Trust, transparency, and speaking truth to power

by | Jan 27, 2016 | 2016 Elections, Editor's Blog, US House | 7 comments

If this election should tell us anything, it’s that Americans have lost trust in their government and lost faith in the political establishment to fix it. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Bernie Sanders express the frustrations of average citizens who believe the system is rigged against them and for somebody else. This election year is the culmination of almost a decade of dissatisfaction that resulted in wave elections in 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2014. Voters rejected the power structures in those elections and are prepared to do so again this year.

Before politicians can make progress on a lot of the ills facing the country, they need to regain the trust of the American people. They can’t do that if they continue to pander to the extremes in their parties.  And they can’t do it if they put their own interests before the people they are elected to serve.

In the Eighth Congressional District, Rep. Richard Hudson exemplifies the problem. Hudson is a product the Washington establishment. He’s worked in Congress for more than 16 years and has lived in Washington for the past ten. He’s a political pro who has spent almost his entire adult life working in politics.

But you wouldn’t know any of this from reading his web sites. Nowhere in his biography, either on his Congressional or campaign websites, does he mention his extensive history on Capitol Hill. He never mentions what he did aside from waiting tables and working construction during college. When he claims to have been named a “rising star” in Congress in 2012, he hadn’t even been elected yet, so, if it’s true, it was for moving up from Congressional staffer to U.S. Congressman. Talk about playing the inside game.

In his weekly columns to the local newspapers, it’s clear Hudson is only interested in talking to one segment of the population. He’s pandering to the most conservative of his base, railing against abortion, immigrants, and Obama while rarely offering solutions to anything. In his gerrymandered district, he’s obviously been more worried about a primary from the right than a challenge from the middle.

And that’s a lot of what’s wrong with our system right now. It’s rigged for insiders who play the game and pander to their extremes. We lack transparency because access to big money can create personas out of whole cloth. The people who work hard and play by the rules are getting shortchanged by the people who cozy up to special interests and Washington power brokers.

Let me be clear. I’ve spent the past twenty years of my life as a political and communications consultant, working with Democratic candidates and advocacy organizations across the country to get their messages heard. I got into politics because I wanted to make a difference, not to get rich or be around power. I’ve never lived in Washington or Raleigh.

I’ve spent the past three years writing a blog, PoliticsNC.com, five days a week outlining what I believe. I’m sure much of it will show up in negative campaign ads funded by special interests but I won’t run from who I am or what I’ve done. I may have changed my positions about things I’ve written and I’m sure at times I’ve been flat out wrong, but I’ll give voters in the Eighth District a choice between an agent of the status quo and somebody who willingly and openly speaks truth to power.

7 Comments

  1. Avram Friedman

    “They can’t do that if they continue to pander to the extremes in their parties.”

    Thomas, by using code words to imply that Bernie Sanders represents an “extreme” in the Democratic Party you aren’t exactly fostering a trusting relationship with the people you need if you intend to get elected.

    The real extremists are those candidates in the Democratic Party who have allowed the political spectrum to shift so far to the right that Donald Trump, a Mussolini clone, is now considered an acceptable mainstream candidate in the United States of America.

    The real extremists are those who have accepted money from Wall Street and condone corporate dominance of our political and economic system to the point at which their has been a massive redistribution of wealth to the top one percent over the past 30 years.

    Those who are challenging this paradigm are not the extremists. They are the level-headed patriots who have the guts to speak the truth and stand up to the Oligarchs. If you think business-as-usual politics is going to get you anywhere at the ballot box this year, you haven’t been paying attention, my friend.

    • Thomas Mills

      I wasn’t even thinking about Bernie Sanders when I wrote this piece.

  2. Leake

    I like the idea of a theme song and a pickup truck… I’m not sure what Hudson considers the main issues for the district but it has some of the poorest and economically distressed counties in it – as a result the schools are challenged by chronically low tax receipts. There are some pockets of success in healthcare or suburban real estate development but jobs and training have not grown proportionally within the district, or there is a high proportion of employment (40% or more of the available workforce) with some level of government. These are not the right conditions for improvements in the quality of life or the economic well-being of the district’s citizens. GOP slogans, obtuse economic theories about growth through tax cuts, and the present focus on social issues do not sow the right seeds for change in the lives of most citizens in the district. I hope you can provide a better vision, present the better alternative, and be the better representative from the NC District 8!

  3. Walt de Vries, Ph.D.

    I just checked Richard Hudson’s web site and the first thing that strikes me is: he’s made his living off politics and government. His whole professional life has been with his snout in the public trough.
    Has he ever had a real job?
    For years, Hudson has been living off the federal government (spending the voter’s tax dollars on himself). Yet, he is anti-government and one of the most reactionary Members of the House. He has voted against policies that would help the people of his 8th Congressional district so often, you wonder why he bothered to run for Congress at all.
    What Richard has proven is that you can spend your whole life running for public office, winning, and then living off government money–while at the same time voting to cut and eliminate our government’s major functions (to serve, help and protect people).
    I have never been able to understand why politicians who openly distrust and hate government, want to be part of it. Who do they represent? Don’t you wonder about that, too?
    Our taxes support Hudson’s life style and the voters get nothing in return. He is not alone, there are other “representatives” in North Carolina who are doing the same. Sad.
    Change is needed and is coming in 2016. Stand by.

  4. Christopher Lizak

    The problem is extremely basic. It was identified as a problem in Democracy during the time of Pericles of Athens.

    You need money to win elections. It is the number one predictor of success in elections.

    Nearly all election money is provided by the 1%.

    So to get the money you need to be successful, you have to convince the 1% to give it to you.

    The 1% are not like the other 99% of citizens. They are far less compassionate, and many are outright control-freak sociopaths. Capitalism rewards that kind of attitude and behavior, and those that exhibit it rise to the top.

    For the last ten years (and much longer), the 1%, both Democrats and Republicans, have been moving in fascist globalist lockstep. If you only listen to what they say, and not what they actually do, you can easily become confused and believe that the leadership of the two parties want different things. But Bill Clinton described himself in his first cabinet meeting as an Eisenhower Republican, and his primary concern was what the bond traders wanted. As the DLC’s first great success, Clinton and Gore were put in office to make politics more “business-like”, i.e. run more like dictatorial corporations, i.e. more fascist.

    The 1% have actively and criminally colluded to prevent any political change from taking place that benefits the 99%, while loudly complaining about Washington dysfunction and the need to move decision-making to the private sector (which they own) or to organizations like the WTO (which are controlled by the corporations they own).

    The belief that politicians want to achieve “progress” is often a naive one. Sure, most politicians want to make the world a better place – as long as it doesn’t cost them too much personally. But the 1% make sure that the very idea that a better world is even possible is punished very, very, very harshly, both politically and economically. To actually act in service to the citizens of this nation, at the expense of the 1%, can be a death sentence.

    And what would be more beneficial to the 1% and their owned cronies than what we have right now? The politicians may want a better life for their constituents, but to stay funded under our system they have to do what their sponsors and benefactors want them to do. And the sponsors and benefactors want to maintain the current Banana Republic status quo as is, so that they can stay on the gravy train, which requires remarkably little effort from them. No “better mousetraps”, no “genius”, no “noblesse oblige”, absolutely nothing is required of them other than stock ownership and picking up dividend checks from the mailbox, and maybe an occasional LBO.

    What moron would actually trust such a system to fulfill its basic obligations to ordinary citizens, rather than spending all its time changing rules to make sure the “right” people stay in wealth and power?

    The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. The American People are not insane – they want change and realize they aren’t going to get it by following conventional wisdom.

    It would be insane to think politics-as-usual will ever do anything for the 99% – unless something changes to make politicians more afraid of ordinary citizens than they are of the mafia-oriented 1%. FDR only succeeded with the New Deal because the 1% were terrified of Communism.

    Better to vote for the whack job who will do something, ANYTHING – even if it’s the wrong thing. At least it won’t be the SAME thing, which gets us nowhere but poorer, more surveiled by the suspicious 1%, and in an even shittier environment.

    It’s actually easy to see Trump’s appeal to Main Street. If voting for a Change Agent doesn’t cause any positive change to happen within the legitimate political order, what then is the path to change? Attacking the political system itself (and it’s media subsidiaries)? Check. Finding a scapegoat to blame (like Muslims or Feminists)? Check. Providing an outlet for people to express their frustrations and be affirmed? Check. (Hillary’s political positioning is so stupidly poor I begin to wonder if she’s being intentionally sabotaged by her hired guns, like Bob Dole was.)

    How many “Change Agents” will the American People elect, and be disappointed by, before they take the next step?:

    “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.”

    If you think that’s far-fetched, or just a joke, you aren’t paying attention. Our current situation is remarkably similar to that of the Weimar Republic. All we need is to get the inflation ball rolling and . . .

  5. Nancy G. Rorie

    Keep the heat on and hold Hudson’s feet to the fire. I want to know how he has helped the average and poor, but he can’t speak to those issues because he hasn’t done anything. I’m sick of hearing about social issues such as abortion and same sex marriage. The courts have spoken on both.

  6. Russell S. Day (@Transcendian)

    My win as a manager depended on showing my candidate as same as the people whose votes we wanted. My competition was suited preps. My guy went on wearing a tie dyed tee shirt. I get the impression that the 8th District is rural and predominately conservative in their views. Living over here in Carrboro, would mark you as an escapee of the county of your upbringing. Associated with the liberalism, progressivism of Chapel Hill, lefties, which I want to misspell how can you be like your district voters? What kind of music do they like over there? Just as you had better not marry someone with different tastes in music, you can bring people together around a band. What is the playlist of songs for your people in the 8th district to compete with the playlist of Hudson? What are the lyrics to the song you want to sing to them? I am thinking of Clay Buckner and the Clay City Ramblers for your campaign. What is the most common pickup truck driven in the district? Can you afford to rig it as a soundtrack to drive around in your district playing your song? Nobody in the world is real till they are on TV.

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