Elected officials’ self-preservation

We do not have a representative government; we have a professional government.

The primary concern of all elected officials at every level is to get reelected. It is their livelihood — their income, their health care, their pension, their mortgage payment and their children’s college tuition. To get reelected, they must romance the rich, not just from their jurisdiction but also the rich from everywhere else, and not just people but also corporations defined, for funding purposes, as human beings.

Any issue, no matter how urgent — climate change, gun violence, an unsteady economy, a zooming debt, the dehumanizing of immigrants, deep-seated racism, the betrayal of our allies — all of this is of secondary importance to staying in office. The 2020 elections will be crucial to the future of our country, but they will not fix this elementary flaw in our system of government. — Philip L. Blackwell, Whitewater, Wis.