MINOT — Our federal government is utterly dysfunctional. We hardly needed to endure the longest federal shutdown in the history of this republic to know that.

The dysfunction is our fault, too. Facebook pundits and barstool gadflies like to moan about the elites and the political class, but who do they think is electing these people? Bleat about the “system” being “rigged” all you want, but there are plenty of boring, competent leaders out there, but they don’t get our votes. What American voters tend to accentuate in their political leaders when casting their ballots is entertainment value. Bombast. Partisan loyalty.

Clowns, essentially.

For the electorate, what a given candidate is against seems to matter a whole lot more than what they’re for.

These are the priorities we’ve chosen

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