A question nobody has ever asked:
"So, JD, what are your thoughts on the upcoming election?"
Since most of y'all recognize that politically, I'm a complete nutjob, it's perfectly reasonable that you haven't asked. But I'm going to answer it anyhow.
That said: I'm not going to tell you who I'm going to vote for.
I recently read an article that I found pretty amazing: As of last month, according to a poll by the Wall Street Journal and NBC, America's approval of Congress matched its all-time low. 12% of the country is satisfied with how our legislators are running the country. And Gallup's poll on the same topic is even worse-- they find a 10% approval rating.
Let's assume it's the best of all possible worlds for Congress: That 12% figure is the correct one. Indeed, make it even better: Only 82% thought Congress was doing a bad job, so there's 6% more that we'll assume isn't so annoyed that they'd elect someone else over a familiar face. And let's also assume that all of those 18% of voters are sufficiently geographically co-located that they make up 51% of all of their local voting districts, which would mean that they could actually cover just shy of 36% of the districts.
This means that, if everything were in the most wildly infeasible but technically possible best case in the House of Representatives, 36% of the 435 representatives will be re-elected to their seats. 40 incumbents are retiring, and eight got redistricted out of their seats, and five lost their primaries: That's 382 incumbents standing for re-election. Since we can't elect half a representative, we'll round up and say that in this very unlikely but best of all possible worlds, only 138 representatives will retain their seats-- and we shouldn't expect anywhere near that in the real world. After all, if 82% of people across the country don't like Congress, it doesn't take much dispersion of the few happy people to make it highly likely that _nobody_ should survive re-election.
We know this isn't how it's going to happen. After all, the last time the WSJ/NBC poll was this bad was in 2010-- which was also an election year for the House. 403 incumbents ran for re-election that year. 343 of them succeeded.
In the Senate, the same thing held-- 24 incumbents ran and 20 were re-elected.
How is this possible? How is it we can absolutely loathe what our Congress is doing for us, but then go and re-elect 83-85% of them anyhow?
Ah, there's another question you didn't ask but I'm going to answer anyhow: Republicans and Democrats. Not that either is specifically a problem itself, but they're the current incarnation of two-party politics.
Americans have gotten so combative about their politics that it no longer matters what we think about how our Congress governs, as long as it's our people doing it. We are so bound up in an us-versus-them mentality that we can't bring ourselves to vote for the other party even though the one we do get to vote for is one of the 435 who we disapprove of. To make matters worse, we can't even vote for a third party-- that just takes a vote away from our own party!
George Washington, a guy who we still revere all these years later, was completely against political parties. In his farewell address to the nation, our only non-partisan president noted, "The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism." We're seeing that now in our current House of Representatives-- we've become so bound up in party politics that we vote for what's good for the party over what's good for America.
I said I wouldn't tell you who I was going to vote for, and I meant it. But I will tell you who I'm not going to vote for: I'm not going to vote for anyone who's already screwing things up. And when there's more than the traditional two options, I'm not going to vote for anyone who's for one more election cycle of bipartisan gridlock.
I may not vote for many people who will win their elections, but that's much better in my mind than voting for a bunch of people that make America lose.
Since most of y'all recognize that politically, I'm a complete nutjob, it's perfectly reasonable that you haven't asked. But I'm going to answer it anyhow.
That said: I'm not going to tell you who I'm going to vote for.
I recently read an article that I found pretty amazing: As of last month, according to a poll by the Wall Street Journal and NBC, America's approval of Congress matched its all-time low. 12% of the country is satisfied with how our legislators are running the country. And Gallup's poll on the same topic is even worse-- they find a 10% approval rating.
Let's assume it's the best of all possible worlds for Congress: That 12% figure is the correct one. Indeed, make it even better: Only 82% thought Congress was doing a bad job, so there's 6% more that we'll assume isn't so annoyed that they'd elect someone else over a familiar face. And let's also assume that all of those 18% of voters are sufficiently geographically co-located that they make up 51% of all of their local voting districts, which would mean that they could actually cover just shy of 36% of the districts.
This means that, if everything were in the most wildly infeasible but technically possible best case in the House of Representatives, 36% of the 435 representatives will be re-elected to their seats. 40 incumbents are retiring, and eight got redistricted out of their seats, and five lost their primaries: That's 382 incumbents standing for re-election. Since we can't elect half a representative, we'll round up and say that in this very unlikely but best of all possible worlds, only 138 representatives will retain their seats-- and we shouldn't expect anywhere near that in the real world. After all, if 82% of people across the country don't like Congress, it doesn't take much dispersion of the few happy people to make it highly likely that _nobody_ should survive re-election.
We know this isn't how it's going to happen. After all, the last time the WSJ/NBC poll was this bad was in 2010-- which was also an election year for the House. 403 incumbents ran for re-election that year. 343 of them succeeded.
In the Senate, the same thing held-- 24 incumbents ran and 20 were re-elected.
How is this possible? How is it we can absolutely loathe what our Congress is doing for us, but then go and re-elect 83-85% of them anyhow?
Ah, there's another question you didn't ask but I'm going to answer anyhow: Republicans and Democrats. Not that either is specifically a problem itself, but they're the current incarnation of two-party politics.
Americans have gotten so combative about their politics that it no longer matters what we think about how our Congress governs, as long as it's our people doing it. We are so bound up in an us-versus-them mentality that we can't bring ourselves to vote for the other party even though the one we do get to vote for is one of the 435 who we disapprove of. To make matters worse, we can't even vote for a third party-- that just takes a vote away from our own party!
George Washington, a guy who we still revere all these years later, was completely against political parties. In his farewell address to the nation, our only non-partisan president noted, "The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism." We're seeing that now in our current House of Representatives-- we've become so bound up in party politics that we vote for what's good for the party over what's good for America.
I said I wouldn't tell you who I was going to vote for, and I meant it. But I will tell you who I'm not going to vote for: I'm not going to vote for anyone who's already screwing things up. And when there's more than the traditional two options, I'm not going to vote for anyone who's for one more election cycle of bipartisan gridlock.
I may not vote for many people who will win their elections, but that's much better in my mind than voting for a bunch of people that make America lose.