Disconnected

Blog#241-4/27/25

DISCONNECTED
By
Richard Davis

Elected politicians, on all the levels, and the people who support government on a daily basis often have nothing in common. There are no requirements to run for office except for age in some instances. It is one of the great elements of democracy and, for better or worse, we end up with people in power who may have no understanding of how government works. If they have enough money they can win office and once they are in it is hard to get rid of them, That is also what democracy is about.

As we lose our democracy on a national level this disconnect could not be clearer. Trump and Musk have no interest in learning what all the people do who actually do the work of our government. If they even had a shred of interest in trying to understand how government agencies work they might have somehow found a little bit of common sense and talked to all these people and asked them how they might be more efficient.

Instead, as Mr. Chainsaw has shown us, they brought the wrong tool to streamline government and indiscriminately cut for the sake of cutting. No effort to understand what government programs they are ruining. They are guided by political ideology and nothing else.

People who devote their lives to government work are mostly hard working and dedicated employees who have an educational background that qualifies them for their position. They often work for less pay than they could get in the private sector and they find satisfaction in making their government work better.

Then along comes a president who could care less about who they are or what they do or what cutting their job might mean to millions of other Americans. We have heard about this over the past few months and it has created a great deal of anxiety among Americans as well as people around the world. Millions of lives are being disrupted because the leader of this country has no respect for the government that he leads.

Similar scenarios often play out on lower levels of government in states and municipalities. One need only to look to many of the blue states where governors use a hammer when a scalpel is needed to make government more efficient and run more economically. It is easier to remain ignorant of the day to day realities of government and rule by ideology. Those governors who do so only need to look to Washington for inspiration and support.

Our little town of Brattleboro, Vermont in now operating in crisis mode, in part, because of the same disconnect that is playing out in Washington. I was a selectboard member last year and we proposed a budget with a 12% increase. Representative town meeting members voted down the budget and replaced me and the other incumbent running for office.

Those of us who were ousted had a respect for the people who run town government. I felt that it was my responsibility to always work with the town manager and be mindful of the chain of command, while not trying to micromanage.

Our board had no background in government affairs but we tried to support the people who did. The new board is laser focused on the budget and they seem to have blinders on. Now that three new selectboard members are in place they are finding that budget cutting is not what they thought it was.

The board is frustrated because they are flailing while trying to only look at numbers much the same way Trump and Musk have. That frustration has turned into soured relations among selectboard members as they openly fight with each other.

When you couple that with non-existent board leadership it is clear that whatever plan this new board comes up with will create a mess for the town that will take years to fix.