You wouldn't know it from consuming the corporate media, the results of elections, state-level legislation, or the composition of the Supreme Court, but a huge majority of Americans believe that abortion should be legal and should be a decision between a woman and her doctor.
Not only that, but large majorities support both the so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill, signed yesterday, and the build back better bill, but notice how they feel about the job Biden is doing.
So a huge majority of voters support Democratic policies, but many of them vote for Republicans anyway, and the composition of congress doesn't reflect people's policy preferences. Why is this?
There are a couple of reasons. One which is well-known to political scientists is called "concentrated vs. diffuse interests." Even though a huge majority of voters support abortion rights, those who are opposed care about little else, and base their votes on that issue alone; whereas among that 70%, many will say they support legal abortion when asked, but it's not so important to them that it determines their vote. Something similar is probably going on with the infrastructure spending.
Another problem is that most voters are only dimly aware of public policy and what the candidates stand for. That's why Republicans can vote against infrastructure spending, and then take credit for projects in their district that they opposed on the floor. Furthermore, people are susceptible to vapid rhetoric about "socialism" and so on. When I was a community organizer, I talked with a blue collar white constituent in Philadelphia who described himself as very conservative, railed against the "socialist" Democrats, and also said that the federal government should nationalize the oil companies.
In short, don't think of elections as machinery for turning people's policy preferences into actual policy. That just isn't how it works.
5 comments:
As Charles M. Schulz’s character is used to say, *SIGH*.
(Sorry if I double posted, but Firefox never gives me any clue that my submission was accepted.)
"In short, don't think of elections as machinery for turning people's policy preferences into actual policy."
Much of this disconnect may be due to things unsaid...longstanding policies that are not discussed in the campaign but are understood by the voters.
The folks over at chapo are fond of pointing out that only nerds and freaks pay attention to policy specifics, everyone else is looking for a broad vision with a few policy bits used as examples. That's why stupid labels like "socialist democrat party" tend to stick while only the aforementioned freaks and nerds read the policy papers on the candidates website.
Charlie -- you didn't post anything at all as far as I can tell.
Maud'Dib -- a) you're misspelling your own name, maybe on purpose. Anyway, I think it's more that people have certain assumptions about politicians and parties, that may not be correct, or may not actually be very meaningful. Not sure what you mean by longstanding policies -- if one party is opposed to a longstanding policy, they can say so, and then the opponent will have to defend it or not.
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