A Broken System

Whatever the outcome next Tuesday, our basic political system is broken. Putting aside the fact that most jurisdictions are embracing voting systems that no one should trust, the twin powers of incumbency and redistricting have been manipulated and exploited to such an extent that even now, when there are approximately three people in the entire country who approve of the job that Congress is doing, 90 something percent of them will keep their seats.

TPM Reader DK notes:

Not to rain on the parade but all the talk of dramatic Democratic gains in the House has a tendency to downplay a serious underlying structural problem. Even under the rosiest scenarios, the Democrats only pick up somewhere around 50 seats. Realistically, it looks like 25-35 pickups. The House was designed to be the national political institution most politically responsive to the people. I would venture to say that given the massive train wreck that the GOP has created in public affairs, the founders would be stunned to see so few seats change hands. If these are the kinds of political conditions it takes to move 50 House seats, then we’re in trouble.

So what will be done about it? Well, nothing. No one seems to really care. Perhaps it’s because people are too risk averse – they want to desperately (through their parties) hold on to whatever political power they have, and aren’t willing to risk the loss of some seats in the next cycle, no matter what the future benefits might be. Or perhaps it’s the structural gridlock that’s in place – Democratic California has no incentive to fairly redistrict unless Republican Texas does the same, and there are no national leaders willing to push the matter forward. Representative democracy is nice, and all, but only when it results in more votes for your party, is apparently the thinking.

Or maybe it’s just because we, as a society, don’t give a damn about democracy anymore. We have become a country where the foot of one half is on the neck of the other, which itself is just about ready to break that foot. There is no national conversation, there are no reasonable differences over policy. It’s just another war, where one side has all but declared the other at one with those who would like to see America destroyed. It’s not democracy – it’s a raw power struggle, designed solely to reward those who win that power – fuck the rest.

DK reminds us where the fault ultimately lays:

I hope that when the political history of the last half century is written it will show, as it should, that the Republicans engaged in a brand of divisive electoral politics that pitted Americans against each other: white against black, men against women, rich against poor, native born against immigrant, straight against gay. Republicans deserve to be tarred by history for exploiting our weaknesses, our prejudices, and our lesser selves for their own political gain. But those are still our weaknesses and our prejudices. We own them. And it is our lesser selves that have succumbed to the Republican political pitch and been willing to be exploited. Removing the Republicans from power will only be a temporary fix unless we fundamentally fix ourselves so that no one, no party, no movement can exploit those same weaknesses again.

Amen.