American politics is complicated. There are many different elections, decision-makers, ways of changing policy, and ideas on how to make that policy which can bungle the mind of the uninitiated. This confusion often invites newcomers to make a few fatal assumptions about the nature of the American political sphere. Such assumptions include the idea that politics is organized in a certain way to have policy coherence and efficient bureaucracy, and the idea that people who make their way all the way into politics have figured out how it is supposed to work, and thus are capable of doing most of the things they are demanded of by their office. These ideas allow us to overlook many of the myths that have penetrated the political sphere as of late, and I intend to oppose that phenomena directly by discussing some of the better known myths.
1. The Court of Public Opinion Is the Most Just.
With many unfortunate incidents involving police brutality and sexual assault often entering into the news lately, there is a tendency to pass judgement on each of the characters involved by ourselves. This obviously undermines the reason for our justice system, but it also means that the people are often retroactively determine how laws should work in order to give what they see to be the ideal outcome.
2. Science Is Up for Debate.
It is not as though science does not have disagreements within itself, those are important and are to be discussed. What does not need to be discussed by politicians is whether scientists are right or wrong about science when they all agree about something, i.e. evolution or climate change.
3. All of Politics Is A Battle between the Establishment and Outsiders.
This is just too simple a statement to describe American politics. There is no unitary establishment, mostly because all of the components of what we may think of as "established" political interests are opposed to each other. There is the financial establishment, the business establishment, the academic establishment, the union establishment, the religious establishment, the media establishment, etc. If you think these all work for the same goal, just ask any of them and they will say they are waging a war against all the others.
4. Political Issues are Resolved Methodically When One is Completed, it is Shelved.
I cannot think of a single political issue in the history of American politics that has had its climax on a single bill, court decision, or executive order that ended the story completely. It is a long, diversified process that puts controversy to sleep. Think segregation ended all at once? It extended for decades with desegregating the armed forces early on all the way to actually enforcing the Fair Housing Act up to this day. Think homosexual marriage was a one-decision issue? Well, even purely in the realm of court decisions that is inaccurate as first DOMA was struck down and then the mandate was established by the Hodges case, but that misses the state-by-state battle over legalizing gay marriage versus defining marriage in state constitutions all over the place. Now think of issues like global warming right now. We have been debating it for decades, and no end is in sight.
