Government is boring.  It’s in the DNA.  The day-to-day process of American governance always has been and always will be boring. It is supposed to be boring.

The only people who find it exciting are policy wonks and journalists.

American government activities are largely procedural and sometimes purely ceremonial. Americans who aren’t outright ignoring government generally tolerate it at best.

Until someone starts to mess with it. Then suddenly people pay attention.  A group raises its collective head and yells, “Hey! You can’t mess with that!”

Then another group responds, “You never cared when people messed with it before.  You just don’t like it when these guys mess with it.”

It’s never good for anyone to mess with it.  But this is the real world, and people mess with things. Right now, these guys are messing with governance, just like others have in the past.

So why are people suddenly engaged? Maybe because the way these guys mess with it demonstrates their lack of interest in public service.  Government is supposed to be boring, but it’s also supposed to work on behalf of the people, not in the self-interest of its leaders.

This is a non-partisan post. Let’s assume some group will always try to mess with government. Why shouldn’t that group be the American people?

The Constitution tells us that we control the switch. We’ve been asleep at that switch for a long time, because… government is boring. But maybe our boredom was really just a lack of understanding about why the Constitution matters.  Now that we understand, maybe we can take the necessary steps to restore civility to public discourse, and make government boring again.