TO THE EDITOR:

Many of us, whether left or right of center, are pretty discouraged by the inability of our elected leaders to govern effectively and of our political parties to serve us well.   (And I believe that most of us are not on the far-right or far-left fringes but in the wide middle.)  We often feel helpless as we watch Congress and many state legislatures encoding their personal, political and cultural values while the real “work of the people” is neglected. It has been asserted that people vote 85% on how they feel—their emotions—and only 15% on how they think about issues. There is a saying that “we get the government we deserve.”  If so, we have ourselves to blame for the vitriol, anger, polarization, and dysfunction in the public sphere.  WE must be the ones who change things by becoming informed and voting more on reason and less on passion, dismissing candidates of either party who advocate for the craziness or are willing to tolerate it.  The failsafe we are looking for is US!

Marlys Nelson Kolbinger

Becker, MN