We have all seen the Facebook posts urging us to email or call our Congressional representatives, which is great. Civil engagement helps democracy thrive. Hopefully our representatives have some sort of decency and are willing to listen to their constituents regardless of party identification, but I have to think that is being overly optimistic.
Let’s assume for a moment that our elected officials are rational actors looking to preserve their own power — for the sake of argument, let’s use some alternative facts and say that my cat, Ariel, is a senator. On the campaign trail, Sen. Ariel crafted a platform in hopes of building a coalition of voters. I’d imagine not all of Ariel’s voters agreed with every policy point, but they found him to be preferable to his opponent, so they voted for him. Seems pretty reasonable, right?
Well, I didn’t vote for Sen. Ariel, and adamantly disagree with the values of his coalition. Given the situation and the incentive to remain in power, does Sen. Ariel need to represent me? I would argue no.
He might say he cares about all views, and may even meet with me to hear what I have to say. Yet when it comes to voting in Congress, if he voted based on my preferences, he would never be re-elected by the coalition that initially supported him. His former voters would just find a new candidate.
Now let’s say I go with an entire group of people to lobby Sen. Ariel. We may be harder to ignore, but unless we can steal away enough members of his coalition to our side, then the situation remains the same. Meaning even with a potential large-scale demonstration, if the original coalition remains intact, then the incentive structure doesn’t change.
This isn’t a critique of any political party or its members; it is an acknowledgment of a paradox of representative democracy. I may have a representative in the Senate, but my senator has no rational incentive or practical ability to convey the policy preferences of someone outside the coalition in Washington.
What does all this mean for our current situation? It means we need to take this current, wonderful zeal to be publicly engaged and channel it in other ways outside of the representational system.
We need to break up conservative coalitions through engaging with communities of people. Hopefully as people awake to the horrible, cowardly path the country is following, they will begin to question their loyalty to the politicians they last voted for.
We need more people on the left in rural America. The 2016 election underscored why building gigantic left-communities in New York and California will not translate well on the national level. This is why college students from rural areas should stay registered in their hometowns and vote absentee from college.
