Many politicians would watch America burn before relinquishing their power

Chuck Schumer posted a photo of himself on Twitter grilling burgers over the weekend. He later deleted the seemingly innocent image after many ridiculed it. Schumer had clearly never grilled burgers before, seeing that he put cheese on one of the raw patties. 

Even if it’s your first time grilling, how does a fully grown human not realize the obvious fact that you should probably cook one of the burger sides before adding cheese to it? It’s times like these when conspiracy theories about lizard people controlling the government start to look attractive. It’s exactly the sort of mistake that one would expect a lizard to make – they don’t discriminate against raw meat.

It’s the latest of many instances where politicians fail miserably to portray themselves as being regular people that concern themselves with what the masses care about.

Aside from poorly thought out social media posts, we can look at the incentive structures in place around politics to determine the extent to which we should expect our elected officials to advocate for our interests. 

Typically, what motivates politicians is securing their office by securing votes, satisfying their donors, and gaining the endorsement of their party leaders.

If their aim is to be reelected, then perhaps they do this by doing what their voter base wants. Since different people want different things, we get a two party system where each party is trying to satisfy the political desires of different groups of people.

One might think that each party satisfies their portion of the electorate by aligning their policy decisions with them. But they can secure their votes by only giving the appearance that they’re doing what their voter base wants. It’s quite simple to do so when you can blame the other party for your failure to produce legislation that your voters are asking for. As I mentioned in a previous column, politicians are also perfectly happy to vote against their supporters’ wishes if it means that they get to hold onto power.

We can clearly see that politicians are not motivated by the interests of voters, given that the influence that voters have on our political system is negligible compared to lobbyists and special-interest groups. 

If lobbyists for businesses and special-interest groups have much more of an impact on what sorts of laws are passed and which are killed in our country, it means that politicians make decisions based on the desires of the lobbyists, not of the common folk who vote for them.

This all makes perfect sense even if we assume it is undesirable. Politicians can gain the support of voters by making it seem like they care about their desires all while reaping the benefits of satisfying large donors and lobbyists. In fact, with their financial support and political power, they can run successful campaigns to crush newcomers and hold onto their offices for decades.

Readers may understandably assume that I have been tacitly supporting the thought that politicians should be good representatives of the people and do what their voters want. It’s not clear that this is a good way for our politics to proceed either – voters often don’t know what is genuinely good for them.

Our current best understanding of macroeconomics and constructive intervention suggest that counter-cyclical fiscal policy would help us secure long term economic stability. 

During a recession, the government should reduce taxes and increase spending, thereby blunting some of the harms. But during an economic boom, it would be best for the government to reduce spending and increase taxes, thereby reining in some of the economic benefits of the upturn. But this is extremely politically unpopular. 

Governments are quick to try to mitigate economic downturns but they refuse to make the good times less good, despite our many reasons to think that this would result in overall better outcomes. Part of it is that the political party in charge will be seen in a negative light by short-sighted voters. 

The Wall Street bailout of 2008 was absolutely necessary to avoid catastrophic economic harm. Yet most hold negative sentiments toward the decision. If you’re tempted to think that this is a counterexample to what I’ve been claiming, you’re right. But notice that it took the near collapse of the global financial system for politicians to do what was needed. By many accounts, they were extremely resistant to it because of the impending election cycle.

It’s just something to keep in mind when you’re pondering your role as a voter and your relationship to politicians. Unless forced to do the right thing, many politicians would watch America burn before relinquishing their power.