The Problem With Politics

In the USA the approval rating of Congress, the bit of the government that passes the laws, has an approval rating of about 20% and a disapproval rate of about 75%. That's for people who were more popular at the time of their election than the alternatives provided. The US population basically hate the government they selected. This must be a problem, but why is it so?

The first reason is that the US population at large is stupid. Over and over again they vote for people that they then later dislike, or they don't vote at all and let people who they disagree with choose their government for them. If the majority of people in a democracy consistently disapprove of their government but incumbents win more than challengers then the electorate must be stupid.

One of the particular ways that the US electorate is stupid is that they have no interests in cause and effect. So, before Obama was elected economic predictions were for the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. It didn't happen and things look like they are turning around. But the economy is still not as good as Americans are used to and therefore half the US population thinks he's done a bad job. Having done better than expected half the electorate thinks he has done poorly.

The second reason why there is a problem with government is the point I wish to make in this post. I think the fundamental reason why government is not meeting the approval of the electorate is because those who want to be in politics do not wish to be in the business of governing. I think the overwhelming majority of those in politics at the national level are there for the same reasons that professional athletes want to be sportsmen. They wish to compete against another team and win.

That's right, I think the majority of politicians and their staff are more interested in winning elections than governing. It is a sport, with teams, rules, uniforms, the whole nine yards. There are even television programs that look almost exactly like sports programs in which the prospects of each team in the upcoming match are debated with stats and opinion from talking heads. These programs at almost no point discuss what would be the best result for the country (there are a couple of programs that do, but they are outnumbered) but rather discuss the chances of winning, what each side can do to win. When the point is to win rather than to govern well, what you will end up with is a government that is good at winning elections rather than governing.

The problem with government is that instead of individuals putting forward what they propose to do to if elected and then letting the electorate decide what proposals they prefer we have two teams telling rather stupid, gullible people what is most likely to get them to vote for their team, either the red one or the blue one.