When I was a lobbyist one thing was very clear to me. Yes, nobody was driving, that was very clear. And the reason became apparent over time. The rewards for sucking up to the money people are so much greater than doing the “right thing”, and it is SO much easier. Take a look at Congress. When you meet a rep or senator, you realize they are just sales people / actors for the most part. They don’t know anything. Their aids know a lot more than they do. And what the aids do know is exactly who’s giving them how much money and what their position is. The science, the engineering, the planning is totally irrelevant. You have to accept this bizarre paradigm to understand what is happening. It’s ludicrous, yet the truth and it explains what is happening.

Thus politics becomes a venue where mediocre people do the bidding of the 1%. The economics are just too powerful.

Wisdom, education, logic, reason, empathy are just irrelevant. All the education and analysis in the world doesn’t mean anything!

Sadly.