Frog Swanson

Political Literacy and Engagement

I’m afraid my job is slowly turning me into a spiritually angry boomer.

Anyone who works in and around or talks about government is inevitably going to wind up quoting a certain Indian gentleman who so aptly described democracy as “government by the people, of the people, for the people… but the people are retarded.” I say this as someone who works closely with several municipalities, counties, and other governments. The sheer scale of the federal government’s involvement in everything from grant-funding to regulations has been discussed many a time before by better men than myself, so I wish to turn to a feature of government so often overlooked: the citizenry.

In a former life I had watched the television show Parks and Recreation (with a woman, I’m not gay), and the last several weeks I’ve been pondering the various situations that cast members had gotten themselves into during their tenure at the Parks and Recreation Department. As with all successful sitcoms, there is a sprinkle of truth baked into the formula; you just have to sift through the processed slop to get to it. One of the few nuggets of truth found in these slice-of-life comedies pertains to those who are the most civically engaged: either they are the most politically illiterate over history, funding, and policy, or they have some borderline autodidactic expertise in one or all of these fields.