I suppose I should be able to just laugh at it and move on. I should be able to tease, mock, joke, roll my eyes, scoff, and then go on about my day. But I can't. And one of the major reasons I can't is because so many others can and do.
If you didn't see it, Not the Bee reported on Senator Chuck Schumer's Father's Day burger blunder yesterday:
Now, don't get me wrong. I really loved some of the sarcastic and biting responses that came from across the fruited plain. Comebacks like this do good things for me:
But here's the deal that too many of us forget. The man in that picture is the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate. He is the most powerful man in the "world's most deliberative body." He controls the flow of legislation coming out of or going into the U.S. House of Representatives, manipulating and changing laws that affect all of us before they hit the president's desk.
A man who doesn't even know you cook a hamburger before you put cheese on it is spending trillions of our dollars every year. Actually, forget our dollars - Schumer and his compatriots of both parties in D.C. blew through all our tax dollars from last year sometime in May. They are currently spending our children's and grandchildren's dollars from now until the end of the year.
This may seem silly or overly simplified, but I cannot stomach the fact that we are letting men and women who don't know how to grill a hamburger infringe upon our liberties with every law they write, and spend our hard-earned money on their projects here and around the globe. It's insulting that they would deign to do so, and worse, that they think so little of us that they post these kind of pictures pretending they're just like us and live like we do.
Though those images seem to suggest that my complaints cut only one way, rest assured this is a bipartisan problem. Chuck Grassley and Mitch McConnell, the longest serving professional politicians in the Senate, are both Republicans. Hal Rogers and Chris Smith, the longest serving professional politicians in the House are also both Republicans.
(No word on whether they can operate a grill.)
Obviously, the real issue is a lack of connectivity to, and even understanding of, the life of average Americans. Don't send me flyers using your privilege that I'm paying for, just so I can see pictures of you driving an old Chevy pick-up through your ethnically diverse neighborhood.
No one believes you.
We know you all live in gated communities, haven't driven yourself in over a decade, and would tear a transmission out within seconds if you ever even tried to operate a clutch.
Don't misunderstand, I'm not envious of these lawmakers' rank, position, and wealth. No, what is frosting my rhubarb here is that citizen legislators should have at least some frame of reference for what an average citizen's life is like. Patronizing videos where Senator Elizabeth Warren cracks open a beer or Representative Lauren Boebert shows us how much she enjoys guns and ammo, only make things worse. They literally do the meme and think we're all dumb enough to fall for it.
Mark Petracca, a former political professor and dean at the University of Chicago, writes it perfectly:
Whereas representative government aspires to maintain a proximity of sympathy and interests between representative and represented, 'professionalism' creates authority, autonomy, and hierarchy, distancing the expert from the client. Though this distance may be necessary and functional for lawyers, nurses, physicians, accountants, and social scientists, the qualities and characteristics associated with being a 'professional' legislator run counter to the supposed goals of a representative democracy. Professionalism encourages an independence of ambition, judgment, and behavior that is squarely at odds with the inherently dependent nature of representative government.
That paragraph is everything. I want my doctor to be a professional who exhibits expertise in treating my illness. I want my lawyer to be a professional who exhibits expertise in presenting my case. I want my accountant to be a professional who exhibits expertise in beating back the IRS. My government lawmakers? I want them to listen to and empower the professionals and experts in their various fields, not pretend that they are the professionals and experts.
Moreover, I don't need my doctor to have experienced diabetes to know how to treat mine effectively. I don't need my lawyer to have been accused of a crime to know how to defend me when I am. I don't need my accountant to have been audited to know how to get the IRS off my back.
But I do need, and I certainly want, people who write laws for me to know what it's like to be me.
