“Robert Redford has a dim view of American politics, says David Hochman in Playboy. As a younger actor, he made several films about the corruption and compromises at the heart of political ambition that, he hoped, would make Americans demand more of their leaders. “I once had great hopes that people would see movies like The Candidate and All the President’s Men and say, ‘Hey, if we’re not careful, we might get snookered.’ I discovered we Americans enjoy the distraction of entertainment, but aren’t really interested in the deeper message. We don’t like to look inward; we don’t like darkness.”
“His cynicism was reinforced when he received a Kennedy Center honor in 2005 and spent an evening hobnobbing with Washington’s elite. “Here were sworn enemies, the leaders who beat the shit out of each other all day in public, but the minute those doors closed for the state dinner, the daggers went away and it was one big happy family. I saw former Republican Senator Bill Frist weaving through the tables, and he came over to Ted Kennedy and started massaging his shoulders and laughing like they were the oldest buddies in the world. Everybody was crossing the aisles and chuckling, and I said, “Oh, I get it! It really is just a game.”
From “the Week” magazine, Oct 19, 2007
Behind the curtain they’re all buddies. They yuck it up and cut deals with each other, but then continue to bash each other for the cameras, just like NASCAR and WWF, so we’ll all stay distracted and entertained while they devalue our dollars and shred our liberties.
As long as THEY can keep all of US arguing, then we won’t notice they’re all in on it together, and the joke’s on us.
Politicians and their TV and radio stooges want to define us all as separate from each other; men vs women, gay vs straight, black vs white, rich vs poor. That’s all ridiculous. It should be US vs THEM because they’re supposed to work for us, but we’ve let them turn it around to where we work for them.
WE are the citizens and THEY are our elected officials. We need to act as one body and hold them all accountable to our needs, not theirs.
Kinnaird 
Awesome post.
graci