Jason Riley’s paean to the “Smoke-Filled Room” overlooks one thing that periodically becomes the most important thing in governance.
While noting the imagined advantages of the party bosses-based system such as “organization”; “how to turn out the vote”; and “how to pick capable candidates who are less likely to polarize and more likely to win”: Mr. Riley is silent about the one supremely important political necessity they cannot and will not provide.
Reforms and changes are of vital importance periodically if any society, under any system, is to survive. That is precisely anathema to the inhabitants of the “smoke-filled room” of both parties. Not only do they oppose reforms; their very existence depends on crushing changes and marginalizing outsiders.
Is it any wonder that Donald Trump, a consummate outsider, is, despite being supported today by millions of voters of all stripes; the target of the political “establishment”, those lobbyists benefitting from the current political status quo, and media political mavens dedicated to preserving their own status?
Millions of us believe the Nation is not being run in the best interests of the citizenry and the only hope of restoring good governance is an outsider with a proven record of accomplishment that shares our concerns and, simultaneously, the contempt of the mythical cigar smokers Mr. Riley would resurrect.
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Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.
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