Opinion: Politicians use crises to avoid responsibility
Photo via Flickr (manhhai) under Creative Commons license
Ukrainian soldier stands in the ruins of a building. The conflict has joined leagues of other crises that politicians use to avoid responsibility.
The Ukraine crisis, although infant to the scores of problems in America, is nothing other than an unsolved problem that politicians have been using to avoid responsibility.
As Russia advances on the final resistance in Mariupol, one of Ukraine’s key cities, it should be apparent that this war is not going to end.
Crisis after crisis, headline after headline, America is growing numb to the endless amount of concerning problems that are not getting corrected despite the numerous warning indicators.
— Staff Writer Ashton Lewandowski
Originally thought to be an easy victory for the Russians, it has since turned into just another crisis with no predictable conclusion in sight. Both sides stubbornly refuse to surrender, and neither country will agree to a peaceful resolution. This seemingly unending conflict will join the list of crises that American politicians, and by extension the media, preaches about.
And Americans will get used to it. Similar to what happened soon after the 2014 Annexation of Crimea and the further Russian-Ukrainian war, or the COVID-19 pandemic, the conflict will join the growing list of crises that impact the United States that have been forgotten.
Crisis after crisis, headline after headline, America is growing numb to the endless amount of concerning problems that are not getting corrected despite the numerous warning indicators. The American mindspace, like a toddler, tosses aside the old problems in pursuit of the next new calamity, and politicians know this.
Global warming, racial injustice, even the COVID-19 pandemic have all been forgotten and have been swept under the rug by America’s leaders soon after it was no longer politically relevant, even though all are still issues that affect Americans as greatly, if not more so, as when they first exploded in the public sphere.
Instead of actual solutions, America’s leaders shift their inability or unwillingness to solve problems onto the next big convoluted problem that they likewise will not be finding the solution for.
By focusing on a certain hot button issue, politicians are able to get away with not doing anything to fix the current, already present issues. A recent example of this is the persistent notion from the Biden Administration that Putin is to blame for the increased gas prices, even though the gas prices were already going up long before the Ukraine invasion.
The American way of blissful ignorance during periods of hyperfixation of a certain concern is not sustainable. Americans have to hold leaders accountable to actually fix the issues.
Instead of listening to what politicians or others are saying they are going to do, look for people who have actually gotten problems fixed in this November’s midterms. Words mean nothing compared to action.
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