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Back by popular demand, one of America's longest-running reality shows has returned this fall: "Vote the Bums Out, 2010 Edition."
Polls indicated that Americans remained frustrated about the country's direction. As expected, they pummeled the party in charge. This time around, in the midst of continuing economic worries, it was the Democratic Party.
It's common to see widespread feelings of anti-incumbency surface regularly in American politics. Solutions to our most pressing problems remain elusive.
What voters need to understand, though, is that these quandaries aren't going away soon, no matter which party controls Congress.
To understand why, you need look no further than the sad tale of the U.S. Senate, profiled in August in a New Yorker article, "The Empty Chamber." The article described a nearly paralyzed system lacking in any meaningful political engagement between the opposing parties.
Despite the Senate's reputation as the "world's greatest deliberative body," very little real debate goes on there, according to the article. Senators were more likely to deliver a stem-winding speech to cameras in a nearly empty chamber than air policy disagreements with the opposing caucus over lunch.
It's tempting to blame such polarization on the authorities serving in Congress and their individual parties. But the systemic paralysis frustrates senators on both sides.
Each day they wrestle with increasingly complex problems while their respective parties, caucuses, interest groups, donors and voters demand more from them. Their authority gives them power, but also creates constraints because of all the groups commanding their allegiance.
In the introduction to his 1994 book, "Leadership Without Easy Answers," Harvard University leadership educator Ronald Heifetz wrote about our tendency to scapegoat authority figures.
"Although people in authority may not be a ready source of answers, rarely are they the source of our pains," Heifetz wrote. "Pinning the blame on authority provides us with a simple accounting for our predicaments."
His words ring no less true today. After all, constituents recently have laid the blame for everything from a struggling national economy to environmental degradation at the feet of authority figures in both the Republican and Democratic parties.
Yet citizens also might want to ask themselves how they contribute to the mess, whether it's in the U.S. Senate, this state or the nation. After all, Americans want their authorities to make progress representing their needs and values. Yet they want that progress to arrive painlessly.
It's no less true in Kansas than it is in the nation's capital. I'm sure many Kansans can name several institutions here sometimes plagued by dysfunction, not unlike what the U.S. Senate experiences.
Voting for the candidates one most believes in is vital to democracy. However, replacing old authorities with new ones won't necessarily make solving persistent problems easier.
We'll make progress on the most difficult dilemmas when more Americans (and Kansans) of all political persuasions become more willing to lead — and be led — in sacrificing some of what they want to advance a larger good.
