Samantha Hancox-Li at Liberal Currents has a piece up that fits well into the major topic of conversation here at OTB for the last several days: Disordered Institutions Make Disordered Publics.
It is not enough to have ‘organizations.’ It rather matters whether these organizations have an intelligible connection with power. If the connection is unintelligible or nonexistent, disordered politics is the result.
[…]
Powerlessness is intellectually debilitating. If nothing you do can affect the outcome, then there is no need to discipline your actions. Policy becomes posture. Reason degenerates into social signaling. Why not simply take the most radical course?
[…]
People who believe their choices don’t matter choose poorly. Parties that know they will never be held accountable have no interest in educating or leading the people, no interest in facts and reality. They may give in to whatever fever dream suits them, tell whatever flattering lies they like, and remain intact.
Why can Trump and friends lie as they do? There is no accountability. Most elections are not competitive.
This reminds me of what I said the other day:
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?
This dovetails with Hancox-Li’s conclusion:
This dysfunctional institutional environment has of course enabled the malignant growth of social entrepreneurs. The most central of these, of course, is the right-wing disinformation machine, which spends all day pumping the people’s veins full of lies that flatter their egos, outrage their sensibilities, and provide convenient scapegoats upon which to heap all the fear and anger in the world.
The right-wing lie machine is itself a creature of a disordered ecosystem. We cannot outcompete lies with lies and evil with more gridlock. We need to do the simultaneous work of rebuilding institutions and publics on the basis of truth, accountability, and effective governance. Parties must lead the people, but they can only do so when they can put their ideas into practice while in power and then face the music at the ballot box.
Perhaps the most basic point I have been trying to make is that there is a profound disconnect between voters and outcomes. Most general election campaigns don’t matter, and the closest we get to getting a real chance to send a national signal is every four years with the presidential elections, and two of the last six have given the office to the popular vote loser. And presidents alone can do nothing unless they want to be dictators. Even holding a trfiects isn’t enough.
To quote myself again:
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.
I will add in a comment James made: plus you have to have the approval of five Justices.
Where in our system is there a clear mechanism for real representation? Where is the chance for a clear signal of voter preference? Where do the rules incentivize governing? Where is the chance to collectively punish or reward our government for doing a bad/good job?
At any rate, go read the whole thing.
