I Linked You This Article Because You Asked Me Why America Is So Fucked Up
--
Hello! I linked you this article because you asked me why America is so fucked up.
In the past year or two, I’ve met many people from around the world, mostly because of my activity on the Magic circuit. They often ask Americans why our politics, economy, etc. are so messed up, and have some very inaccurate assumptions about why this is. I’ve explained this multiple times, and I figured that it would be useful to condense many of my explanations and go a little bit more in depth. Often, individual Americans are blamed for the mistakes of our leaders, in an almost accusatory manner. The recent inability of our elected officials to contain the spread of COVID-19 has highlighted this problem to a global audience.
Before I get started, I want to get something straight: I am hardly an expert in public policy or political science. I am an American-born American, who is very left-of-center, and who follows politics closely- at local, state, and national levels- and who has a passing interest in international comparative politics. I will also be directing this explanation towards people who live in Commonwealth countries, or at least those who are familiar with those systems- Canada, UK, Australia, etc. This is so that I can use those systems as a lens to contrast the American system with the classic Parliamentary or semi-Parliamentary system.
To understand American politics, you have to understand one crucial point, which I think runs contrary to many of the assumptions made about the American electorate:
Despite being ostensibly a democracy, the leaders of the United States do not actually reflect the desires of the general population.
Let me be clear: We elect leaders, in elections. Votes are, for the most part, counted fairly. However, because of various systemic problems, the will of the people is not adequately reflected in public policy.
I’ll give you two examples:
These two polls showcase the American stance on two issues that America is commonly known to be backwards on: universal healthcare and gun control. Those in other countries believe that the vast majority of Americans are strongly in favor of loose gun control and strongly opposed to universal healthcare. However, this is clearly not the case.
There are other more specific indications as well. Missouri, my home state, is a state that hasn’t voted for a Democrat for President since Bill Clinton, and currently has two Republican senators. And yet, when you ask the voters directly, they tend to give you some pretty liberal answers, as the below ballot initiative results slow.
So why is this? Well, where do I even get started…
Party loyalty
The United States has had the same two parties for the past two centuries. The parties have changed platforms, sure, but for the most part its the same two brands. This leads to strong, often inter-generational, loyalty to the Democrats or to the GOP. Often, these loyalties transcend the policies they advocate for. There are families, whom I personally know, who have been supporting Democrats for generations, and have even held elected office, as Democrats, for decades. They don’t like to talk about the fact that, decades ago, the Democrats were the conservative, anti-civil rights party, but they were there, and they actively supported their hateful platform.
Part of this is because American ballots are really complicated. In a Parliamentary election, voters are often voting for only one candidate- the MP representing your riding. On the other hand, in November 2020, I will be voting for:
Electors for President and Vice President of the United States
United States House of Representatives, Missouri District 1
Missouri Governor
Missouri Lieutenant Governor
Missouri Secretary of State
Missouri State Treasurer
Missouri Attorney General
Missouri State Senate District 5 (shameless plug for my friend Megan Green)
Missouri State House District 80
Saint Louis City Circuit Attorney
Saint Louis City Treasurer
Saint Louis City Sheriff
A yet-undetermined number of ballot measures (at least two)
Other things I may have missed (local judges, in particular)
And to add to this, in early August I will be voting in a Democratic Primary for each of these positions (minus President), as well as positions for Party Committeeman and Committeewoman. Many of these primary elections are competitive as well, so those elections can’t be brushed off either.
This is strongly highlighted by the rise in “straight-ticket voting”, or the practice of voters to vote only for one party down the entire ballot.
And I mean, can you blame us? Its exhausting to have to make decisions on all these candidates, and its much easier to just punch your ticket for your team. This means that voters often don’t know about individual political positions, legislative priorities, or any relevant personal scandals.
Incumbency advantage
There’s also an incumbency advantage, meaning that incumbents have a very strong advantage in elections due to name recognition, above and beyond the simple fact that they’re already in districts that favor them. The strength of this advantage has varied over time, but according to the math wizards at FiveThirtyEight, in 2018 it was about three points, which is lower than it used to be. But considering that many elections are decided by less than three percentage points, this advantage is still very significant.
And sure, this advantage exists in other systems, but its not as ingrained as it is in the United States. In the US, for the most part, politicians are relatively free to do as they choose without centralized Party pressure, and tend to hold influence over local politics for decades. On the other hand, in a Parliamentary system, politicians are often moved around to different ridings, rewarding loyalty by being given a “safer” seat. Depending on the particular system, your MP might be no more than a glorified seat warmer compared to a Member of Congress. I would argue that the American system is better, because the person you’re electing is more likely to have a meaningful impact on legislation, but it does have unintended consequences.
Incumbency advantage is even stronger in party primaries. In a city like mine, all the local elected officials are Democrats, and the real question is what shade of blue the person is; there are progressives and leftists, and there are people who might as well be Republicans. This means that often, the real election is in the primary. But even then, it is very difficult to unseat an incumbent, because Party loyalty is tied to loyalty to individual politicians.
My Congressional representative is Lacy Clay, who has held the seat since 2001. Before that, his father, Bill Clay, had held the seat since 1969. So what do you think happened in 2018, when a young, energetic progressive activist decided to challenge an old, senile man who falls asleep at committee hearings, and who did absolutely zero campaigning?
Gerrymandering
I’m definitely burying the lead here by putting gerrymandering so far down, because it certainly has the largest impact, but to understand why gerrymandering is so widespread, it is necessary to understand the above two effects.
Gerrymandering is the practice by certain state legislatures to draw electoral district boundaries to favor one party or the other. (Yes, state legislatures draw electoral boundaries, yes, that is really screwed up, I’ll get to that.) And because of various reasons, gerrymandering almost universally favors Republicans.
Let me give you an example. In Missouri, we have eight seats to the House of Representatives. In the last election, 55% of voters voted for a Republican candidate, as opposed to 43% for Democrats. So you would expect that Democrats have three, maybe even four seats. But Democrats only have two of these eight seats.
One of the reasons for this is because of sheer luck. Because the United States Census is taken every ten years, electoral boundaries are drawn to that census every ten years. And the last times that electoral boundaries were drawn- in 2001 and 2011- happened to be elections where Republicans won large victories, and they were therefore able to draw boundaries to further cement their victories. Its dirty, of course, but I can hardly blame them for doing it.
But another reason why is because Democratic voters tend to be more concentrated. A city like my hometown of Saint Louis might be upwards of 80% Democratic, whereas a rural area might be 60% Republican- still a very safe margin- and be drawn expansively. Contrast these two districts:
But beyond that, there is a tendency of Democratic politicians to agree to terms that result in bad districting if it personally benefits them. Prior to 2011, Missouri had an additional house seat to play with; when we lost it, my aforementioned Representative, Lacy Clay, along with the other Democratic Representative, famously traded the third Democratic house seat for safer districts for themselves. And because of the incumbency advantage, this didn’t result in any electoral repercussions for them, though I’m personally still upset.
Of course, some states have actively tried to reduce gerrymandering, mostly by handing over redistricting to nonpartisan commissions. But those states- for example, California, Washington, and New Jersey- are overwhelmingly Democratic anyway. Less liberal states, like Missouri, have made progress on redistricting, but legislatures are making it very difficult.
A related, but much harder to solve, problem is the Republican small-state advantage. This refers to the fact that, in the United States Senate, each state is allocated two senators, regardless of population, and are allocated Presidential electors similarly. And smaller states overwhelmingly tend to be more rural and conservative. The most obvious result of this is that both of the last two Republican Presidents were elected without a plurality of voters voting for them. But beyond this, it means that the United States Senate can be controlled by a supermajority with just a fourth of the electorate; Senators representing just 25% of the population make up 31 states.
Voter suppression
Even worse, Republican legislatures often make it very difficult, or impossible, for certain groups of people to vote. This targets minorities and people in low-income neighborhoods, who may have trouble obtaining the necessary identification… in other words, overwhelmingly Democratic voters. This also extends to transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals; during the 2016 general election, I was turned away at the polls because my gender presentation did not match my legal identification at the time. Voter suppression has gotten even worse in 2020, as Republicans use the Coronavirus as an excuse to close polling locations in Democratic strongholds, and some primaries have been straight-up cancelled.
Its hard to document the effect of this, given that many of these incidents are localized, and the nature of the act makes it difficult to determine how many people are affected.
What can we do about this?
Of course, many of my readers are probably Americans, and may not have known these things, and now want to do something. That’s good!
But honestly… I have no idea. I’ve repeatedly tried to campaign for progressive candidates and seen them knocked down over and over again. Like I said, I’m not an expert in public policy, just a political observer.
But the point I’m trying to make here is that Americans are not fundamentally broken. We are capable of change. I’m hoping that catalyst will come soon and be nonviolent, but I don’t know what that will be. I fully understand and appreciate why the United States is disrespected internationally, and I want to try to offer some explanation and apology.
