As long as we lock ourselves into the two-party mindset, we’ll keep looking at politics like a sporting event — with Democrats cheering on their “team” and Republicans cheering on theirs, and mindless groupthink loyalty counting for more than (say) policy. It’s not so much that we only have two major parties, but that we tend to pick a party first, then justify its policy.

Here’s my radical thought: Given that both parties’s leaderships are dominated by the same sort of politician, let’s give both parties the finger and elect as many independents and small-party candidates as we possibly can. (Rather than be dogmatic about party issues, we should make exceptions for any major-party candidates whom we can trust to vote against the party line when the party line is bullshit.)

Yeah, they don’t have 2/3rds, but what about working together? When the Republicans were in control, every story in the news went along the lines “Today, Republicans decided not to work with their Democrat colleagues to pass …” That isn’t the case when the Democrats are in control. That is what I meant by Gallup giving the Democrats a pass, conviently forgetting to ask people if they approve of Democrats not working with Republicans.

The Democrats don’t have a two-thirds majority in either house, ergo they could not override a Presidential veto even if they all voted as a bloc. The Republicans have enough votes to kill any override attempt.

Here are my reasons for the low numbers. 1) Democrats haven’t cleaned up the corruption, merely sanctioned part of it. 2) Gallup is giving the Democrats a pass for not being able to get a consensus to override the Presidential veto. I don’t buy that. Democrats in Congress haven’t had the balls to stick to their policy decisions, mainly because they uh, yeah, voted to go into Iraq. 3) What policies the Democrats have passed have been far-left goals like raising the minimum wage. The average American doesn’t care about, and is actually harmed by, the minimum wage increase. 4) Gallup says Congress suffers when the economy is hurting. Well, the media has been praising the falling economy for awhile now so is it any wonder that voters think the economy is bad? Then again, with the economic dunces in Congress right now, do people really think the economy will get better? Will they credit Democrats for it even since most Democrat policies being promoted would hurt the economy?

The overall approval numbers are low simply because the Democrats haven’t actually done what the regular Joe voter elected them to do. Bickering with the President is a welcome diversion for limited government folks, but it won’t raise anybody’s approval ratings with the majority of the country.