I want to return to the structure/voter discussion from a few days ago, if anything, to get some of it out of my head.
I realize that, in many ways, readers are reacting more to headlines than to the substance of posts. I also want to note, as clearly as possible, that it was never my goal to make the discussion one of a dichotomous choice (i.e., structure or the voters). While I think I made this abundantly clear, perhaps I didn’t. I would further note that I think James’ core thesis, which started this current round of debate, is that a lot of American voters are not voting in competitive contests. Most House and Senate contests are not competitive. Most states are foregone conclusions in the Electoral College. We have profound structural problems in our system if we actually want representative democracy (and granted, some of us don’t). None of this is cultivating a healthy democratic culture.
I simply do not think that enough people really, truly understand how the structures that filter our votes are damaging basic democratic feedback. This includes major media players, some academics, and a lot of otherwise well-informed voters. The mythology of American exceptionalism, or some vague sense that it used to work better, clouds collective judgments.
What I am ultimately arguing for is that we need a system that actually does a better job of reflecting voter preferences, and we can only get to such a system if we recognize and understand the failings of the current system. We simply do not have a system that asks voters what they want, and then gives the winners of the election the chance to govern.
And allow me to insert here, because it needs to be said, that yes: a lot of voters are racists and sexists or are driven by any number of prejudices. And as I noted in the post the other day, if that is, in fact, the majority view, then no improvement to democratic processes will save us from ourselves. The problem, in my view, is that our system ultimately empowers a minority over the majority’s preferences.
Worse: most people don’t understand that this is true, and so eschew reform discussions. Instead, we tend to reduce it all down to individual politicians and the hope that electing the right people this time will fix everything (a sentiment made worse by presidentialism).
A Simple Model of Democratic Politics
The bottom line is this: votes are an input and office-holders are the output.
The electoral system and institutional framework (i.e., “the structure” of this conversation) filter votes to determine how they become office-holders.
A simple model is as follows:
Voters–>THE SYSTEM–>office-holders (the government).
Or, for a slightly more iterated model, here’s a figure from A Different Democracy.
Now, if we had a unicameral parliamentary system, this model would be more or less correct. We would cast a single ballot that would be used to populate the parliament with either a party with a clear majority or a set of parties out of which a majority coalition would have to be formed. In such a scenario, the legislature has to be controlled by a majority party or coalition that is directly linked back to the electorate. That legislative majority would then choose the executive, which would have to maintain majority support to stay in charge.
Under such a model, it is pretty easy to link responsibility for outcomes, as there is a direct linkage to a majority of voters and to who gets to govern.
Even in such a scenario, the exact way that votes become seats can dilute or complicate the exact chain of culpability. For example, in the UK, which also uses single-seat plurality elections, a party can win far less than an absolute majority of the vote and still win a sizeable majority of seats in parliament.
A More Complex System: The US
The US is not so straightforward. Here’s the above figure adapted to reflect the US system. Note that this does not even take into account all the state and local elections we participate in.
The current government came into being as follows:
Voters vote in states in 2024–>Electoral College–>President
Voters vote in 435 districts in 2024–>House of Representatives
Voters in 1/3rd of states voted in 2020–>One-third of the Senate
Voters in 1/3rd of states voted in 2022–>One-third of the Senate
Voters in 1/3rd of states voted in 2024–>One-third of the Senate
In a few weeks we will replace the House with a new set of 435 contests and one-third of the Senate. It is almost certain that the House will go to the Democrats, and it is quite possible the same will happen to the Senate. Then it will look like this:
Voters vote in states in 2024–>Electoral College–>President
Voters vote in 435 districts in 2026–>House of Representatives
Voters in 1/3rd of states voted in 2022–>One-third of the Senate
Voters in 1/3rd of states voted in 2024–>One-third of the Senate
Voters in 1/3rd of states voted in 2026–>One-third of the Senate
This is problematic for a variety of reasons from a democratic accountability point of view.
First, it does underscore that “the voters,” as some monolith, are not responsible for the government at a given moment in time. At a minimum, the federal government of the US is controlled by a number of different sets of voters spread out over geography, but also time.
Second, it utterly scrambles accountability. Separation of powers already makes it difficult, but if the government is differently constructed every two years, who is responsible for which outcomes? Which set of voters are to blame? Which set of prevailing national conditions are relevant?
Third, all of this is made all the worse by the fact that a) most congressional elections are non-competitive, and b) even when a party controls the Senate, they are subject to a minority veto of most legislation.
When does a party even get to really govern? The answer is: almost never. Even holding a trifecta is not enough; to have enough votes to actually pass legislation requires 60 seats in the Senate alongside a majority in the House. This almost never happens.
This fact also leads to an over-focus on the presidency, both for voters and politicians. This is a malady of presidentialism to begin with, as it is a singular prize. This is made all the worse when there is legislative dysfunction (again, what would we expect if even a majority of seats isn’t enough to govern?). Voters then are often just registering their general discontent in presidential contests every four years.
This also incentivizes presidents to try and do more and more on their own, because Congress is inert. An authoritarian personality like Trump makes it all the worse.
So, what do we see? Legislators who can’t legislate, but who want to keep their jobs. If legislating is not the gateway to re-election, then other behaviors are incentivized. Given that 90% of members of the House run in non-competitive races and therefore the key to keeping the job is the primary, is it any wonder that so many of our legislators focus more on being cable news stars or basically influencers? Should we be surprised that Republicans have kowtowed to Trump in the last decade, given that he has demonstrated some level of significant influence with primary electorates?
Note: I am not saying that any of this is good or defensible, but human beings react to the incentives laid before them. The structural condition of American democracy shapes what kinds of people run, who wins, and how they behave once in office.
How is a typical voter likely to respond to all of this, especially when, at best, they assume that the system more or less works (because: America!)? When media narratives tell us all that we vote, and then we get a government that reflects what the voters want?
Indeed, my main problem with a simple narrative that simply says, “the voters are to blame” is that we never, ever straightforwardly ask the voters what they think.
The closest we get is the presidency, but even then the question is filtered through a fifty-six contest: 50 states, DC, and district-level contests in Maine (2) and Nebraska (3). Not only does that filtering create unequal conditions for voters in terms of differing voters counting more than others, but it also creates strategic disparities, insofar as there is no reason for candidates to make serious and targeted appeals to voters in highly populated places (e.g., California, Texas, and New York). We do not have a system that requires a real national contest, even for the presidency.
Throw in the fact that some set of voters are only vaguely responding to policy concerns, but are reacting to some prevailing condition of a given election (e.g., inflation in 2024 and cost of living, driven by fuel prices, in 2026), and we find that other questions tend to fall by the wayside, despite the need of the media (and politically conscious citizens) to want to attach profound meanings to campaigns and candidates.
None of this makes for an especially good democratic feedback loop. Indeed, it is a terrible structure if one wants democratic competition and accountability.
This is already way too long, and does not even come close to addressing all of the relevant issues. But perhaps it helps explain where I am coming from.
And none of this really deals with the role that partisanship plays in the system or the degree to which structures gave us Trump as much, if not more, than the voters did (more on both later).
