\nFirst is to take, or at least reduce, some of the corrosive influence of money in our politics. . . .<\/p>\n
And they spend this money based on some ideological preference that really is disconnected to the realities of how people live. . . .<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s why I disagree with the Supreme Court\u2019s Citizens United decision. (Applause.) I don\u2019t believe that money is speech, or that political spending should have no limits, or that it shouldn\u2019t be disclosed. I still support a constitutional amendment to set reasonable limits on financial influence in America\u2019s elections.<\/p>\n
But amending the Constitution is an extremely challenging and time-consuming process \u2014 as it should be. So we\u2019re going to have to come up with more immediate ways to reduce the influence of money in politics. There are a lot of good proposals out there, and we have to work to find ones that can gain some bipartisan support \u2014 because a handful of families and hidden interests shouldn\u2019t be able to bankroll elections in the greatest democracy on Earth.<\/p>\n
The second step towards a better politics is rethinking the way that we draw our congressional districts. . . .<\/p>\n
And while this gerrymandering may insulate some incumbents from a serious challenge from the other party, it also means that the main thing those incumbents are worried about are challengers from the most extreme voices in their own party. That\u2019s what\u2019s happened in Congress. You wonder why Congress doesn\u2019t work? The House of Representatives there, there may be a handful \u2014 less than 10 percent \u2014 of districts that are even competitive at this point. So if you\u2019re a Republican, all you\u2019re worried about is what somebody to your right is saying about you, because you know you\u2019re not going to lose a general election. Same is true for a lot of Democrats. So our debates move away from the middle, where most Americans are, towards the far ends of the spectrum. And that polarizes us further.<\/p>\n
Now, this is something we have the power to fix. And once the next census rolls around and we have the most up-to-date picture of America\u2019s population, we should change the way our districts are drawn.<\/p>\n
Now, the more Americans use their voice and participate, the less captive our politics will be to narrow constituencies. No matter how much undisclosed money is spent, no matter how many negative ads are run, no matter how unrepresentative a district is drawn, if everybody voted, if a far larger number of people voted, that would overcome in many ways some of these other institutional barriers. It would make our politics better.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s why a third step towards a better politics is making voting easier, not harder; and modernizing it for the way that we live now. . . .<\/p>\n
And I\u2019d encourage this assembly to take the next step. Senator Manar and Representative Gabel have bills that would automatically register every eligible citizen to vote when they apply for a driver\u2019s license. That will protect the fundamental right of everybody. Democrats, Republicans, independents, seniors, folks with disabilities, the men and women of our military \u2014 it would make sure that it was easier for them to vote and have their vote counted.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
So, in brief, Obama\u2019s problems and solutions are<\/p>\n
1) too much \u201cdark money,\u201d from ideological extremists, rectified by placing limits on election spending,<\/p>\n
2) gerrymandering producing extremists, rectified by impartial boundary-drawing, and<\/p>\n
3) insufficient moderate voters to balance out those who vote due to \u201cextreme\u201d ideological commitments.<\/p>\n
Is he right?<\/p>\n
Why should \u201cdark money\u201d contributors automatically be ideological extremists? \u00a0(OK, sure, unions decidedly are.) \u00a0 I\u2019m not convinced of this connection.<\/p>\n
In a case where the battle for a House or (state) Senate seat takes place within a party at the primary level, why should the extreme candidate automatically win? \u00a0The bigger issue is that once a candidate gets elected, they generally have what amounts to a lifetime seat, when they go unchallenged even in primaries.<\/p>\n
Obama\u2019s third point is the most interesting, even if I think he\u2019s using this to push for a pet cause (automatic registration, after all, seems like a surefire way to increase fraud as noncitizens register when they get their licenses).<\/p>\n
If it all boils down to the most ideologically committed Americans being far more likely to show up at the voting booth that the indifferent lot of the rest of us, then that would tend to produce more ideologically \u201cpure\u201d candidates. \u00a0But this is more of an issue in primaries, isn\u2019t it? \u00a0And there it isn\u2019t a matter of insufficient numbers of citizens being registered to vote, but of indifference by those registered voters \u2014 or perhaps by the lack of enough activism at the local level for those voters to know who the candidates are in the first place. \u00a0And perhaps here the tremendous reach of the federal government, and the fact that so much energy is deservedly focused on federal elections as a consequence, has impacted local politics.<\/p>\n
In addition, there are two other issues which are not as easy to fix:<\/p>\n
First, the rise of the internet as, for many people, the primary way people discuss and share political news and opinion, creates polarization. \u00a0Consider how different blog comments and facebook shares are than talking politics with your neighbors, and how the more one-sided a meme is, the more likely it is to be shared. \u00a0(When was the last time you saw a meme or a viral article saying, \u201ccalm down; there are two sides to the story\u201d?)<\/p>\n
Second (and I think I blogged about this in the past but can\u2019t find it), the increased cynicism about honesty and promises. \u00a0Consider Obama\u2019s statement that \u201cmy faith tells me that marriage is between a man and a woman\u201d and the fact that, when he \u201cevolved\u201d into supporting gay marriage, his supporters pretty much said, \u201cwe knew he was always on our side but just wasn\u2019t openly able to admit it in the past or he\u2019d lose the black churchgoing vote.\u201d \u00a0It feels to me as if the openness and comfort with politicians lying, as long as the lies benefit your political cause, is new. \u00a0And I think it has a very real consequence: \u00a0if you believe that politicians are liars, you\u2019re less likely to be comfortable with a \u201cmoderate\u201d making compromises and will be more attracted to people who are ideological purists, because you\u2019ll be more convinced that they support what you believe in.<\/p>\n
But these explanations don\u2019t have tidy solutions.<\/p>\n
UPDATE: \u00a0Thought about this some more.<\/p>\n
Obama\u2019s urging of more voters to dilute the votes of the ideological purists isn\u2019t a sure thing. \u00a0After all, consider the case of Trump: \u00a0isn\u2019t his success in the polls due to (a) name recognition and (b) an appeal to those who aren\u2019t otherwise politically aware? \u00a0Isn\u2019t there a risk that a polarizing, but charismatic candidate, will be most appealing to these infrequent voters, because the polarization isn\u2019t visible to them, only the charisma?<\/p>\n
And \u2014 I know this is a bit of a pipe dream \u2014 a proportional representation, parliamentary coalition-building system would give each of the center-left, center-right, hard-right, and hard-left groups the opportunity to elect their own representatives, rather than being given simply two choices at the ballot booth. \u00a0Which I think would be a true, if unimplementable, remedy.<\/p>\n
(image from Wikimedia Commons,\u00a0https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3AA_fist-fight_between_Lord_Brougham_and_Lord_Melbourne_as_Pea_Wellcome_V0050236.jpg)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Earlier I wrote out some explanations for why polarization and refusal to compromise appears to be such a significant and growing problem in the United States \u2014 the bottom line being that intransigence seems to work, on some level, if not for the country than for individual politicians. At the time I had intended to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":3884,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[323,324],"class_list":["post-3895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-partisanship","tag-polarization-obama"],"yoast_head":"\n
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