Sentinels In The Midst of Politicians / #theFreedomPapers #criticalthinking #media #education #government

Serious obstacles are in the way of how Americans approach conversing on a wide range of issues, and great challenges on what kind of leadership represents America have taken a seat in the domain of our governments leadership.  It seems to be that both Republican and Democratic Party congressional leaders can find common ground in matters of care taking for the natural environment and on immigration, if calm and collected congressional leaders can choose to work together for the good of these two issues.

1. The divisive nature of how information is curated and released for public consumption, has played a vehemently divisive role in how the American people relate to any notion that progress can be had. This complex political strategy of how, when, and what kind of news information is released plays out straight as a game of what is known as ‘identity politics’ on multiple stages stifling the organic, natural development of progress on any issue. Chief amongst the curators of this short-sighted political strategy, are the leaders of media news organizations, choosing to push information through a lens of political ideology instead of the objective and balanced news of the day. 

1. Who is leading? Is the media in charge of creating or reporting the ‘news?’ In giving credence on how they say what they say, congressional officials public responses on their legislative actions can side-step media-driven propagandizing of issues, defusing the role of media organizations as lead policy creators.

Moving Forward

With the Democratic congressional officials agreeing to release themselves from ‘global warming-climate change’ rhetoric and simply looking onto the combined, pragmatic approach of bringing about solutions that address, not simply how America meets its social responsibilities in greater measures, but how the world’s nations, specifically India, and China can be brought to reduce the amount of plastic that is discarded into the ocean, real progress can be made on sound policy and on creating a new beginning of unified congressional work. We have to be about finding where we can work together, especially in times when the great issues of the day are used to maintain an ideological valley, all to quickly taken advantaged of through the works of political organizations who may benefit from creating and sustaining division.

Likewise, political leaders desirous of taking initial credit for successes in these areas of national policy can directly stop momentum and devolve the process once again. Republican and congressional officials have the opportunity to set precedent in working together with their Democratic Party colleagues, thus truly leading the front. It would be a win for the Democratic Party to have one of its major initiatives, addressing the process of ‘immigration,’ reach finality, as it would be a win for the Republican political party to drive the teamwork efforts. This atmosphere of working together, if sustained, would bring the country onto a new path. Credit would be given to individual leaders who make the successes happen, in spite of the challenges faced and the duration of time experienced in bringing about progress. 

Approaching Immigration First

Of greater ease to solve is the matter of immigration, whereas the care taking of the natural environment, as in having clean water, clean rivers and oceans, and responsible industrial practices, can quickly be inundated with the reality of who regulates, what is regulated, and how that affects the local and national economy. 

Far from being perfect in how Americans and American industry regulates its negative environmental footprint, the U.S. as one body, has, over the last three decades, taken accelerating measures to recycle plastic, curtail excess air pollution, and shore up refuse that enters the ocean. Even so, great mountains of work remain to be done which is best driven initially from individual citizens who care enough to consistently bring forward concerns that continue to affect our environment. Robert Kennedy is an example of an American citizen who has led consistently in this arena.

Creating a plan of sequenced small to large victories to attain congressional team work is the first step on resolving our immigration debacle. The process of working together is of great value. Surely, the end result matters, but there will be future issues to work on in months, years, in the following decades,so creating a new effectual standard of how elected leaders work with one another is smart. It can be, and usually is, that a very small number of congressmen and congresswoman will be the one’s integrating this mindset, known as the champion mindset or the growth mindset. These few will be the one’s ultimately most respected. Senator Rand Paul is one of these.

Democratic senators and congressional representatives can bring forth a plethora of smaller immigration policy issues that can give them an opportunity to be credited for how the immigration issue was resolved and packaged. These moves need to be done in the spirit of working together and of realizing that frayed relationships between political parties can be mended, if the focus is moved away from attacking people’s character and publicly mocking the president with the goal of delegitimizing him. These actions stop forward momentum, and give the majority of our mainstream news and social media platforms, (mostly left-leaning ideological information sources) what they want, to be able to control and lead on the issues, instead of the actual leaders involved leading.

“Our democracy cannot be in the domain of news mediators who feign objectivity, yet are known to have personal ideological positions, even orchestrating situations according to their ideologies and short-sighted agendas, for this feeds into a continuation of the ‘identity politics’ which have proven to make caricatures out of people and issues.”

Tactically, beginning to address the care taking of our environment as an issue of national concern can be done with placing the focus outside of our national borders. This could, for a time, create a uniting spirit of congressional solidarity that brings commonality of vision amongst congressional leaders outwardly at a time when there are such pressing national issues besetting and polarizing us into inaction. Our democracy cannot be in the domain of news mediators who feign objectivity, yet are known to have personal ideological positions, even orchestrating situations according to their ideologies and short-sighted agendas, for this feeds into a continuation of the ‘identity politics’ which have proven to make caricatures out of people and issues. Such a unifying strategy, then, is pivotal to creating a sense of ‘team work accomplishment’ throughout our U.S. congress in a time when it is greatly needed.

The Importance of Experiencing a Sense of Accomplishment

A historicity of experiencing congressional bi-partisanship inaction can deliver a repeated sense of failure in our congress. This can rise up obstacles that sap time, money and congressional success.  Being strategic on how to bring about these victories as congressional leaders will require a mindset that focuses on fine-tuning the process of working with one another, more simply getting legislation passed on the strength of how many votes can be attained to bring about a specific end result. How elected leaders speak of one another in person and in the public domain will directly and indirectly affect how congressional work is brought about to fruition. It would then behoove much of the Democratic Party congressional team to seek out and be open to getting real work done, rather than adhering to obstructing and resisting for the sake of obstructing and resisting. In this sense, the parameter of building working relationships in congress is valued more than who gets credit for what. 

Leaders interested in finding common ground need only to be of the mindset that they WILL be about the diligence of finding common ground, especially if their political party is in a position of greater control. This mindset establishes a message from one congressional official to another that says, “Even though there are issues we will not agree on, I am mindfully looking and continuously searching for common ground.’ The formula requires consistency of this mindset over time, and the leaders who can do this best are the winners.  Genuine leaders will prevail over those who simply play the politics of teamwork across the congressional aisle. Eventually, the proof will be in the track record of combined legislative achievement for each senator and representative. This does not mean leaving one’s political positions and surging towards the middle in political perspectives, but in delivering a message through continued action that aligns the congressional senators and representatives with this mindset of valuing process, more so than end result, hence, standing out as sentinels in the midst of mere politicians.