The American political
system finds itself in a trough. After the mid-term elections at the beginning
of November, PBS reported[i] that the voter turnout was
the lowest in 70 years – coming in at 36.4% of the voting age population. When
the question “confrontation or collaboration?” surrounding the aftermath of
those elections is posed, the best answer is “consumption.”
Less than four weeks after
the ill-attended election in which Republicans trounced the Democrats, America
played host to Black Friday: the consumer Olympics. Black Friday – the day after
Thanksgiving in the United States – is the official opening of the Christmas
shopping season. And unfortunately, it appears that in the land of the free, the
populace regards a discount more highly than being free.
Visuals (outside of those showing
people fist-fighting in department stores) are indicative. A simple gauge to
measure interest in something these days is through the quantity of internet
searches made for a term. Searches for “mid-term elections” have been falling
reasonably consistently as figure 1 below shows. One shudders to think what
this graph will look like four years from now.
Figure
1: Search Interest in “Mid-Term Elections”
Source:
Google Trends
The contrast with internet
searches for “Black Friday” is dramatic. To aid comparison, both have been
included on the same graph in figure 2, below. In fact, searches for “mid-term
elections” are so miniscule by comparison that it’s doubtful whether showing both
together aided at all. The upward trend in popularity for “Black Friday”
searches tells its own story.
Figure
2: Search Interest in “Mid-Term Elections” and “Black Friday”
Source:
Google Trends
These graphs depicting “interest
over time” (sadly, an all too accurate way of phrasing it) should not surprise
us. The voter turnout in the 2012 election was 59%[ii], meaning that based on a
total voting age population of 211 million people[iii], a little over 121 million
people voted. More votes were cast in the final of American Idol[iv]. This is not to be
facetious at all – voter apathy can have drastic consequences.
By comparison, 90 million
people went shopping especially for “Black Friday” and 140 million hit the shops
that weekend.[v]
Surely something is amiss with democracy – even if it’s “only” a mid-term
election - when people are more concerned about upgrading their smart phone
then turning out to vote. Or maybe not; maybe the point of democracy is just freedom
of expression, even if that expression happens to be through consumption.
Regardless, the figures
above – and even the trends in figures 1 and 2 – should be enough to stimulate
some form of action. It’s something of a catch 22 situation, given that
politicians who have already been voted in are understandably quite happy about
how the vote went. The issue of the poor turnout quickly loses prominence and
is left to simmer for another two to four years.
The figures also have to be
taken in the context of an American electorate which is consistently unhappy
with its government. In Gallup polls across the United States, when posed with
the question, “what do you think is the most important (non-economic) problem
facing this country today?” peoples’ answer, in some form or another, is almost
always “the government.”[vi]
Stimulating
Democracy
This is not how it was meant
to be. America is not only the first modern democracy, it is also the home of
some of the most outstanding political innovation; George Washington is
responsible for the two-term limit for Presidents[vii]. Alexander Hamilton
founded the Federal Reserve[viii], aiding America’s
development as well as creating a template for the modern central banking
system. The innovations kept flowing.
And then they dried up.
If there’s one thing we can
say about corporations, it’s that they understand the power of innovation.
Innovate or die may be a dramatic way of putting it, but over a longer period
of time, it’s true almost across the board for corporations. It explains (along
with a list of human behavioural traits too bewildering get into) why people
are so keen to partake in Black Friday – let’s be clear about one thing: they’re
not looking for last year’s products.
On the other hand, there is
very little innovation in the political system and therein may lie part of the
problem. The remarkable publicity and fund-raising campaign generated by President
Obama in 2008 was at least in part due to his concerted online campaign: the
first time a candidate had probably leveraged the power of the internet for a Presidential
run.
The logic stands to reason:
Gallup Polls consistently show voters to be unhappy with the government. Ergo,
they want change in the political system. And yet, they’re turning out less for
elections. The only reason could be is that they see that voting doesn’t change
anything – suggesting that innovation in the political system is what is called
for.
The
Evolution will not be televised
America had a revolution in
the late 1700s and this is not a call for another one; rather it is a call for
evolution. The same type that products make every year: an incremental improvement
(in theory) on the last version. It would be remiss to call for some innovation
without proposing a few changes to the existing system. These are not to be
taken as black-and-white calls for action – rather suggestions on where
innovation might make a difference.
·
Bilateral
Decisions. Some decisions should be left to technocrats,
not politicians. The fiscal cliff, huge infrastructure projects and a water crisis
like that of California should not be dictated by partisan politics.
·
Lobbying.
The
lobbying system runs contrary to the whole point of a democracy. Be they
corporate or other interest groups, it would be worthwhile changing this aspect
of the American political system.
·
Transparency.
Politicians
herald big data but we cannot (readily) access their campaign funds and expense
accounts. The technology to do so is nearly twenty years old. What’s the delay?
·
A
Third Party. American politics is far too polarized for
rationality at this stage. A third political party might be stretching the
limits of what could be considered evolution but it would undoubtedly be a
worthwhile innovation.
Posing questions about what
happens after a mid-term election in the United States is undermined by a
feeling that little changes, regardless of the election result. (“The more
things change, the more they stay the same.”) In two years, the companies
responsible for that impressive upward trend in figure 2 will have innovated
new products to keep its trajectory. The hope remains that politics will have
done something to address its own downward trajectory.
[i] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/2014-midterm-election-turnout-lowest-in-70-years/
[ii] http://www.fairvote.org/research-and-analysis/voter-turnout/
[iii] https://www.census.gov/rdo/data/voting_age_population_by_citizenship_and_race_cvap.html
[iv] http://www.itv.com/news/2012-05-24/x/
[v] http://useconomy.about.com/od/demand/f/Black_Friday.htm
[vi] http://www.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.aspx
[vii] http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/early-republic/resources/washington-proposed-third-term-and-political-parties-1799
[viii]
http://www.ny.frb.org/aboutthefed/history_article.html
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