First of all you have to identify the problem. It might just be that there is where the problem lies. Does that sound circular? I hope so because we are dealing with a complex system and circularity is the norm not the exception.
Those of you whose first reaction to the question was to point the finger at the republicans are definitely a significant part of the problem. If you do not yet understand the reality of our country at this point in time you definitely can not help solve the problem. The republicans are here to stay. They did very well in the last election. Part of the reason for that is that democrats appear to live in an unreal dream world.
If you want to look a little deeper read on beyond the break.
We really have to start by clearing up what the concept of a "broken government" means. The first thing any sensible person has to admit is that the concept has different meanings to different groups of people.
Our whole political spectrum has been framed in a very certain way in case you have not noticed. It need not be framed that way but it is. Let's think about how this framing is misleading and how that contributes to the problem.
First of all the world has been simplified beyond any hint of realism by this framing. The concept of a political universe of discourse that is partitioned into three subsets
democrat:republican: independent
is rather childish at best. When I lived in Israel in the early 1960s they had about 26 political parties and most of them had a say in government. The result today doesn't say much for this example and I merely point to it as an illustration of one of many more rational ways of looking at the political universe.
The two party system is a dinosaur, especially in the framework of our constitution. The inability to bring the government down by some sort of vote of no confidence is a major flaw. But the problem is more complex.
Let's digress to what is actually a core issue too complex for a diary like this. The constitution itself is one of our biggest problems but it is all we have. The myths and nonsense that are entwined in the use of this document are myriad. For now let me just suggest that the idea that the men who wrote this document had any trace of understanding of what would evolve in a few hundred years is not worth discussing. Yet political rhetoric that assumes they were that brilliant and that the document can serve today's needs is myriad.
Given that we are stuck with the document and its many conflicting interpretations, we need to see if we can hope to salvage a reasonable government with what we have.
For the government to be broken it must fail to serve its purpose. That brings us to another huge can of worms,namely the purpose of government.
Let's go back to the framers of the constitution we operate under. These were not "ordinary" people nor did anyone think it bad that they were who they were. Women, slaves, servants, Native People, and many other groups were not among them. Not only were they not among them but the system being set up was in no way designed to serve them as equals with the privileged.
In the few hundred years the system has evolved it has had many different ways to extend the notion of "equality" and "freedom" to include other groups, but there is a danger in being glib with these words. The existence of a privileged class of rulers has never disappeared, not has it ever really gone very far in the direction of extending the benefits of having a government such as ours to all the people.
We never were a democracy. We always had the characteristics of an oligarchy with certain limited success on the part of those who fought to undo this. We are evolving into a more clearly visible oligarchy and the attempts to hide this are disappearing.
Slaves were freed at the same time a portion of the Nation that demanded their independence were conquered. These two things are entwined in very complex ways and the result is rather ugly as we all know. What most of us refuse to admit is that the South is a conquered Nation and still feels like one if not consciously, then unconsciously. I have lived in the South for the largest part of my life now and the notion that I came to teach in a Southern University much like the original carpetbaggers came to take over after the defeat is not that far fetched.
The object of hate of the defeated people has always been the Yankee Federal Government. It crammed civil rights down their throats, brought in regulations and taxes that they saw as punishment for their attempt to be a separate nation. The political scene has evolved by changing the way these deep seated feelings are manifest, but the feelings have only deepened in recent years.
So they join with others who despise Federal governing and they castrate the very thing that the naive believers in government hope to use to solve problems.
I think you should be getting my point by now. Is the government broken? Can you hear the many who shout: "Not broken enough"? Can you put yourself in the place of the oligarchs who are reaping wealth from the system at record levels?
The systems works very well and how it is working is not all that far from the way the founding fathers saw it. Those of us who want change need to realize this. We will never get anything close to the change we want through this system.