Mini-Posts Collection 4 - Election Edition
A brief history of angry elections, Is politics optimized for outrage, Can remote work save the world, What is Democracy and how can we save it, Watch out for number two.
This is my fourth in a series of “mini-post” posts. I use these to throw out multiple ideas that I’m not sure I have enough to say about to justify a full-length post (or justify sending you an email for just that thing). Some of these might eventually become full length posts.
Today's mini-posts are all broadly themed around the upcoming US election. Though, in keeping with the rules I set myself when I started this blog, I’ll try to avoid anything partisan.
A Brief History of Angry Elections
The current election feels pretty angry, but is it actually angrier than past US elections, or is this just how US elections have always been? Doing an in-depth historical analysis would take time, and I’m lazy, so I just asked GPT to tell me, and got the following result (unedited):
2020: Biden vs. Trump : Angrier : Marked by high polarization, widespread distrust, and violence around election protests, culminating in the Capitol riot.
2016: Trump vs. Clinton : Similar : Characterized by intense personal attacks, accusations of corruption, and deep partisan divides over national identity and globalism.
2012: Obama vs. Romney : Calmer : Though competitive, this election focused on policy differences, with less personal animosity and limited extreme rhetoric.
2008: Obama vs. McCain : Calmer : Mostly respectful despite high stakes, with a focus on hope and change versus experience rather than direct personal attacks.
2004: Bush vs. Kerry : Similar : The Iraq War fueled partisan anger, with attacks on patriotism and leadership capability creating a polarized atmosphere.
2000: Bush vs. Gore : Angrier : A contested outcome and a Supreme Court decision left lasting bitterness, though violence was minimal.
1996: Clinton vs. Dole : Calmer : Clinton’s re-election was straightforward with few personal attacks and little partisan anger compared to other years.
1992: Clinton vs. Bush : Calmer : While marked by economic dissatisfaction and change, it remained civil, with Clinton emphasizing policy over attacks.
1988: Bush vs. Dukakis : Similar : Negative ads, including the infamous Willie Horton ad, framed Dukakis as a threat to American values, increasing hostility.
1984: Reagan vs. Mondale : Calmer : Reagan’s optimism and popularity kept the campaign mostly positive, with limited partisan hostility.
1980: Reagan vs. Carter : Similar : Economic struggles and the Iran hostage crisis heightened divisions, with both candidates questioning the other’s competence.
1976: Carter vs. Ford : Calmer : Following Watergate, the campaign remained respectful, with Carter focusing on trust and Ford on experience.
1972: Nixon vs. McGovern : Similar : A divisive campaign with Nixon branding McGovern as too radical, heightening Cold War-era fears and partisanship.
1968: Nixon vs. Humphrey vs. Wallace : Angrier : Deep divisions over Vietnam and civil rights led to intense protests, riots, and an extremely polarized electorate.
1964: Johnson vs. Goldwater : Angrier : Johnson’s campaign stoked fears of nuclear war under Goldwater, framing him as an extremist in a highly emotional race.
1960: Kennedy vs. Nixon : Calmer : Competitive but mostly respectful, with more emphasis on policy differences and the unique impact of televised debates.
This might all be bollocks (AI does hallucinate), and there is plenty of time for this election to get angrier if whoever loses doesn’t take it well, but this seems roughly right.
That said, it’s interesting that one of the angriest periods was 1964-1972. That was the period when the previous “embedded liberalism” framework fell and was replaced with “neoliberalism”. The defining idea behind “Make America Great Again” is returning the US to something closer to the way things were before that transition, so it’s not a surprise there might be a similar level of anger to the last time we had this ideological conflict.
Is Politics Optimised for Outrage?
Why are elections always so close? Why do elections get so angry? Why do politicians take extreme positions that make the other side angry, rather than moderate positions that might get them more votes and make them more likely to win elections? Why did we end up with Donald Trump as a Presidential Candidate?
If you believe the purpose of a system is what it does then maybe the purpose of our current political institutions isn’t to win elections but to make us angry so that we donate money to them to prevent the other side winning.
How does this work in practice? If your team starts pulling ahead in the polls, then you feel more relaxed, and adopt some more extreme positions that “energize the base” into giving you more money. Those extreme positions then “energize the base” of the other party, giving them more donations. You might even feel tempted to take actions to support the more extremist candidates in the opposing party, in the hope that they will scare your side into giving more donations.
If your aim is to maximize donations then the worst thing you want is an election you are guaranteed to win, against an opponent nobody is afraid of, based on policies everyone likes.
I don’t think anyone in politics is actually doing this intentionally, but as economists will tell you, ideology is downstream of incentives, so if it is in your self-interest to do particular things, then you are likely to adopt a set of beliefs that tell you that that is the correct thing for you to be doing.
How do we get out of this doom loop? One answer is to adopt Single Transferable Vote elections, so that we can have viable third parties. If you have viable third parties then they take advantage of a situation where two parties have rushed to the extremes by sitting in the middle and getting all the votes. STV also reduces the importance of money in political primaries, because people no longer need to vote tactically, and thus no longer need to use media coverage as an indication of who the viable candidates are.
Can Remote Work Save the Country
One of the more interesting theories about why the US is currently so polarized is that the entry of women into the workforce caused a geographic sorting where all the most highly educated people moved to a small number of super-expensive locations (like San Francisco and New York) and lost their social connection to everyone else.
According to this theory, when only men did high skill work, it was normal for them to move their family to wherever the best job was. This allowed companies to distribute themselves all over the country, and locate their senior workers in the same town as their blue collar workers. Because the people lived in the same places, they knew each other, formed social bonds, and understood each other.
When women entered the high-skill workforce, it now became necessary for high status families to be in a location where they could have two high status jobs. This essentially forced those families to move to the small number of locations where they could expect to find two high skill jobs in different industries. This also caused house prices to surge, priced other families out of those areas, and created a social disconnect between college educated people and those without a college degree.
But maybe remote work can fix this.
I now work entirely remotely, and my wife works in person. Since I work remotely, I’d be quite happy to move pretty much anywhere in the world that made sense for her career, since I could still do my job. We live in the SF Bay Area today, but if a good job came up somewhere else, we could totally move there.
So maybe this is the way we fix our current issues. We don’t want to go back to a world where women don’t work in high-status jobs and can’t realize their potential, but I can imagine a stable norm in which one member of a married couple (which might often be the man - as in my case) works remotely, allowing the family to move to wherever the other person’s job takes them.
What is Democracy, and can we save it?
Lots of people are talking about how the current election could “end democracy”. But what is Democracy, and how do we save it?
If we take Karl Popper’s definition, then what matters about Democracy isn’t that it’s good at selecting good governments (it probably isn’t), but that it makes it possible for bad governments to be removed if it turns out that they are bad.
If we assume this definition is correct, then there are several things we need in order for democracy to function:
Unbiased sources of truth: Organizations like universities and newspapers need to tell people the truth about the world, even when it isn’t what the party in power wants to hear.
Free speech: If it becomes apparent that the current government is bad, then people are able to talk to each other about that, and organize to create alternatives. Not just freedom to voice opposition to the government, but confidence that you won’t be punished if you do.
Representative political parties: If the current government is bad, there is another party you can vote for instead that is less bad. This can be hard in a two party system, where we can be locked in a situation with two bad parties and no way to vote in a better party.
Fair and trusted elections: It isn’t sufficient for elections to be fair. People also need to believe them to be fair, so that peaceful transfer of power can take place.
Limits on government power: Via the constitution and the courts, to prevent a government using its power to prevent itself from being removed. The intent behind much of the US Constitution is to limit the ability of the government to prevent itself from being removed.
It’s clear that many of these pillars of democracy are currently weak, and it is important that we keep them strong. Even if “our side” is currently in power, “the other side” may be in power in the future, and the stronger our democratic norms are, the harder it will be for would-be authoritarians to thwart them.
Humility is the Engine of Peace and Progress
The term “the enlightenment" is commonly used to refer to two near-opposite ideologies that arose at similar times, in reaction to the decline of the authority of the church:
“The European Enlightenment” believed that truth could be found through reason. This led to the French Revolution, Marxism, Nazism, and various other things that didn’t turn out well.
“The Scottish Enlightenment” rejected the idea of truth, and argued that we should improve the world by trying out lots of different things and seeing what works. This led to the theory of Evolution, Capitalism, Liberalism, Pluralism, The Scientific Method, and other things that seem to have worked out pretty well.
The core rallying cry of the Scottish Enlightenment is “we don’t know”. If two reasonable people hold strongly different opinions, then the only reasonable opinion to hold is “I don’t know”, and the only reasonable way to find the answer is to try out multiple things at a small scale to find out what works, while listening to the arguments of your opponents, and being open to the idea that your most cherished beliefs might be utterly wrong.
It seems that the power of “I don’t know” has been diminishing in recent years, and it’s not clear why. One possible reason is that people today get their information from social media, which rewards certainty, and eliminates the barriers that allow different groups to try different things. Another possible reason is that the decline of Christianity has reduced the influence of The Beatitudes which emphasize intellectual humility.
Or maybe it’s just that everything oscillates, and the power of “I don’t know” will rise again in the future, once people see the problems that reason and moral clarity create.
Watch out for Number Two
When should you try to tear down a rotten system, and when should you decide to accept it? It depends on what is likely to replace it.
Sometimes destroying a bad system turns out well. The fall of the USSR was great for Eastern Europe, whose prosperity soared in the aftermath. Similarly the collapse of Franco’s fascist government in Spain led to great improvements there..
But sometimes destroying a bad system turns out pretty badly. Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq was awful, and so was the Shah’s government in Iran, but both places turned out worse after the bad governments fell.
The reality is that when you take out a bad institution, it doesn’t get replaced with your imagined utopia, but with whatever the second most powerful institution in the region is.
When the USSR fell, the people of Eastern Europe were eager to rush into the arms of the institutions of Western Europe who they felt cultural affinity to. When communism fell in Russia, the power in waiting was the Mafia. When the government of Iraq fell, the power in weighting was barbaric regional warlords.
The lesson to us all is that just because an institution is bad does not mean we should act to take it down. It has to be worse than whoever the second most powerful institution is. And if a suitable replacement institution does not already exist, our first priority should be to create one.
This is, of course, easier said than done.
[As always, all opinions expressed here are my own, and not those of any group I might be associated with]