NOTE: This is the second of a two-part series. The first was published Wednesday. Both pieces can be found at http://wp.me/p51neo-1U1
Modern technology, including social media, has compromised the proper functioning of Congress. The Founders intended members to use their own judgment and wisdom rather than blindly follow public opinion, but fewer and fewer in Congress dare to do so.
And that’s just the beginning of the problem.
In many cases, the “public opinion” to which Congress has become obedient is manufactured, not organic. The rise of communications technology has fostered the growth of a highly professionalized industry dedicated to building artificial yet powerful political movements on a foundation of outrage, then squeezing power and big profits from them.
Its practitioners prowl the halls of Congress and cable-TV green rooms, quick to spot violations of ideology and if necessary fabricate and exaggerate them. Political action committees, Astroturf groups, websites, talk radio, “think tanks” and cable channels — combined, they serve as an incredibly powerful disciplinary mechanism, punishing any who dare challenge it.
They create public opinion, or at least the perception of it, then demand obedience to it. It has become a civic extortion racket. Unlike party bosses of old, these groups have no interest in or capability for compromise or good policy; compromise and getting things done are antithetical to their business model. They feed their coffers off of failure and frustration.
It also sets up a Darwinian process that culls candidates not on the basis of wisdom, knowledge, leadership or experience, but on their willingness to pledge loyalty to a pre-ordained ideology. It shouldn’t surprise us that a generation of such politics has produced a body of legislators unable or unwilling to grasp the complex challenges of, say, rewriting health-insurance policy. That is not the skillset that got them there.
The problem is then compounded by gerrymandering, a practice that has roots deep in our history. By dividing voters into districts that are overwhelmingly Democratic or Republican, gerrymandering makes it easier for incumbents to hold their seats against partisan challenge simply by going along with the masses. Daring to exercise the independent judgment that Madison, Hamilton and others thought necessary to the functioning of a republic brings great risk and little reward.
And when you take the power of modern-day opinion-generating and enforcement mechanisms and combine it with the effects of gerrymandering, something crucial shifts, because they turn out to be are mutually reinforcing. The congressman or congresswoman holding a gerrymandered seat operates less as the representative of the people in that district and more as the representative of a viewpoint, and that’s a very different concept of the job.
And of course, the entire modern political and media system now depends on the generation and expression of outrage. People have grown addicted to outrage. President Trump was elected on a wave of populist outrage, and his governing style in the White House has given liberals their own chance to revel in that emotion. Outrage feels good; by reducing issues to black and white, good and evil, it offers people a sense of clarity in a time of confusion, even if it’s a false clarity. All the complexities are wiped away, all the troubling nuance is gone.
In short, it’s exactly the situation that the Founders hoped to avoid.
About the Author
