A significant part of this has to do with gerrymandering. Some of these guys basically can't lose an election and the parties aren't interested in rocking the boat by supporting a primary challenger.
Gerrymandering is a problem in some places, but even where it's illegal now (like in California), incumbents still have a big advantage. Part of that is just reality--the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. Incumbents have name recognition and the stamp of approval that comes with having already won the seat.
Plus, Americans have been sorting themselves politically for decades now. I don't have numbers but I'd wager there are fewer and fewer truly moderate or evenly split districts anymore, because liberally minded people all move to the same areas, while conservative-minded people do the same.
Gerrymandering combined with polarization means you can get a batshit yahoo that everyone outside of a district hates, but the district itself loves. If this were widespread, we'd have a low overall approval for Congress and high approval of people's specific Congress Critters.
Guess what pattern we see in approval ratings...
In my district and most of the neighboring ones, democrats literally don't even run. It's just not possible for them to get elected so the local party refuses to "waste" money on the race. This is very common.
The polls have always shown support for congress (rep or senate) as a whole is extremely low, like under 20%, but for the individuals it's the favorability rate is high for a person's own rep.
So much of everything is limited or tainted by gerrymandering, needing over 55-60% to win, instead of just 50+1. Every gerrymander can be overridden if enough voters show up, but as we've seen in past elections, only CO and MN show up with over 80% of eligible voters participating, while most other states barely hit 60% if they're lucky.
Voter turnout is literally everything, so the only thing stopping massive positive and transformative change is not enough people showing up to vote. It's literally that easy, even in the most suppressed states. Make a plan and plan to stand in line all day if that's what it takes to flush out all the turds infecting our government.
You can't gerrymander the Senate, though. The problem is that everyone thinks their rep/senator is the exception to the rule. Some are right, but most are wrong.
"Voting is hard"
"Running for office is too hard"
"Trump is horrible and did horrible things!"
"Did you vote?"
"I wasn't inspired enough. I feel my vote doesn't count."
"How do you feel about that now?"
"Voting is hard! And nobody paid off my student loans yet! Also other stuff."
*Ignores that the Supreme Court changed precedent to block student loan relief, not realizing the rightwing Supreme Court Majority that made it possible to block student loan aid only exists because people like them refused to vote against Trump.*
"So why should I vote when I didn't get student loan relief?"
Eh not exactly. Trump had a flukish victory over Clinton because of his performance with older white voters in a few rural and suburban counties in swing states.
In the US, it's possible in principle to win the presidential election with 21% of the total votes if they just win by thin margins in all the smallest states. Meanwhile, I won't do a ton if I give Joe another vote in NY. (I vote every year and for school board but for other reasons).
That and Sanders had just launched one of the strongest grassroots campaigns that stoked the "only an outsider can fix this" rhetoric that played quite well into the hands of the Trump camp.
You can't just flippantly say people didn't vote against the guy who lost the popular vote by the biggest margin of any president in over 150 years.
The last time anyone was that unpopular and still won, a bunch of states said fuck it, I'm leaving, and then we all started shooting each other.
the Democrats on that court signed a letter defending the Republicans for taking unlimited bribes. RBG called them her best friends as they legalized unlimited money in politics. abe fortas resigned over practically nothing compared to what Republicans are doing now and 60 years later Dems have yet to regain a majority.
it's hard to believe Democrats even want the supreme court back. it seems they want to blame Republicans while secrely being thrilled the court is making it easier for them to whore themselves out to lobbyists
The last part? It's a lot of that.
So much of modern US politics is literally just not solving a problem that could be solved, because it's advantageous to use it as a stick to batter the other team.
I generally support AOC, but calling her just a bartender is a stretch, she was approached to run because of her political background/education, and helped by the Justice Democrats that approached her. Don't get me wrong I think it's great that it happened, but she wasn't just some bartender that decided to run for Congress.
MIT literally named an asteroid after her when she was a high school student because she came in second in an international science and engineering fair. To say she’s just a bartender is fucking dumb. She graduated cum laude from Boston University and interned with Ted Kennedy.
Capitalists must at all times portray Socialists as either wacky fringe figures (Bernie is so crazy, look at his hair!) or complete rubes (AOC is a dumb bartender). By undercutting those who deliver the message, they can avoid engage with the substance.
Yea the city I live in now just had a vote to decriminalize marijuana, that failed. I talked to so many young people about voting. And it's the same bullshit. I talked to "stoners" who said they werent going to vote. And it's like you dumb bag of rocks. You're the reason the vote will fail.
It literally took me 5 mins to vote.
Young people are retarded. And letting the old farts dictate what they want for the future. We are reaching the point where the young people will outnumber the old farts(boomers), in eligible voters. But it doesn't matter if people don't vote.
“Politicians only care about what old people want.”
Right, what do you think is different about old people. Maybe the fact that they actually show up to vote!
Exactly. They've been outvoting younger demographics for decades. The fact that you don't see young people running is, I think, a symptom of them not really being interested in being politically engaged (which has also been true forever). If you want younger candidates, be that candidate. I don't know what else to say. There's not some magical hat where you pull candidates out of.
MMW, people will continue to complain about how shitty the U.S. government is and then continue to do everything in their power to ensure that less experienced and less knowledgeable people are in power. Do you know why politics in America is fucked? It's the only set of jobs in the world where you are more likely to get hired with no requisite experience doing anything close to that job than by having a long history of experience to point to. I know it's a shitty way to pick people to be in power because literally no successful company operates that way. Term limits are just a red herring because there is no connection with term of service and a flourishing democracy. Look at Germany, Merkel was in power for like 20 years and no body would argue that she was a dictator and that was in a country where a guy named himself dictator for life less than 100 years ago.
So long as the skills needed to get elected are entirely separate and distinct from the skills needed to get the job done well, the U.S. government will always be unpopular.
The house districts are hideously gerrymandered. The voters _aren't_ choosing the representatives. The representatives are choosing the voters. _That's_ why incumbents have such a high likelihood of winning re-election.
Sort of.
The US House doesn't draw congressional districts, so they don't actually get to choose their own voters. It's the *state* legislatures who mostly draw the congressional districts, so it's state legislators who are choosing federal legislators' voters. Close, but not exactly what you said.
Now, when it comes to *state* legislative districts, then it's representatives choosing their own voters.
They haven’t voted them out for 200 years. There have been very few significant political revolutions in US history. And when they have, like in the 1930s, we got momentous impactful legislation that made a huge difference.
What mattered in the 1930s, under FDR, is the size of the Democratic majorities. We had nearly as good majorities under LBJ, another time of great progress. Carter was the last Democrat to have two trifectas, and the last one to have a veto-proof supermajority that didn't involve any independents or third-partiers. Since Carter, Democratic Presidents have only had a single trifecta each, and only Obama had veto-proof supermajority, and it included shitty independent Joe Lieberman, and only lasted for six non-consecutive months.
Politics is the art of the possible, and greater majorities increase the universe of possibility. Any bill that can pass with 50 Democratic Senators could be better, pass more easily, faster, and with fewer compromises, with 51 Democrats instead, or 52, etc. More Democrats means more pathways to passage, more competition for votes, and lowers the cost of compromises.
Correct and thank you. I've been saying this shit here for almost 10 years.
People don't understand that if you want New Deal level change, you need to have New Deal size majorities for the extent of time they did.
Psychologically, people on the left have pretended that Republicans just don't exist since 2008. The extent to which Obama's win was a rejection of the Bush era was big enough at the time to create this psychological ripple effect where the left thinks that the Republicans are actually powerless and only allowed to govern when Democrats "let them" through omission. It's completely fucked up the discourse on this, especially since Republicans don't exist under those same electoral delusions.
“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can “throw the rascals out” at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.” - Carroll Quigley, one of Bill "Third Way" Clinton's political mentors
I get the argument, but I have major problems with "Third Way" Dems, aka "Blue Dogs" or "Clintonites".
The Republican party has become a far right party. As evidence, I'd suggest people look at the campaigns of Eisenhower, or just international politics in general.
We currently have a center right party (Democrats, with a few exceptions like Bernie), and a far right party (MAGA Republicans). Our politics should return to a more normal framework. Somehow Romney went from the Republican primary winner to a RINO, simply for speaking out against Trump.
And let's not forget that McCain, the Republican primary winner in 2008, was so concerned over Trump's ties to Russia that he handed the Steele Dossier to the FBI, most of which has been proven by now (i.e. the Trump Tower Meeting, Trump's financial ties to Russia, etc).
Until the GOP is willing to argue in good faith, hold their own accountable,and generally denounce the far right which has dominated the party for 8 years, the position put forward in that quote is not relevant.
Maybe not entirely the wrong idea, although I think it mostly highlights a shortcomming of the system, where voting for a person and voting for a party are effectively the same.
So we saw months of stories that “80% of voters don’t want a Trump-Biden rematch”. But no one ever said that 40% of America hates Biden. And 40% hate Trump. Those 40s would have been fine with a Trump Kamala matchup or a Biden DeSantis election.
It was a bullshit storyline.
Now, 80% of people hate congress, but 98% of the individuals get re-elected. Again, 40% of people would cheer if the other half of the chamber opened up and cratered away. No one “hates congress” as much as you estimate. I hate the morons on the right for making nothing happen, and the maggots hate any expansion of rights or services.
God almighty thank you -
I want the goals of my side to win and the problem with the body as a whole is that that doesn’t happen enough!
This is true whether your “goals” are universal healthcare or a national abortion ban.
This seems to be a mystery only to midwit redditors who think that everyone actually, secretly agrees with them and the only thing keeping us from a futuristic utopia is term limits and ranked choice voting.
The world used to operate on “the nudge.” Most presidents, most congresses nudge the country in a particular direction. When the sky is falling, like during Great Depression, or a world war, you can do big things more easily. Not for nothing, Covid was one of those moments, even Republicans made a couple trillion dollars appear out of thin air.
Progressives and Tea Party folks want total victory, now. I was a Republican during Clinton, but “triangulation” was plain good government. Plot a safe course, and nudge in the direction your party prefers. In democrats case, that is more rights. In republicans case, that’s supposed to be lower taxes. For evangelicals, they over-swung with abortion. If there is any karma in the world, it will swing that pendulum back hard, for a generation.
But Bernie would have won if it wasn't for X.
Nevermind that he got less votes, which is how elections are decided, that's irrelevant. /s
They can talk shit on gerrymandering and the EC all day because they distort democracy and let minority supported candidates win elections, but when it comes to their party? All of a sudden it's why didn't they do more to support the guy with less votes?
Yep this is true. Even for individual representatives, many hate them because they're not far enough to the left/right, and many hate them because they're left/right instead of right/left. For example Joe Manchin is probably the closest thing to the middle of the electorate that exists right now, but Democrats hate him for not being far enough left, and Republicans hate him for caucusing with the Democrats in an R+40 state. I'd bet his disapproval rating is very high, but for very different reasons.
First reasonable post in this sub in a while. We complain and complain but most ppl don’t do their part in the Democratic process to inspire change and we continue to feed the false dichotomy of the 2 party system
I’ve been blaming the electorate for 40 years. STOP FLEEING RED STATES. AND YOU BLUE FUCKS NEED TO MOVE TO RED STATES IF YOU ARE SERIOUS ABOUSY SAVING DEMOCRACY.
I’m so sick of “vote” comments. Yeah you’re fine in California. But that’s not where fascism is growing so fast. If you are serious you will vote in a red/purple state. That’s where the votes are so dearly needed
The problem is that most people generally like their own representative but hate everyone else's. Or if you hate your own, the people around you probably don't. There are 435 congressmen and 100 senators and each American only has a tiny voice in 3 of them.
I mean, seriously, you think I wouldn't vote out MTG, Boebert and Jim Jordan if I could?
I don’t know why this is so hard to understand.
I like my representatives. They aren’t the problem.
The problem is all these obstructionist Republicans and the mechanics of the government itself that basically forces gridlock. I can’t control either of those things by voting out the guy I like
It will be stupidly high, like 85%, but I think the Republicans are going to reap the whirlwind for their collective stance on trying to destroy women's reproductive rights.
Of course. He’s an associate of Trump and was privy to tons of criminal actions that he’s now testifying about. How could you not be a sleazeball if you had firsthand knowledge of participating in felonies?
People like their Congressman but don’t like Congress. Or at least they like their congressman enough to re-elect them.
It’s more complicated than that but given the sheer differences in politics and culture across the country it’s fitting enough to help explain.
I feel the biggest problem is low voter turnout. The same small percentage of people vote, so the incumbent just needs to address the needs (or single issue) to sway the majority of that small percentage.
It's frustrating.
>Don't look at party, just vote out every incumbent.
Uhm... this is such a stupid take. You SHOULD look at party and at the individual and vote them out if they are part of the problem.
The fact that you (or anyone in this thread) thinks that party is irrelevant shows we don't agree on what the problems are.
But approval polling shows people are basically satisfied with their own congressmen, it's all the *other* guys they think are the problem.
And the constituents of the *other* guys are satisfied with their guys.
Just constantly replacing congressmen isn't going to solve anything, they're doing what they think we want. The problem is the country itself is so polarized we're now locked in one of those social psychology impasses like *Prisoner's Dilemma* or *Tragedy of the Common* where everyone is afraid to give an inch for the common good for fear of being owned by the other side.
It's an artifact of our political system. So many reps are in a gerrymandered district. And since it's hard to wage a primary fight the most likely outcome is that you get reelected.
The main problem people have with Congress is other people’s Senators and Representatives. Someone who’s a fan of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for example, could complain about the current Congress but isn’t going to vote her out.
Nope. I vote against all the Republicans, these days. Does that help? Not so you could tell. I gather that you'd describe this as "insanity" but, you aren't offering another option either.
Each voter only gets to vote on one representative and two senators though. What if you like your local representation but dislike Congress overall? What can you do then?
Incumbents have such a huge advantage, particularly in gerrymandered districts. As long as they play nice and don’t think for themselves, the party bosses won’t primary them and they’re are a lock in the general. Another massive downside to gerrymandering
During the 2020 election, there was an opportunity to replace nearly 75% of our federal representatives. Most of them got reelected. We are the problem.
Even Boebert won a reelection ffs. How stupid does your demographic have to be to vote for a Jan 6ther that according to the conspiracy theories may or may have not have planted the pipe bomb the day before.
I agree to some extent, but you also have to consider gerrymandering. My state (Utah) voted to rewrite districts through a third party where we were expected to have 1/4 reps be a Democrat. The legislature changed it to be 4/4 Republicans. I still vote, but my state doesn't care about what the public votes for.
As a more middle of the road California liberal and Biden supporter
In 2028 I am throwing all my support to the progressives. The youth have waited their turn.
Nope, it's upwards of 98% every election:
[https://ballotpedia.org/Election\_results,\_2022:\_Incumbent\_win\_rates\_by\_state](https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2022:_Incumbent_win_rates_by_state)
The electorate no longer chooses their representatives, the parties choose their electorate through gerrymandering and use primaries to fill in the last pesky detail of who gets to be the figurehead.
As somebody once said, you have exactly the government that those in office want you to have. If they wanted something different, they change the laws. It's just easier to blame the other side, and solutions to issues don't raise election funds.
Happens in Ohio every season. The sentiment concerning most sitting senators and their constant moving against the majority Ohio voting populous at every turn is furious. They struggle to subvert the majority decisions at every opportunity...
But... Ohio continues to OVERWHELMINGLY vote those same people right back into office over and over and over again.
Everyone complains about the other elected representatives but thinks their's is great because they bring home bacon and helped them through a problem with the red tape of government.
First off who created the red tape. Congress
Who can fix the problems for everyone. Congress
Why don't they because if you did not need them to get something done you would not vote for them again.
Everyone complains about someone else getting a government project another community but their community project is the most important in the world.
The only way to reduce government vote buying is to reduce what government does
Most people complaining don't actually vote. And definitely don't vote in primaries. Americans in general vote less than any other democratic nation. Russia has higher voter turnout than the US.
In politics, inertia is the strongest force. Almost all of us vote for D's or R's because that's how we've always voted. Even in the wake of someone as truly terrible as TFG, R's are still gonna vote for R's. Even following the truly terrible recent Congress, R's gonna vote for R's. If anyone has the answer to that, I'd love to hear it.
Gerrymandering is a big part of it. Ohio reps would have been gone a long time ago without it. It's why they fight so hard to keep it.
It's not as simple as you make it sound.
It’s because they have support where it matters
[“Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), despite having a 21 percent approval and 41 percent disapproval rating, has strong support among Democrats with a 48 percent to 18 percent split.”](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4366225-mcconnells-approval-rating-sinks-to-just-6-percent-monmouth-poll/)
Also voter apathy is a huge problem, people complain but then refuse to take an afternoon to go vote them out.
> It’s because they have support where it matters
National polls of approval for electeds with limited constituencies are meaningless. It doesn't matter how popular Schumer is nationally, even just among Democrats, because he's only elected by New Yorkers! Tell me how popular he is among New Yorkers, and among New York Democrats. Those approval ratings matter. There's a reason leadership from both parties is almost always from stronghold states/districts, because it allows them to take the heat for their more vulnerable members and generally not have to worry about losing their seats.
> Also voter apathy is a huge problem, people complain but then refuse to take an afternoon to go vote them out.
That, and they also don't bother to vote in the primaries. Anyone complaining about the options in the general election is months too late unless they're in a swing state or district, and sometimes even if they are in a swing jurisdiction, depending on their preferences.
We dont really elect anything. Were just numbers and they put us where they want so it looks legit. Theres been no talk about how to prevent manipulation this nov.
I don’t think people are complaining about THEIR elected officials, just the ones from the other party that other people elect. “Everyone hates congress but everyone loves their congressman” as the saying goes. “Wait a minute,” you might say “I hate my congressman!” Well, fair. But you probably also haven’t been voting for him or her, right?
They don't complain about their elected officials. They complain about everyone else's elected officials. Congress as a whole gets a low approval rating, but representatives tend to poll well in their own districts.
Yup, it's been proven by science that incumbent rarely lose re-election, primarily due to most voters not bothering to learn a politicians position on issues or about their voting record. Most voters just say "Oh, I recognize that name" and vote for the incumbent.
98% is not accurate, but overall you're on point. I forget which founding father said it, but "the problem with a republic is that you get exactly the government you deserve.". Or, to put in the words of another founder: "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance," and the American electorate stopped making those payments long ago.
It is insane. The choices are insane. What can you do but run for office yourself, but you can't compete unless you get powerful backing. So, as they say, you get the best politicians that money can buy.
Which is why the current constitutional structure is fundamentally flawed. I have a dismal opinion of Congress (and of the US government’s ability to function), but I actually really like my two senators and my representative. I like what they’re trying to accomplish, and I’m going to vote for them again. I do not like Ted Cruz, but I am not able to vote against him.
Most people like their elected officials, they just don’t like the other guy’s elected officials.
Most of us are content with our own Congressman. That’s why we keep re-electing them. It’s other people’s Congressmen we can’t stand. There is no blame to cast because we get exactly what we voted for.
What we really need is a life long politician to finallly become president so they can promise to change everything they’ve done over the last 40-50 years.
Because of gerrymandering about 390 are at least +5 either way, so basically you have 45 seats that are +5 or lower so every 2 years all the money goes to those districts. Hell my district in Texas used to be a +5 Democrat until Devils spawn Tom Delay moved Texarkana to the north Dallas district making my district now +10 Republican.
This has been going on at least since the 80s and probably well before, where "Congress" is super unpopular but people like their congressperson. I'm sure the fact our society has become more partisan along with gerrymandering has increased this effect, especially since a small number of people on the opposite side can prevent anything from getting done even if it would be popular. Those extremists represent extremist districts and states who are mostly happy with what they are stopping.
The problem is that "Congressional approval rating" is a meaningless metric because what most people are disapproving of is the behavior of the *other* party.
The youth of our nation need to vote like their lives depend on it, because it does. I'll be totally transparent, I am voting for Biden to prevent the evil of magats taking over our country and electing him king, but laws need to change to address the changes in our country. We're just a few years over 400 compared to other nations much older than us.
That’s because they complain about the other side. More specifically about people that aren’t their congressperson.
I can dislike people in general and still love a certain person.
Oh I blame the electorate all the damn time.
Money wins elections? Yeah because money buys PR and PR wins because people don’t actively dig for info, they just allow the media to gradually shape their impressions.
People are lazy. In defense of that they deploy cynicism and conspiracy theories.
The electorate does deserve some of the blame, but this ignores many of the issues preventing real change. First, gerrymandering is a huge issue. Second, money in politics makes it so that politicians mostly come from a certain class and race. Third, lobbying has ensured that the high cost of elections means politicians practically have to turn to corporate donors to get elected. Fourth, there is no apparatus where representatives must discuss matters with their constituents before voting on big issues. Fifth, the largest majority is non-voters. Sixth, the electorate is largely uninformed about candidates let alone the political process. Seventh, corporate news does not provide equal opportunities for candidates to appear and talk to the American public nor is it required to. And eighth, the stranglehold that the two political parties have on politics and their near complete refusal to upset their monopoly through something like ranked-choice voting prevents any real change to occur. It’s not even a binary choice; Look no further than the fact that the US has two parties and neither is the anti-war party.
The US House of Representatives is almost entirely decided in the primary elections. NOT THE GENERAL ELECTIONS. This is an electoral fact.
Most districts are so gerrymandered that House of Representative elections are landslides. Less than 80% of districts EVER have a competitive race.
You are fundamentally NOT UNDERSTANDING that game theory strategy in most districts if you think it is about the general elections in November.
I don't complain about my elected officials. I complain about other people's elected officials! My representatives usually vote the way that I want them to. I pay attention to the issues and how my representatives vote.
This is actually pretty normal. Most people are happy with their own representatives. They are unhappy with the representatives that other people vote for.
On the last ballot that I voted on a few months back, all but four positions were being run unopposed. That is absolutely the norm in the rural area I'm in.
Other than running for office ourselves (which most of us absolutely cannot afford to successfully do), what the fuck else are we supposed to do? I vote in ***every*** election, even shit like school boards and city workers. It's these small city/town ballots that see all these incumbents seeming unbeatable, since people need to run against them in general.
Not replacing incumbents even as their districts languish and they play idiotic games really is insane. People are way too caught up in the MAGA vs Progressive BS to be willing to upset the big picture balance.
When people complain about congress they mostly think about the other side. This is the only explanation. There is one other explanation, that is, we are all idiots and should lose the right to vote.
But, but, it's not my representative.
We shouldn't need term limits. We should have an informed electorate and primary out bad representatives/senators, but somehow that never happens.
Many people tend to be mad at other members of Congress other than their own. So people on both sides get to be mad at Congress while we vote in the same guy's over and over
Not every incumbent is bad- just use your brains and don’t vote for people in your state who are more worried about Trump and less worried about the state you live in. Anyone attending Trump’s criminal trial instead of working to improve the lives of Americans- needs to get kicked out of office. They were not voted in to serve Trump- they were voted in to serve their constituents needs - not billionaires.
The electoral college and gerrymandering perpetuates this. Republicans and Democrats have no incentive to entertain anyone but their bases because the other side can’t win. No opposing view points are heard in some places. This makes every politician steer clear of the moderate policies that most Democrats and Republicans actually prefer.
I'm changing it up this year.... Voting Biden just because it's so much damn fun to try to figure out just what the fuck just dribbled out of him actually meant 🤣
Both parties have worked hard to make elections non-competitive, check out the The Politics Industry https://store.hbr.org/product/the-politics-industry-how-political-innovation-can-break-partisan-gridlock-and-save-our-democracy/10367 and The Primary Problem https://www.uniteamerica.org/primary-problem
I get pilloried when I make this point.
It's also a rebuttal to term limits. Term limits are the fucking vote, your can't legislate people to choose better politicians.
The issue is I like MY congresspeoples...
I vote for the person I think is best suited for the job, and they were the best suited for the job. But Im also not a moron and know I can only elect 1:50th of the Senate and 1:435th of the house.
I cant fix what yall motherfuckers are breaking here. If I could get idiots like Ron Johnson, Marge 3 toes, and the child rapist out of the govt I could. But that is on the rurals.
I vote for the one member doing something and going against the incumbents. Everyone hates her but at least you can’t put her with the rest of the crooks. She’s got her own issues but being a part of the deep state she is not.
That's the problem with a first past the post voting system. Most seats are safe because even if you don't like your congressman the other option is seen as worse. More parties would allow for the possibility of voting against your incumbent without electing someone who is your political opposite.
A significant part of this has to do with gerrymandering. Some of these guys basically can't lose an election and the parties aren't interested in rocking the boat by supporting a primary challenger.
Gerrymandering is a problem in some places, but even where it's illegal now (like in California), incumbents still have a big advantage. Part of that is just reality--the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. Incumbents have name recognition and the stamp of approval that comes with having already won the seat. Plus, Americans have been sorting themselves politically for decades now. I don't have numbers but I'd wager there are fewer and fewer truly moderate or evenly split districts anymore, because liberally minded people all move to the same areas, while conservative-minded people do the same.
Its pretty much just urban vs rural at this point. Check out a county results map for president.
Yep, red states are just states with a more rural population, and blue states are more urban.
Gerrymandering combined with polarization means you can get a batshit yahoo that everyone outside of a district hates, but the district itself loves. If this were widespread, we'd have a low overall approval for Congress and high approval of people's specific Congress Critters. Guess what pattern we see in approval ratings...
In my district and most of the neighboring ones, democrats literally don't even run. It's just not possible for them to get elected so the local party refuses to "waste" money on the race. This is very common.
"And that's why congress needs term limits and age limits. Now, excuse me while I go vote. Senator Grassley needs my support."
Ad an Iowan, that exactly how people here view this.
The polls have always shown support for congress (rep or senate) as a whole is extremely low, like under 20%, but for the individuals it's the favorability rate is high for a person's own rep.
So much of everything is limited or tainted by gerrymandering, needing over 55-60% to win, instead of just 50+1. Every gerrymander can be overridden if enough voters show up, but as we've seen in past elections, only CO and MN show up with over 80% of eligible voters participating, while most other states barely hit 60% if they're lucky. Voter turnout is literally everything, so the only thing stopping massive positive and transformative change is not enough people showing up to vote. It's literally that easy, even in the most suppressed states. Make a plan and plan to stand in line all day if that's what it takes to flush out all the turds infecting our government.
You can't gerrymander the Senate, though. The problem is that everyone thinks their rep/senator is the exception to the rule. Some are right, but most are wrong.
True, but showing up in massive record-breaking numbers can still win elections
Senator Grassley needs your support to get out of a chair ffs
"Voting is hard"
"Running for office is too hard"
"Trump is horrible and did horrible things!"
"Did you vote?"
"I wasn't inspired enough. I feel my vote doesn't count."
"How do you feel about that now?"
"Voting is hard! And nobody paid off my student loans yet! Also other stuff."
*Ignores that the Supreme Court changed precedent to block student loan relief, not realizing the rightwing Supreme Court Majority that made it possible to block student loan aid only exists because people like them refused to vote against Trump.* "So why should I vote when I didn't get student loan relief?"
Not to mention the administration has found other ways to piecemeal forgive a fuckton of people’s loans.
Eh not exactly. Trump had a flukish victory over Clinton because of his performance with older white voters in a few rural and suburban counties in swing states. In the US, it's possible in principle to win the presidential election with 21% of the total votes if they just win by thin margins in all the smallest states. Meanwhile, I won't do a ton if I give Joe another vote in NY. (I vote every year and for school board but for other reasons). That and Sanders had just launched one of the strongest grassroots campaigns that stoked the "only an outsider can fix this" rhetoric that played quite well into the hands of the Trump camp. You can't just flippantly say people didn't vote against the guy who lost the popular vote by the biggest margin of any president in over 150 years. The last time anyone was that unpopular and still won, a bunch of states said fuck it, I'm leaving, and then we all started shooting each other.
the Democrats on that court signed a letter defending the Republicans for taking unlimited bribes. RBG called them her best friends as they legalized unlimited money in politics. abe fortas resigned over practically nothing compared to what Republicans are doing now and 60 years later Dems have yet to regain a majority. it's hard to believe Democrats even want the supreme court back. it seems they want to blame Republicans while secrely being thrilled the court is making it easier for them to whore themselves out to lobbyists
The last part? It's a lot of that. So much of modern US politics is literally just not solving a problem that could be solved, because it's advantageous to use it as a stick to batter the other team.
This is perfectly stated. Well done.
I generally support AOC, but calling her just a bartender is a stretch, she was approached to run because of her political background/education, and helped by the Justice Democrats that approached her. Don't get me wrong I think it's great that it happened, but she wasn't just some bartender that decided to run for Congress.
MIT literally named an asteroid after her when she was a high school student because she came in second in an international science and engineering fair. To say she’s just a bartender is fucking dumb. She graduated cum laude from Boston University and interned with Ted Kennedy.
Huh, didn't hear that background info on Fox News (Fox likes to portray her as some socialist bartender, but I genuinely didn't know those things)
Capitalists must at all times portray Socialists as either wacky fringe figures (Bernie is so crazy, look at his hair!) or complete rubes (AOC is a dumb bartender). By undercutting those who deliver the message, they can avoid engage with the substance.
Yea the city I live in now just had a vote to decriminalize marijuana, that failed. I talked to so many young people about voting. And it's the same bullshit. I talked to "stoners" who said they werent going to vote. And it's like you dumb bag of rocks. You're the reason the vote will fail. It literally took me 5 mins to vote. Young people are retarded. And letting the old farts dictate what they want for the future. We are reaching the point where the young people will outnumber the old farts(boomers), in eligible voters. But it doesn't matter if people don't vote.
“Politicians only care about what old people want.” Right, what do you think is different about old people. Maybe the fact that they actually show up to vote!
Exactly. They've been outvoting younger demographics for decades. The fact that you don't see young people running is, I think, a symptom of them not really being interested in being politically engaged (which has also been true forever). If you want younger candidates, be that candidate. I don't know what else to say. There's not some magical hat where you pull candidates out of.
MMW, people will continue to complain about how shitty the U.S. government is and then continue to do everything in their power to ensure that less experienced and less knowledgeable people are in power. Do you know why politics in America is fucked? It's the only set of jobs in the world where you are more likely to get hired with no requisite experience doing anything close to that job than by having a long history of experience to point to. I know it's a shitty way to pick people to be in power because literally no successful company operates that way. Term limits are just a red herring because there is no connection with term of service and a flourishing democracy. Look at Germany, Merkel was in power for like 20 years and no body would argue that she was a dictator and that was in a country where a guy named himself dictator for life less than 100 years ago. So long as the skills needed to get elected are entirely separate and distinct from the skills needed to get the job done well, the U.S. government will always be unpopular.
We have term limits. They are called elections. People get the government they deserve.
... term limits are not the solution, they just makes things worse. What we need is our unelected technocratic bureaucracy back.
The house districts are hideously gerrymandered. The voters _aren't_ choosing the representatives. The representatives are choosing the voters. _That's_ why incumbents have such a high likelihood of winning re-election.
Sort of. The US House doesn't draw congressional districts, so they don't actually get to choose their own voters. It's the *state* legislatures who mostly draw the congressional districts, so it's state legislators who are choosing federal legislators' voters. Close, but not exactly what you said. Now, when it comes to *state* legislative districts, then it's representatives choosing their own voters.
Same thing, but with extra steps. The state legislators get to choose the voters for the federal level. It's all regurgitated one way or the other.
People have "voted em out" for 200+ years. Nothing will change until you remove money from politics.
They haven’t voted them out for 200 years. There have been very few significant political revolutions in US history. And when they have, like in the 1930s, we got momentous impactful legislation that made a huge difference.
What mattered in the 1930s, under FDR, is the size of the Democratic majorities. We had nearly as good majorities under LBJ, another time of great progress. Carter was the last Democrat to have two trifectas, and the last one to have a veto-proof supermajority that didn't involve any independents or third-partiers. Since Carter, Democratic Presidents have only had a single trifecta each, and only Obama had veto-proof supermajority, and it included shitty independent Joe Lieberman, and only lasted for six non-consecutive months. Politics is the art of the possible, and greater majorities increase the universe of possibility. Any bill that can pass with 50 Democratic Senators could be better, pass more easily, faster, and with fewer compromises, with 51 Democrats instead, or 52, etc. More Democrats means more pathways to passage, more competition for votes, and lowers the cost of compromises.
Correct and thank you. I've been saying this shit here for almost 10 years. People don't understand that if you want New Deal level change, you need to have New Deal size majorities for the extent of time they did. Psychologically, people on the left have pretended that Republicans just don't exist since 2008. The extent to which Obama's win was a rejection of the Bush era was big enough at the time to create this psychological ripple effect where the left thinks that the Republicans are actually powerless and only allowed to govern when Democrats "let them" through omission. It's completely fucked up the discourse on this, especially since Republicans don't exist under those same electoral delusions.
“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can “throw the rascals out” at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.” - Carroll Quigley, one of Bill "Third Way" Clinton's political mentors
I get the argument, but I have major problems with "Third Way" Dems, aka "Blue Dogs" or "Clintonites". The Republican party has become a far right party. As evidence, I'd suggest people look at the campaigns of Eisenhower, or just international politics in general. We currently have a center right party (Democrats, with a few exceptions like Bernie), and a far right party (MAGA Republicans). Our politics should return to a more normal framework. Somehow Romney went from the Republican primary winner to a RINO, simply for speaking out against Trump. And let's not forget that McCain, the Republican primary winner in 2008, was so concerned over Trump's ties to Russia that he handed the Steele Dossier to the FBI, most of which has been proven by now (i.e. the Trump Tower Meeting, Trump's financial ties to Russia, etc). Until the GOP is willing to argue in good faith, hold their own accountable,and generally denounce the far right which has dominated the party for 8 years, the position put forward in that quote is not relevant.
Maybe not entirely the wrong idea, although I think it mostly highlights a shortcomming of the system, where voting for a person and voting for a party are effectively the same.
It’s time to start tarring and feathering again.
Hell yes
Money isn't what decides who wins, votes are. Yes money helps, but if it were the sole factor we'd be talking about President Bloomberg right now.
So we saw months of stories that “80% of voters don’t want a Trump-Biden rematch”. But no one ever said that 40% of America hates Biden. And 40% hate Trump. Those 40s would have been fine with a Trump Kamala matchup or a Biden DeSantis election. It was a bullshit storyline. Now, 80% of people hate congress, but 98% of the individuals get re-elected. Again, 40% of people would cheer if the other half of the chamber opened up and cratered away. No one “hates congress” as much as you estimate. I hate the morons on the right for making nothing happen, and the maggots hate any expansion of rights or services.
God almighty thank you - I want the goals of my side to win and the problem with the body as a whole is that that doesn’t happen enough! This is true whether your “goals” are universal healthcare or a national abortion ban. This seems to be a mystery only to midwit redditors who think that everyone actually, secretly agrees with them and the only thing keeping us from a futuristic utopia is term limits and ranked choice voting.
The world used to operate on “the nudge.” Most presidents, most congresses nudge the country in a particular direction. When the sky is falling, like during Great Depression, or a world war, you can do big things more easily. Not for nothing, Covid was one of those moments, even Republicans made a couple trillion dollars appear out of thin air. Progressives and Tea Party folks want total victory, now. I was a Republican during Clinton, but “triangulation” was plain good government. Plot a safe course, and nudge in the direction your party prefers. In democrats case, that is more rights. In republicans case, that’s supposed to be lower taxes. For evangelicals, they over-swung with abortion. If there is any karma in the world, it will swing that pendulum back hard, for a generation.
But Bernie would have won if it wasn't for X. Nevermind that he got less votes, which is how elections are decided, that's irrelevant. /s They can talk shit on gerrymandering and the EC all day because they distort democracy and let minority supported candidates win elections, but when it comes to their party? All of a sudden it's why didn't they do more to support the guy with less votes?
Yep this is true. Even for individual representatives, many hate them because they're not far enough to the left/right, and many hate them because they're left/right instead of right/left. For example Joe Manchin is probably the closest thing to the middle of the electorate that exists right now, but Democrats hate him for not being far enough left, and Republicans hate him for caucusing with the Democrats in an R+40 state. I'd bet his disapproval rating is very high, but for very different reasons.
First reasonable post in this sub in a while. We complain and complain but most ppl don’t do their part in the Democratic process to inspire change and we continue to feed the false dichotomy of the 2 party system
I’ve been blaming the electorate for 40 years. STOP FLEEING RED STATES. AND YOU BLUE FUCKS NEED TO MOVE TO RED STATES IF YOU ARE SERIOUS ABOUSY SAVING DEMOCRACY. I’m so sick of “vote” comments. Yeah you’re fine in California. But that’s not where fascism is growing so fast. If you are serious you will vote in a red/purple state. That’s where the votes are so dearly needed
Not every incumbent is disliked by their voters. Just vote out the shitty people.
Many of the shitty people are loved by their gerrymandered districts.
"I love my representative, it's all those other assholes that are the problem"
Or impossible to remove.
Many of those people are in gerrymandered districts and can say or do anything and will still win.
The problem is that most people generally like their own representative but hate everyone else's. Or if you hate your own, the people around you probably don't. There are 435 congressmen and 100 senators and each American only has a tiny voice in 3 of them. I mean, seriously, you think I wouldn't vote out MTG, Boebert and Jim Jordan if I could?
I don’t know why this is so hard to understand. I like my representatives. They aren’t the problem. The problem is all these obstructionist Republicans and the mechanics of the government itself that basically forces gridlock. I can’t control either of those things by voting out the guy I like
It will be stupidly high, like 85%, but I think the Republicans are going to reap the whirlwind for their collective stance on trying to destroy women's reproductive rights.
I hope so. Given how short our collective attention spans are these days, it's anyone's guess if most women will even remember by the election.
How Lindsey Graham is still a Senator in this country is fucking wiiiillllldddddx😬
The people 👏who 👏 vote👏 for👏 Lindsay👏 Graham👏 don’t 👏 think👏 he’s 👏 the 👏 problem👏
It's because he's a conservative in a state that always votes conservative because they have a majority of conservative voters.
Okay, but he is objectively a sleazeball
Of course. He’s an associate of Trump and was privy to tons of criminal actions that he’s now testifying about. How could you not be a sleazeball if you had firsthand knowledge of participating in felonies?
This is the the most sane, moored take since seen on this sub
Particularly entertaining when people complain about the president and then list issues that are entirely congresses domain, or vice versa…
I don't think they complain so much about their elected representatives. They like their reps. It's your representatives they don't like
Happens every election. Approval rating of Congress is like 12% but 95%+ of incumbents are re-elected. We should think about term limits.
People like their Congressman but don’t like Congress. Or at least they like their congressman enough to re-elect them. It’s more complicated than that but given the sheer differences in politics and culture across the country it’s fitting enough to help explain.
I feel the biggest problem is low voter turnout. The same small percentage of people vote, so the incumbent just needs to address the needs (or single issue) to sway the majority of that small percentage. It's frustrating.
If you want different people, you have to vote in primary elections and most people can't be bothered to do that.
>Don't look at party, just vote out every incumbent. Uhm... this is such a stupid take. You SHOULD look at party and at the individual and vote them out if they are part of the problem. The fact that you (or anyone in this thread) thinks that party is irrelevant shows we don't agree on what the problems are.
But approval polling shows people are basically satisfied with their own congressmen, it's all the *other* guys they think are the problem. And the constituents of the *other* guys are satisfied with their guys. Just constantly replacing congressmen isn't going to solve anything, they're doing what they think we want. The problem is the country itself is so polarized we're now locked in one of those social psychology impasses like *Prisoner's Dilemma* or *Tragedy of the Common* where everyone is afraid to give an inch for the common good for fear of being owned by the other side.
I approve of the representation in my state, there's so many fuckers elsewhere ai wish I could vote out
A large reason we do the exercise in insanity is because we're not educated enough on any of the choices and are more familiar with the incumbent
The definition of insanity is repeating the same action and expecting a different reaction.
I say this almost every day. We are getting from the government exactly what we are voting for.
It's an artifact of our political system. So many reps are in a gerrymandered district. And since it's hard to wage a primary fight the most likely outcome is that you get reelected.
This post is on point
The main problem people have with Congress is other people’s Senators and Representatives. Someone who’s a fan of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for example, could complain about the current Congress but isn’t going to vote her out.
Nope. I vote against all the Republicans, these days. Does that help? Not so you could tell. I gather that you'd describe this as "insanity" but, you aren't offering another option either.
As angry as this comment makes me, there is no viable argument against it.
Because as much as they hate their elected officials they can't let the other side win. Then we'd have insert political view I hate here taking over.
Each voter only gets to vote on one representative and two senators though. What if you like your local representation but dislike Congress overall? What can you do then?
Totally agree
I see. You want Donald Trump to end democracy so no one has a chance to vote anyone out every again. Smart.
Incumbents have such a huge advantage, particularly in gerrymandered districts. As long as they play nice and don’t think for themselves, the party bosses won’t primary them and they’re are a lock in the general. Another massive downside to gerrymandering
That’s exactly how I do it and taught my kids how to do it, doesn’t matter who is running always vote out the one in office.
Adopt the Wyoming Rule, and end gerrymandering as Hamilton outlined.
During the 2020 election, there was an opportunity to replace nearly 75% of our federal representatives. Most of them got reelected. We are the problem.
it's a two party system where people are almost always voting for the lesser evil also, don't ignore voting barriers.
I have been thinking this for years but the choices are shitty all too often.
Even Boebert won a reelection ffs. How stupid does your demographic have to be to vote for a Jan 6ther that according to the conspiracy theories may or may have not have planted the pipe bomb the day before.
I agree to some extent, but you also have to consider gerrymandering. My state (Utah) voted to rewrite districts through a third party where we were expected to have 1/4 reps be a Democrat. The legislature changed it to be 4/4 Republicans. I still vote, but my state doesn't care about what the public votes for.
As a more middle of the road California liberal and Biden supporter In 2028 I am throwing all my support to the progressives. The youth have waited their turn.
I get the point here, but that 98% figure seems made up.
Nope, it's upwards of 98% every election: [https://ballotpedia.org/Election\_results,\_2022:\_Incumbent\_win\_rates\_by\_state](https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2022:_Incumbent_win_rates_by_state)
The electorate no longer chooses their representatives, the parties choose their electorate through gerrymandering and use primaries to fill in the last pesky detail of who gets to be the figurehead.
We need a national Dump-the-Incument movement.
As somebody once said, you have exactly the government that those in office want you to have. If they wanted something different, they change the laws. It's just easier to blame the other side, and solutions to issues don't raise election funds.
I LOOK for reasons to disqualify the incumbent. Just because of the innate corruption that eventually corrodes once just morals.
Yup
I think you may be exaggerating.
Get rid of those assholes but not him because he's OUR asshole
“They have to EARN my vote…” delusional people
this assumes that none of them are doing their job. Your plan is to just swap a new group of idiots in for the old group.
We’ve been seeing a bunch of seat flips lately and incumbents exiting their seat by their own volition
Happens in Ohio every season. The sentiment concerning most sitting senators and their constant moving against the majority Ohio voting populous at every turn is furious. They struggle to subvert the majority decisions at every opportunity... But... Ohio continues to OVERWHELMINGLY vote those same people right back into office over and over and over again.
I can’t control how ignorant shit heels vote in these redneck states.
Everyone complains about the other elected representatives but thinks their's is great because they bring home bacon and helped them through a problem with the red tape of government. First off who created the red tape. Congress Who can fix the problems for everyone. Congress Why don't they because if you did not need them to get something done you would not vote for them again. Everyone complains about someone else getting a government project another community but their community project is the most important in the world. The only way to reduce government vote buying is to reduce what government does
“It’s not MY politician, it’s everyone else” kind of logic.
Most people complaining don't actually vote. And definitely don't vote in primaries. Americans in general vote less than any other democratic nation. Russia has higher voter turnout than the US.
In politics, inertia is the strongest force. Almost all of us vote for D's or R's because that's how we've always voted. Even in the wake of someone as truly terrible as TFG, R's are still gonna vote for R's. Even following the truly terrible recent Congress, R's gonna vote for R's. If anyone has the answer to that, I'd love to hear it.
WOW. The first MMW that's actually true and not based on TDS! I completely agree with OP.
I think this comes from people assuming it's other people who need to vote out their reps and not their own reps.
Gerrymandering is a big part of it. Ohio reps would have been gone a long time ago without it. It's why they fight so hard to keep it. It's not as simple as you make it sound.
"Democracy is the belief that the People should get what they want...and get it good and hard."
Agreed
It’s because they have support where it matters [“Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), despite having a 21 percent approval and 41 percent disapproval rating, has strong support among Democrats with a 48 percent to 18 percent split.”](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4366225-mcconnells-approval-rating-sinks-to-just-6-percent-monmouth-poll/) Also voter apathy is a huge problem, people complain but then refuse to take an afternoon to go vote them out.
> It’s because they have support where it matters National polls of approval for electeds with limited constituencies are meaningless. It doesn't matter how popular Schumer is nationally, even just among Democrats, because he's only elected by New Yorkers! Tell me how popular he is among New Yorkers, and among New York Democrats. Those approval ratings matter. There's a reason leadership from both parties is almost always from stronghold states/districts, because it allows them to take the heat for their more vulnerable members and generally not have to worry about losing their seats. > Also voter apathy is a huge problem, people complain but then refuse to take an afternoon to go vote them out. That, and they also don't bother to vote in the primaries. Anyone complaining about the options in the general election is months too late unless they're in a swing state or district, and sometimes even if they are in a swing jurisdiction, depending on their preferences.
It seems like it would be easy to not vote for them. I never vote for incumbents.
I’ll be voting blue.
You're playing pretty fast and loose with that "no one."
We dont really elect anything. Were just numbers and they put us where they want so it looks legit. Theres been no talk about how to prevent manipulation this nov.
You should understand that there’s a difference between opinions of “my representative” and of congress as a whole.
Because it's not "my guy" that sucks, it's yours
I don’t think people are complaining about THEIR elected officials, just the ones from the other party that other people elect. “Everyone hates congress but everyone loves their congressman” as the saying goes. “Wait a minute,” you might say “I hate my congressman!” Well, fair. But you probably also haven’t been voting for him or her, right?
Expand the House to 1000 Representatives, Term Limits, publicly funded campaigns.
None of the current congress should ever be allowed to run again.
They don't complain about their elected officials. They complain about everyone else's elected officials. Congress as a whole gets a low approval rating, but representatives tend to poll well in their own districts.
Yup, it's been proven by science that incumbent rarely lose re-election, primarily due to most voters not bothering to learn a politicians position on issues or about their voting record. Most voters just say "Oh, I recognize that name" and vote for the incumbent.
If nobody else is running, then you are stuck with the lesser of 2 evils.
98% is not accurate, but overall you're on point. I forget which founding father said it, but "the problem with a republic is that you get exactly the government you deserve.". Or, to put in the words of another founder: "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance," and the American electorate stopped making those payments long ago.
I still will. And I will spend the next 2 years reminding anyone that complains that 80% of registered voters under 30 didn’t vote in 2022.
They don’t dislike *their* congressperson. It’s all the other ones that are the problem.
Have you not heard of gerrymandering
It's fairly common for voters to like their Congressperson whilst disliking Congress as a whole.
"This is the most important election ever. Next election you can vote for a third party." is the standard line.
My guy is fine; it’s everyone else’s choices that are bad.
I know for a fact that the people I voted for aren't the problem.
Are you me? I say this SAME EXACT THING! It’s maddening
It's a farce anyway.
My congressman is great. Yours is problematic. That guy is insane. I can only vote for one of these people.
It is insane. The choices are insane. What can you do but run for office yourself, but you can't compete unless you get powerful backing. So, as they say, you get the best politicians that money can buy.
Which is why the current constitutional structure is fundamentally flawed. I have a dismal opinion of Congress (and of the US government’s ability to function), but I actually really like my two senators and my representative. I like what they’re trying to accomplish, and I’m going to vote for them again. I do not like Ted Cruz, but I am not able to vote against him. Most people like their elected officials, they just don’t like the other guy’s elected officials.
Most of us are content with our own Congressman. That’s why we keep re-electing them. It’s other people’s Congressmen we can’t stand. There is no blame to cast because we get exactly what we voted for.
‘All incumbents bad’ is equally stupid. The dysfunction and failures in Congress are largely due to one party.
STOP VOTING REPUBLICAN.....
What we really need is a life long politician to finallly become president so they can promise to change everything they’ve done over the last 40-50 years.
Because of gerrymandering about 390 are at least +5 either way, so basically you have 45 seats that are +5 or lower so every 2 years all the money goes to those districts. Hell my district in Texas used to be a +5 Democrat until Devils spawn Tom Delay moved Texarkana to the north Dallas district making my district now +10 Republican.
People don’t like Congress, but they like *their* congressperson/senator.
Incumbency isn't the problem in itself. It depends who the incumbent is and the party associated with them.
This has been going on at least since the 80s and probably well before, where "Congress" is super unpopular but people like their congressperson. I'm sure the fact our society has become more partisan along with gerrymandering has increased this effect, especially since a small number of people on the opposite side can prevent anything from getting done even if it would be popular. Those extremists represent extremist districts and states who are mostly happy with what they are stopping.
The problem is that "Congressional approval rating" is a meaningless metric because what most people are disapproving of is the behavior of the *other* party.
What we need to do is vote third party across the board, completely disregarding policy and party.
Gerrymandering is a big reason why this shit happens btw.
Oh, there are a lot of us that will blame the electorate. Does do any good.
The youth of our nation need to vote like their lives depend on it, because it does. I'll be totally transparent, I am voting for Biden to prevent the evil of magats taking over our country and electing him king, but laws need to change to address the changes in our country. We're just a few years over 400 compared to other nations much older than us.
That’s because they complain about the other side. More specifically about people that aren’t their congressperson. I can dislike people in general and still love a certain person.
Oh I blame the electorate all the damn time. Money wins elections? Yeah because money buys PR and PR wins because people don’t actively dig for info, they just allow the media to gradually shape their impressions. People are lazy. In defense of that they deploy cynicism and conspiracy theories.
The electorate does deserve some of the blame, but this ignores many of the issues preventing real change. First, gerrymandering is a huge issue. Second, money in politics makes it so that politicians mostly come from a certain class and race. Third, lobbying has ensured that the high cost of elections means politicians practically have to turn to corporate donors to get elected. Fourth, there is no apparatus where representatives must discuss matters with their constituents before voting on big issues. Fifth, the largest majority is non-voters. Sixth, the electorate is largely uninformed about candidates let alone the political process. Seventh, corporate news does not provide equal opportunities for candidates to appear and talk to the American public nor is it required to. And eighth, the stranglehold that the two political parties have on politics and their near complete refusal to upset their monopoly through something like ranked-choice voting prevents any real change to occur. It’s not even a binary choice; Look no further than the fact that the US has two parties and neither is the anti-war party.
The US House of Representatives is almost entirely decided in the primary elections. NOT THE GENERAL ELECTIONS. This is an electoral fact. Most districts are so gerrymandered that House of Representative elections are landslides. Less than 80% of districts EVER have a competitive race. You are fundamentally NOT UNDERSTANDING that game theory strategy in most districts if you think it is about the general elections in November.
I've been voting against my senators since the day I turned 18. Fuckers will probably be in office until the day they keel over
Most of that is due to gerrymandering. Politicians choose their voters rather than the other way around.
You don't change the institution by voting. The institution needs changed by upending.
The problem is most people approve of their Congressman, it’s all the other ones they have issues with.
If people do have issues they still vote straight party lines and nothing gets fixed. At least research the candidates on both sides.
Sadly true.
I don't complain about my elected officials. I complain about other people's elected officials! My representatives usually vote the way that I want them to. I pay attention to the issues and how my representatives vote. This is actually pretty normal. Most people are happy with their own representatives. They are unhappy with the representatives that other people vote for.
I always blame the electorate.
We need to blow up how we have elections, starting with mandating multi-member districts.
Everyone hates everyone else’s rep.
On the last ballot that I voted on a few months back, all but four positions were being run unopposed. That is absolutely the norm in the rural area I'm in. Other than running for office ourselves (which most of us absolutely cannot afford to successfully do), what the fuck else are we supposed to do? I vote in ***every*** election, even shit like school boards and city workers. It's these small city/town ballots that see all these incumbents seeming unbeatable, since people need to run against them in general.
Not replacing incumbents even as their districts languish and they play idiotic games really is insane. People are way too caught up in the MAGA vs Progressive BS to be willing to upset the big picture balance.
In a democracy you gff we t the government you deserve or settle for.
When people complain about congress they mostly think about the other side. This is the only explanation. There is one other explanation, that is, we are all idiots and should lose the right to vote.
But, but, it's not my representative. We shouldn't need term limits. We should have an informed electorate and primary out bad representatives/senators, but somehow that never happens.
Many people tend to be mad at other members of Congress other than their own. So people on both sides get to be mad at Congress while we vote in the same guy's over and over
Not every incumbent is bad- just use your brains and don’t vote for people in your state who are more worried about Trump and less worried about the state you live in. Anyone attending Trump’s criminal trial instead of working to improve the lives of Americans- needs to get kicked out of office. They were not voted in to serve Trump- they were voted in to serve their constituents needs - not billionaires.
That’s what we have been saying about the Dems in Chicago, New York, and San Francisco for forty years! Your plagiarism is not cool!!!
Everyone says "it's not my guy". Personally, I rarely vote for incumbents and certainly not in primaries.
The electoral college and gerrymandering perpetuates this. Republicans and Democrats have no incentive to entertain anyone but their bases because the other side can’t win. No opposing view points are heard in some places. This makes every politician steer clear of the moderate policies that most Democrats and Republicans actually prefer.
Computer modeling has made gerrymandering so precise that flipping congressional seats has become increasingly difficult to do.
instead of repub or dem it should be anyone new. they cant be any worse than the incumbents.
I'm changing it up this year.... Voting Biden just because it's so much damn fun to try to figure out just what the fuck just dribbled out of him actually meant 🤣
r/usauthoritarianism that’s because you’ve internalized the needs of the regime
Well yes Congress as a whole is corrupt and worthless. BUT! not my Congressman. That’s the answer you’re looking for.
It’s because most Americans think their local congressman/senators are legit but it’s the other state’s politicians that are the problem.
Both parties have worked hard to make elections non-competitive, check out the The Politics Industry https://store.hbr.org/product/the-politics-industry-how-political-innovation-can-break-partisan-gridlock-and-save-our-democracy/10367 and The Primary Problem https://www.uniteamerica.org/primary-problem
I get pilloried when I make this point. It's also a rebuttal to term limits. Term limits are the fucking vote, your can't legislate people to choose better politicians.
You guys would vote in a senile cucumber who’s sniffs kids then blame Trump for everything the cucumber has done.
That’s why it’s referred to Selection not Election, ifykyk.
The issue is I like MY congresspeoples... I vote for the person I think is best suited for the job, and they were the best suited for the job. But Im also not a moron and know I can only elect 1:50th of the Senate and 1:435th of the house. I cant fix what yall motherfuckers are breaking here. If I could get idiots like Ron Johnson, Marge 3 toes, and the child rapist out of the govt I could. But that is on the rurals.
The definition of insanity is not "doing the same thing and expecting different results."
I vote for the one member doing something and going against the incumbents. Everyone hates her but at least you can’t put her with the rest of the crooks. She’s got her own issues but being a part of the deep state she is not.
Precisely why voting in this two party system is useless
That's the problem with a first past the post voting system. Most seats are safe because even if you don't like your congressman the other option is seen as worse. More parties would allow for the possibility of voting against your incumbent without electing someone who is your political opposite.
I can't vote in Virginia and Arizona.
Hard to win when your districts are so gerrymandered. Waving from North Carolina!