Why Politics Fail
A Nonpartisan Exploration
“There’s a difference between us. You think the people of this country exist to provide you with position. I think your position exists to provide those people with freedom.”
The failure of politics to achieve many of its promises has little to do with the existence of partisan disagreements or of simply "voting for the wrong side." No, the main reason why these pursuits fail is because politics is primarily about politics, instead of being about people, and the liberties that protect them.
People or Power
Political pursuits, if they were aimed primarily at uncovering ways to solve problems, securing infrastructure, protecting individual freedoms, upholding just laws, facilitating opportunity, and opening new lines of communication, would be vastly more useful and more valuable to society. Not to mention a great deal more interesting. As it stands, politics function largely as a gateway toward self-preservation and self-exaltation.
Instead of focusing its energies and resources on solving problems and maintaining liberty, politicians spend the bulk of that energy trying to get reelected. The point is then to preserve the status quo and not to challenge or refine those things that need sharpening. This inevitably leads us down that serpentine rabbit hole which begins at personal compromise, snakes through the corridors of glad-handing, corporate favors, and endless veiled contributions, and makes several stops in the subterranean towns named Apathy, Reality Avoidance, Self-delusion, and Legalized Theft (rampant waste of public resources). All of it, the ongoing machinations of ineffectual governance.
Prioritizing the people who put these individuals into positions of power, and upholding the freedoms of these same individuals, is far down the list of daily concerns for many of the men and women in office. We are a thing apart, an entity, they feel, if not below, at least far out in the periphery of the primary political vision. We are valuable to many of these individuals, only in so much as we help put them in office.
The Real Work
This isn't to say there are no good politicians. We have several, far more than we know or credit. The problem is that most of the ones getting things done, helping others, and bringing greater well-being to their constituency, aren't getting the attention. They don't care about that. They're busy doing their job, often working away at very unsexy but consequential matters like fighting for enough school supplies for underfunded districts, upholding free speech in an age when we seem ready to let it crumble, increasing opportunity for small business owners, developing community services for struggling families, and making economic choices that benefit those who actually pay their salary, the citizens.
The ones who get most of the air time on mainstream media (mainstream media: these days a platform and set of individuals more closely resembling content creators and propagandists than truth-tellers and level-headed distillers of fact), are talking the loudest, shouting more often, making the biggest claims, avoiding objectivity when answering questions, and spending other people's money on $5,000 a plate fundraisers and more efficient ways to stay in office. It is a tragedy that more humble but effective statesmen and stateswomen are not recognized for their service. Those who really do care are often ridiculed, pressured to remain silent, or maneuvered and muscled out during key voting and legislative passages.
It Doesn’t Matter Which Way You Swing
I can't say it enough, that this isn't a matter of right or left. Good and bad politicians exist on both or really all sides of the fence, independent parties included. Individual political affiliation doesn't inculcate one from poor decision making; it just gives it a slightly different face. Human nature is the same in every heart and mind. It subjects us to the same possibilities for moral degradation and compromise as the next man or woman. Equally, to the same opportunities to make good and beneficial choices.
You can be sure that wisdom has left the building wherever an individual believes that one's political party allegiance automatically dictates the presence or absence of character or corruption. Humans are humans, no matter what position they hold. Each of us, despite our proximity to power, are subject to the same moral, philosophical, and existential questions. Political and social affiliation does not dictate the strength and clarity of our intellectual and moral potential. This polarized conception of political reality is an infantile way of interpreting and judging ourselves and our public servants.
“When we give unscrupulous individuals nearly unlimited quantities of money and power to play with, why are we surprised when they misuse them? Why are we startled when frail humans do shameful things...just like the rest of us?”
When we give unscrupulous individuals nearly unlimited quantities of money and power to play with, why are we surprised when they misuse them? Why are we startled when frail humans do shameful things...just like the rest of us? Power, celebrity, position, and an abundance of promises do not protect us from the same fractured realms of human behavior as every other soul. The answer to “I completely misused your resources and abused your trust,” should never be “No problem; we’ll just give you more of these on your next try and everything will work out great.” Government is often the only place where continual failure is rewarded with greater access and infinite chances.
Limits are Good Things
Another thorn in the side of good governance is a lack of term limits for many offices. Call me antiquated, I don't care, but for the most part, aside from those rare circumstances when near-benevolent men or women find their way into power, politics shouldn't be a life-long career. It should be seen as a service to one's fellow citizens, one that is taken on wholeheartedly for a season, worked at with every intellectual faculty at one's disposal, and then left for other seasons of life.
There have been a few life-long, humble, self-effacing, hard-working, well-spoken, fully-engaged politicians. But their numbers are so few that we can reasonably equate them to the rarity of a purple unicorn carrying a ghost orchid between its teeth, riding a snow leopard who is balancing atop a four leaf clover. The fact that we have senators who've careered across decades is mostly shameful. I know the medical is good, but politics were meant to be a service and a sacrifice, not a comfortable day-bed where you can lounge for 30 years.
Something else that term limits does is it establishes a concentration of priorities. It focuses intent. If one only has two or four or perhaps six years to realize a set of goals, they stop messing about and get on with it. If they have all the time in the world, then drag-assery and wandering are common paths.
Term limits also empower citizens to judge the actions of their public servants more accurately. Lifers can get away with a great deal because they spread their actions and their mistakes over a wider canvas and a longer time-frame, invariably diluting the effect of each.
Having our performance judged according to a finite season is what makes certain aspects of private business management and leadership more effective. In business, especially non-publicly traded institutions, if we continue to fail and make poor choices, we get tossed out or our business fails. The public’s response has a direct impact on our ability to continue or expand. In government, we just blame it on someone or something else, make new promises, and go on spending other people's money, time, and votes as if they rose from an eternal spring.
It’s Also In Our Hands
Certainly, as voters, we are also at fault here. We keep voting them in even after they've shown themselves to be poor managers of money, influence, and opportunity. We do this for several reasons, our own apathy, disinterest in the increasingly murky affair that is politics, a lack of courage to vote with our conscience, a lack of knowledge of those we elect, and the belief that most of it doesn't really affect us all that much anyway.
Active citizenry is difficult. It takes a lot of engagement, self-education, an open mind, and respectful conversation and collaboration with people you don't always agree with. But most politicians and media outlets would much prefer you remain uninformed, one-sided, and perpetually agitated.
“ If we believe that the political process is above us somehow, over our heads and too complicated to really grasp, then we are likely to let those who desire power above all else, remain exactly where they want to be.”
The Machine and Its Dark Dreams
This was, as it turns out, the plan all along. The political machine works for it, and does so with shining success. Over the centuries, those sitting atop all centers of power have labored to conceal their habits and their choices, and veil them in an aura of perceived complexity. If we believe that the political process is above us somehow, over our heads and too complicated to really grasp, then we are likely to let those who desire power above all else, remain exactly where they want to be.
This works the same way in every other power structure. Much of the modern banking and financial services industries function with this principle in mind, that its investors remain ignorant. I'm a fan of free markets and the ability for individuals to change their lot for the better using a multitude of investment options. But banks and investment firms would much prefer we go on thinking they somehow hold the sacred keys to all financial understanding, that grasping basic economics is like deciphering Sanskrit, that personal investment choices should be made with a divining rod that only they possess, and a panel of financial prognosticators all sitting in a circle, mumbling unintelligible phrases to ancient money gods that only a handful of people can see.
They count on us remaining ignorant of the violent force of inflation, the cost of hidden fees, changing interest rates, the potential of stocks, private equity, and real estate to achieve considerable wealth for individuals, and hope we remain otherwise disengaged from various other aspects of more effective money management, in favor of their usual auto-pilot investment and savings options.
Equally, in government, the going motto is "We know you don't really get it, so leave it to us and it'll all work out fine." But when it all hits the fan we're the ones on the chopping block. Citizens are the ones who pay the price for political blunders and resource mismanagement. We are forever the most vulnerable in the equation, the ones with the least protection and the most to lose in political transactions.
A Tragedy from Recent Memory
Remember our recent recession. The same institutions and policy makers that made terrible decisions which ruined so many lives, got paid out by our own pockets. With our tax money, executives cashed in on astronomical bonuses while we saw a few paltry tax breaks. We lost our jobs and watched our parents' and grandparents' retirement savings get swallowed up by a black hole and never seen again.
With our deference and resignation, these same politicians patted our backs, reassured us, threw us a few bones, and kept on looking out for their own interests. In politics the layers of maneuvering, public relations doublespeak, and influential backers, ensure failure doesn't pay the same price that it must in every other area of life, the way it does in small business, education, relationships, non-profit, or in the home. In politics, if something isn't working, they just move the story around until it looks attractive to us once more.
Five Stars for Checks and Balances
One seemingly reasonable complaint often leveled is that if lawmakers had fewer checks and balances to contend with, they could accomplish a lot more. In many ways this is true. Without limitations, those in power could change more in less time. Absolute monarchy or totalitarian rule has always been the quickest way to policy roll-out. But it's also been the most destructive.
“It is precisely because the wheels of our government turn more slowly, more carefully, that we don’t experience larger, more negative consequences to some of our lesser political and social endeavors.”
Remember, that this equation works equally in both directions, for progress and destruction alike. In truth, probably more aggressively for destruction because of human nature's tendency toward weakness and compromise. As fast as unencumbered politicians can change things for the better, they can push them toward oblivion.
It is precisely because the wheels of our government turn more slowly, more carefully, that we don't experience larger, more negative consequences to some of our lesser political and social endeavors. It is why totalitarianism, statism, or a kind of corrupted quasi-democratic monarchy, aren't easy to bring about in a liberated society. Free societies take work and patience. And they are designed to expose ambitions that seek to consolidate power and pervert the lines of justice and liberty.
It is our aggressive protections and the interconnection between branches of government that keeps idiocy, and at times, evil, from impacting more of us than it already does. It all might take a lot longer, but we get to sleep at night knowing we will still have a free society in the morning.
Where Do We Go?
The remedy for all this isn't so clear. Self-education and political engagement are both excellent and even necessary aspects of citizenry. Unfortunately, and especially in the era of social media, education is replaced with the consumption of sound bites. Conversation is replaced with shouting, and political engagement becomes poorly informed, ravenous and wildly destructive activism.
Working our way toward more effective governance requires individuals who are interested more in conversation than ranting, people willing to disagree toward an agreement, willing to argue toward change. It asks us to remember that we will always have and should always champion a multitude of viewpoints, even while some of these offend us. It asks us to educate ourselves more completely before casting our votes and perhaps demanding equal air time for many independent candidates who don't tow either party line out of blind obedience.
It takes limited terms and reasonable spending, along with budgets and bills that are easily accessible to all who want to read them. Healthy governance asks us to lay aside our addiction to perfection. It asks that we sometimes seek solutions that may not fit our desires completely, but protect us as individuals and preserve the good we have worked hard to establish.
It asks that we not accept debates and town meetings where candidates avoid direct answers, speak in code, and navigate beneath a shroud of ambiguity. We should demand that to be considered for any office, one must answer reasonable, direct questions, with equally reasonable, direct and intelligent answers. We should hold our future public servants’ declarations to the same standards as those testifying in a courtroom.
Embrace People, Not Fanaticism
“The answer, friends, is not violence or fomenting on social media. It isn’t in setting people’s businesses or homes on fire or calling people evil simply for holding different beliefs from you. It’s in reminding ourselves that as individual citizens, we are both the beginning and end of government...a responsibility worth our better thoughts and energies.”
While we’re on the topic, it’s important we hold media sources to the same level of accountability. if primary news sources continue to play partisan games, spew their bile-infested, conflict-obsessed rhetoric, ignore the clear public support of third party or less popular candidates, and suppress facts no matter how controversial they might be, we need to turn the channel, so to speak. We need to stop paying, and stop supporting them. Any agency not interested in playing a part in developing a level-headed, well-informed, free-thinking public isn't worth our time. I realize this is idealistic. But you’ve got to begin accountability somewhere. And modern media seems to be the IV drip we spend the most time suckling from.
The answer, friends, is not violence or fomenting on social media. It isn't in setting people's businesses or homes on fire or calling people evil simply for holding different beliefs from your own. It's in reminding ourselves that as individual citizens, we are both the beginning and end of government…a responsibility worth our better thoughts and energies. We must remember that governing should be conducted with a servant's heart and managed with humility, creativity, frugality, transparency, and an abundance of humanity.
Pursue Reason, Not Perfection
Politics should be about people and their liberty. Whenever politicians forget this, whenever they spend more time looking in the mirror than they do looking out into the sea of faces before them, they need to be spanked...that is, held to a higher standard, realigned with accountability, and perhaps replaced if all efforts fail.
Finally, we would do well to remember that we don't and never will live in a utopia, a perfect society. There is no perfect government, no perfect economic system. All things created by humans, no matter how good, are subject to human frailty. We can only do our best to continually champion a moral society that loves liberty, views reality objectively, deals with people both realistically and compassionately, and pursues a life where every individual is valued foremost for their character. We shouldn't count on politics to completely fix our lives. It's too focused on fixing up its own. But we should do whatever we can to remedy every aspect of political practice while we still have the freedom to do so.