solutions to our problems is not the goal of most of our politicians, and it hasn’t been for a really long time.  Instead, it’s all about the game.

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The game of politics is being played by two ineffectual teams with nothing more in their arsenal than high-dollar lobbying, unconstitutional executive orders, self-serving earmarks, and despicable little tricks like gerrymandering and voter suppression. The game of politics is the reason that Russia was able to exploit our deep internal division and interfere in our sacred elections; why our total public debt is over $34 trillion, our federal budget deficit is $1.7 trillion, and the reason we even know the term fiscal cliff; and why Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. debt rating for the first time in history — well over a decade ago — because of “the gulf between the political parties.”

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…and the downgrades didn’t end there. Fitch downgraded America’s long-term credit rating in August 2023 — due to “fiscal deterioration, a high and growing general government debt burden, and the erosion of governance that has manifested in repeated debt limit standoffs and last-minute resolutions” — and Moody’s lowered its outlook for U.S. sovereign debt from stable to negative three months later because of “continued political polarization.” Specifically, Moody’s said that “continued political polarization within U.S. Congress raises the risk that successive governments will not be able to reach consensus on a fiscal plan to slow the decline in debt affordability.”

 

The game of politics is why over 38 million Americans are trapped in poverty, why our inequality gaps in almost every category are massive, and why our Medicare and Social Security funds are virtually insolvent. It is why we still have broken health care, education, and criminal justice systems, and why our immigration policy is a complete cluster#*^#.  It is why our checks and balances are completely out of whack, why governmental waste is colossal, and why lobbyists almost exclusively write our public policy. It’s the reason our early response to Covid-19 was a disaster — as was our exit from Afghanistan — and why our closest allies are still somewhat confused and concerned. The game of politics is why atrocities like “enhanced interrogation techniques” (i.e., torture) and Guantánamo called into question our national core values and threatened our global image; why Iran and China are resentful and resurgent; and why Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un are essentially shooting us the bird.

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It cannot be denied: The game of politics has brought this country to the brink, to the point where we literally have no choice but to make serious, significant changes. We're pretty sure most of us believe this to be true, but we always get stumped by the million-dollar question:

 

How in the world do we do it?