I just ran across a couple of shocking stats, especially when combined:
- Congressional approval ratings dropped to a then-record-low 10% in 2012.
- Nonetheless, 90% of the representatives in the House of Representatives were re-elected.
America! Why you haz so dumb?
In all seriousness, here’s the good news: the US somehow realizes that Congress is broken.
But here’s the bad news: the majority think that their representatives are somehow not the problem.
Bill Maher is looking to kick at least one harmful representative out of office through the power of the media. Here’s more from Fast Company:
But going into the 2014 midterm elections, Maher’s strategy has changed. He isn’t only using political angst for bits; he’s using a segment of the show to try and directly influence a midterm race. Maher’s “Flip a District” project has already begun taking video and social media nominations of representatives his 4.2 million weekly viewers would like to see ousted. The left-leaning Maher has vowed to narrow down a 16-person bracket to one contender and do his best to drive a stake through his or her incumbency.
Almost without a doubt, the target candidate is likely to be a Republican. Here’s why:
That doesn’t rule out the possibility of adding a Democratic incumbent to the “Flip a District” bracket. Maher himself isn’t even registered blue. “But you’d have to show me a district where the Republican running against him is an improvement, and that would be pretty hard to do,” Maher says. “Democrats became, unfortunately, a centrist party, and I think, in a lot of ways, a right of center party. And the Republicans just took the short bus to crazy town. So it’s usually not a big decision on who’s the worse one in any given district.”
