A P90X for American Politics ... by gimleteye

I'm old enough to remember the first infomercials on television: Ginzu knives, slices of carrots and potatoes flying off the screen. Infomercials are so ubiquitous they remind me that the real country I live in is also home to a sufficient number of buyers to make George Forman wealthier selling counter-top roasters than he ever did as the champion of the world. And we are not more evolved than the crowds of carnival go'ers in the 19th century who, for lack of any other entertainment, gawked at jars filled with intestinal worms and bought magic elixirs to rid themselves of whatever malady they imagined at the source of their troubles.

The same can be said of our approach to politics. Notwithstanding technological inventions that pushed our standard of living to comfort unimagined by past generations, we are prone to electing charlatans to public office who look good on stage, cut a fine figure before the television cameras, and have mastered the art of tapping into deep-seated anxieties. We are like a man with a soft beer belly who prides himself on the strength of his wrist developed from lifting glasses. Even among the fittest for public office, name one who is explaining that our national economic crisis is an enduring Long Emergency and not a Great Recession?

Along this line, I was morosely channel surfing when I came across this year's ubiquitous infomercial; for the in-shape fitness routine you (and millions of others) can do from homes whose values are underwater if they were bought in the last decade: the P90X. For lack of anything else to watch or gainfully employed by, I paid as much attention as I could on the successor regime to exercise balls, weights on springs, or machines that store under beds, in closets, that operate by carbon wires and pulleys and sculpt muscles in your sleep.

P90X promises these results in 90 days and is based, profitably, on cross-training. One week your muscles fatigue through one set of exercises, the next week another way. The point is: if you really work hard to confuse your muscles to work hard, you end up in better shape.

This lead me to speculation: couldn't the same practice be applied to American politics. It would require a constitutional amendment, but look at what the GOP is proposing now in the House of Representatives: how could institutionalizing cross-training in the American constitution be a worse outcome than guaranteeing we will be cutting public investment at the same time the value of everything else is declining.

The "exercise" of elected officials is like a herd of cows let out of the barn in the morning to graze in timothy and alfalfa all day and trudge back to the barn at night. There is no difference between the city commission or the US Senate: just the quality of hay they feed on. Not to mention watering holes along the way. This has been going on so long in America, the ruts are worn deep into the dirt.

What would cross-training do for American politics? How would it work? Who would the trainers, be? This will require more careful study next time I happen upon P90X. Hope springs eternal and how difficult could it be, to avoid the current results?