When are problems in politics not problems? This is why our political system seems impossible to fix.

Deep problems in every aspect

On the one hand, there are serious problems in every aspect of politics:  voting rate, voters attitudes, voting rights, campaigns, elections, representation (gerrymandering), the dysfunction of Congress, corruption, and lots more.

We seem powerless to fix the problems

On the other hand, it’s been impossible to fix them. We had campaign finance laws, but they stopped working and then the courts eviscerated them. Lots of problems- like voter participation and attitudes seem beyond repair.

There’s a reason for this

The problems are problems relative to the intent of our political system. We’re supposed to be a constitutional, representative democracy. We follow the Constitution, and inside those limits, the will of the people is done. But we’ve seen, and the 2014 Princeton study showed, that the will of the people matters little or none. America functions as an oligarchy. That is, it caters to a portion of those who are wealthy.

What we don’t realize is that the problems are completely compatible with the shape of our political system, its organization and practices. Our political system is actually producing exactly the results (oligarchy, corruption, 2-party duopoly, fighting and gridlock) that are predictable from its shape.

Analogy – an airplane that can’t fly

It’s like we thought we built an airplane, and it went pretty fast around the tarmac, but it never flew. It still doesn’t fly, but we keep thinking it’s an airplane. It looks pretty much like an airplane, with a long body, engines, a cockpit and a tail, and even wheels for take off and landing. Yet it doesn’t fly. Yes, everyone’s disappointed that it doesn’t fly, but if you look close, it makes sense that it doesn’t fly.

airplane

It lacks “wings”. Wings are the essential part of an airplane that makes it different from a car.

Our democracy has often had problems, never wings

But our democracy has never had wings. That is, it has never had an essential component that democracies require to guarantee they function well – accountability. Politicians must be able to be accountable to voters.  I’ve written about this (go read it now if you haven’t, yet.) Accountability is in our blind spot.

Most people don’t even have an accurate definition of what accountability is. Think about this:

• Almost none of us can define it.
• That’s why we can’t see that it’s missing.

Many people think politics is too big and complex to fix. It’s not. In a sense it’s true. We had a plane that couldn’t fly, but everyone thought it did. So a big, messy political system grew up around it and justifies its lack of flight. While the experts tell us that US politics often had problems, including horrible divisiveness, we tend to believe that it used to fly.

A democracy with wings will overcome the problems

So yes, we can’t fix the big, messy political system. But we don’t need to. If we add the piece that’s missing, our democracy will begin to work. The political system that adapted to a dysfunctional system will then adapt to a functional one. We’ll have a true (constitutional, representative) democracy, plus a political system around it.

Didn’t American democracy work in the past?

Believing America is a Democracy, at times many of our representatives acted like it was one so it behaved a lot like one. Many times it didn’t, though. But most Americans believed it really was a democracy, so they overlooked the problems. Or they blamed others instead of blaming the design of our political system.

Without accountability, a democracy is susceptible to all sorts of problems. It’s unstable. It’s fated to have problems. No amount of fixing the problems will make it fly. It needs wings.

It would be easy to add wings

To summarize: Why are problems in politics not problems? Because they’re problems in our thinking, not in the system. The real problem is that a key piece is missing- a piece that delivers accountability.

Luckily, these political wings would be easy to add. A small team working for a year could produce what’s missing.

PeopleCount has designed these wings. You can even read a very simplified summary of it. But reading about it won’t create it. For that, we’ll need backing. It starts with you adding yourself to our email list and sharing with your friends.