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What do we expect from politicians? Is it better to have politicians that are thoughtful and have conviction even though it goes against what the populace dema
by mattm 3y ago
What do we expect from politicians? Is it better to have politicians that are thoughtful and have conviction even though it goes against what the populace demands or is it better to have politicians that understand the populace and are aligned with them in general?
- soco 3y agoI argue that a politician going against what the people (aka voters) demands will not get elected in the first place. So the real work must be done before election - a matter of influence in a direction or another.
- JohnFen 3y agoI understand your point, but it's also true that "the people" don't exactly have a unified opinion of much. Any politician will be going with what some of the people want, and against what a different group of the people want, all at the same time.
- bee_rider 3y agoWe elect representatives because we can’t expect the populace to be in the room at every moment. The expectation is that those representatives will have some consistency, the hope is that that will mean they’ll make calls similar to the ones we’d make if we were in the room and had all the info. Consistency could also be a guard against pure power politics. Usually people get elected by appealing to some constituency, but it is uncomfortable to just say “I’m here to appeal to X demographic!” So, they try to express the interests of those demographics in terms of principles. Holding them to those principles when they don’t work in the interest of their chosen demographic can result in some pretty strong rhetoric at least.