Elections have consequences
We’ve discussed this before to the point of obsession. It’s the space between what people want and what they ultimately get. It is the space between popular opinion and what actually happens. I simply don’t have a good name for the gap. Describing why it happens is the easy part. People simply vote against their own interests and beliefs far too often. Sometimes they don’t know what their beliefs are as presented in the political realm. Sometimes they are led by their emotions to become captive to their fears and prejudices. Sometimes they know exactly what they are doing and simply want to punish their own side for their failures to implement the policies they want.
Reports are that nearly two million people that normally would have voted Democratic in 2016 refused to punish Hillary. Add almost two million votes to her ledger and she likely would have won five additional states. Plus, it’s harder to ignore an election where she won the popular vote by five or six million instead of three. The simple fact that we have seen this happen twice in the span of 16 years and that it happened to the Democrats both times kind of tells you something.
If you do nothing but add the judges that George W. Bush appointed along with Donald Trump and then add in the judges blocked by Senate Republicans during Obama’s presidency the results are quite frankly staggering. That literally flipped the Supreme Court from 6-3 one way to 6-3 the other way. What it has done to the entire federal bench is overwhelming.
That’s just the judiciary. Imagine what it has done legislatively. Imagine what it has done in the day to day mechanisms of government. Bureaucracies have been impacted. Day to day regulations have been impacted. Executive actions on weather and natural disasters have been impacted. Just imagine competent assistance during Katrina and Maria. Imagine better assistant during the California wild fires. Imagine what might have happened during the COVID pandemic. What would have happened had we handled the pandemic as most of Europe and Asia did?
It is quite simply a ripple effect. A plurality of people identify as Democrats. Again, national elections are fairly close, but under a parliamentary system Congress would have been under consistent Democratic control. These are just facts. The current exploits of Joe Mancin and Kirsten Synema certainly demonstrate that majorities aren’t a guarantee of anything and yet they highlight the problem. We have a 50-50 Senate. If the Senate reflected even the advantage in the House it would likely be a 52-48 Senate. That’s simply assuming the Senate goes as people have actually voted nationwide. Imagine if we add the million here or there that wanted to punish the Democrats.
This all pays off with the gap. We look up and we get the 21st century version of the apartheid. We get climate change unabated. We get gross incompetence in times of crisis. We get a larger wealth gap. We get fewer consumer and employee protections. We get a cold and uncaring world that most of us can’t recognize. The gap between the world we want and the world we see is real. We should be angry. We just need to remember who to be angry at.
Two words: Dark Money
1Yes they will have consequences. TFG, the guilty bass turd, says he needs to be elected president so he can avoid criminal charges.
No paywall version for this Rolling Stone article.
https://archive.ph/xJPdN
2The Houston Chronicle used to publish Congress/Senate votes once a week – we could see how the vote question was put and then who voted and how they voted. This was only federal votes not state, but it was all our federal officeholders. If people saw how their legislators voted as opposed to what they say they are in favor of, it might help.
3Needs a correction –:
“…nearly two million people that normally would have voted Democratic in 2016 refused, –in order– to punish Hillary.”
Which your near-excellent piece gets me to the raving ‘OMFG! JFCoC!’ stage of hyper-pissed-off.
4Or, how our more idiotic Democrats of the purist ‘Immaculate Conception’ deluded wing of the Party gets me so focking mad the rest of this comment will consist of 100% profanity…
Nick, I wish I didn’t have to agree with every word you wrote, but here we are. Too often, we are being done in by our own side, because we didn’t do what a substantial number of people wanted, who didn’t realize that what they wanted wasn’t possible then. We can’t keep doing that and expect anything to get better.
5Thank you, Sandridge. I will never ever get over 2016. I read an article the other day breaking down voting in some of the battleground states, showing that voters who sat out in the general, wrote in their savior BS, or voted Jill Stein in protest of HRC made a difference in the electoral college. She warned us all. Now look what we’ve got to deal with. Makes me sick all over again. JFCoC indeed.
6If I were a full-time academic I would study this gap. Backing away from everything, it is a fascinating difference with the other representative democracies around the world. I honestly am not smart enough to devise a system where the minorities rights can be protected while allowing the majority to actually steer the country in the direction they want it to go.
I suspect the framers were in the same boat. I just don’t think they could imagine a world where some states would have 50-75 million residents and others would have less than one million. Certainly, the wisdom of having a deliberative body like the Senate has probably been a good thing on balance over the 200+ year history, but the filibuster was not a thing until the mid 1800s. It wasn’t in the constitution. Maybe expanding some states to four senators and reducing some to one would be beneficial. Maybe you wind up at the same 100, but situated differently.
Fundamentally, a city dweller’s vote and voice should be worth the same as a rural vote and voice. We have more people in the Clear Lake/League City/Webster/Friendswood/Seabrook/Kemah area then in all of Wyoming for instance. Why do they deserve two senators?
7Nick, I am a (retired) academician who studied voting systems for a group wanting to elect a director of an institute at a major research institution. The goal was to devise a system that would be fair, have one person = one vote be true, and not gameable by a small bloc. Another condition was that, for a field of 3 or more, a condition of transitive occurs, e.g., if you prefer 1>2>3 and 1 doesn’t win, your number 2 will get your vote via various means. It has been proved that no system can be devised so that all three conditions (fair was equated with one person=one vote) hold. Sad, but true, that with at least 3 candidates, all systems can be gamed. It angers me but does not surprise me that our system has been gamed and, as long as gerrymandering is allowed to exist, will be easy to game.
8That said, as a lifelong independent, I urge all democrats and independents go out to vote and vote democratic. For those able, help those who have trouble getting out to vote. Driving people who can’t to a polling place is a great way to start. If you have more time, volunteer to send postcards, put up signs, etc. I live in TX and am in fear of Abbot (replace the first b with ss and o with ut, please), Paxton, and Patrick being elected again. Let’s at least elect O’Rourke.
Have y’all seen that the Texas Commissioner for Agriculture has announced his support for legalizing marijuana, based on the benefits ($$) other states have gained with it? Really, old Sid Miller himself. I’m shocked but not surprised that the money is more attractive than the pleasure of arresting and locking up people who use cannabis.
9Consequences, you bet.
Here’s a candidate in Arizona who’s all for mass shooters to stock up with as many guns and as much ammunition as they want:
10https://boingboing.net/2022/07/18/republican-campaign-ad-stands-up-for-mass-shooters-rights.html
This gives me concern:
11https://news.gallup.com/poll/388781/political-party-preferences-shifted-greatly-during-2021.aspx
This was late 2021 but I have a feeling that inflation and gas prices have made it worse this year. Still, the biggest unknown are independents which make up a significant % of potential voters. You’d think what’s happened with Supreme Court rulings and the moves in red states to amplify these rulings along with the Jan 6 revelations would be an opportunity for democrats to build with independents and reduce the “gap”, but I’m not optimistic. Repugnanticans have a national, relentless message whereas I don’t see the same with democrats.
I don’t believe so much that people vote against their beliefs. They vote for people who they believe have the same principles they do, or they vote against people who they think have beliefs that clash with theirs.
The problem is that so often these perceptions of candidates come from being deliberately misled by the candidates or their campaigns, either about their own ideas or about the ideas of their opponents. Wrapping themselves in the flag, screaming patriotism to the skies, pretending that God and the Bible guide everything they do. Making up lying garbage about their opponents and tying them with everything that their voters hate. And all of this depends on gullible, low-information, push-button suckers for smears and lies.
All of which constitute the GOP/conservative playbook.
12While there are a lot of things to fix, I think Alaska has made a good start on part of the problem. An open primary with the top 4 advancing, followed by a ranked choice general election. Ranked choice is so much better than allowing candidates with 38% support win a 3-way race. I’d prefer to see 5 or 6 candidates advance to the general election, but I understand that asking most voters to rank a filed of 15 or 48 candidates is too much to ask. There must be done to whittle the field.
13That’s just one example. Rick Perry’s last election saw over 60 percent vote against him. I think the overwhelming majority of that 60+ percent would have phrased it exactly like that. They weren’t voting FOR that jackass Kinky Friedman.
14fenway fran @6, Ramen! sista.. Those damned Dem purists just drive me up the walls.
There used to be one around here always grousing about Rep Henry Cuellar [D-TX], the D everybody loves to hate.
15I’ve donated to his primary opponents lots of times, but always [choke] for him in the general. He’s still in Congress, still an ahole, but a “D” ahole.
I’ve been gerrymandered out of his district again, into a district that the damned Democrats are probably going to lose, again… Since the Rethuglikans now have a superficially attractive Hispanic female in the seat, Mayra Flores, who is a real MAGAoty theocrat. And our Democratic leadership will likely just be continuing whistling past the graveyard in this formerly rock-solid Democratic region of South Texas, which is slip-sliding away due to their stupidity.
Hint: despite the ‘black vote’ being a key Democratic demo, Hispanics now make up a much larger percentage of the population, that cannot be ignored, without losing the game.