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> There's no evidence that representatives do what constituents want them to do. Sure there is. "Want them to do" means the constituents decide their votes bas

by pdonis 3y ago

> There's no evidence that representatives do what constituents want them to do. Sure there is. "Want them to do" means the constituents decide their votes based on Something Being Done. The fact that we the people continue to vote in our incumbent representatives at rates over 90 percent is a direct measure of the extent to which those representatives are doing what we want them to do.

immibis 3y ago
Mostly we vote based on our personal biggest issue, no matter what they do on the other issues. A lot of Republicans vote Republican because they claim to hate abortion, and they literally don't care about the rest.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> The fact that we the people continue to vote in our incumbent representatives at rates over 90 percent is a direct measure of the extent to which those representatives are doing what we want them to do. This is an artifact of the districting system. A given district wants the local military base to stay open, or tax credits for the local industry. Their representative gets them that, so they get reelected. To get them that they screw over the general public in a thousand ways -- mostly by trading other representatives for the things that aren't in the public interest but their districts want -- but none of them are big enough for the people in the district to change their vote, and most of them couldn't have been prevented by a single representative anyway. So the bums fail to get voted out.
- pdonis 3y ago
  > This is an artifact of the districting system. Which in no way contradicts what I said. The fact that what the people want (or at least a voting majority of us) actually screws over the general public does not mean the people don't want it. It just means that what the people want is not actually good for all of us in the long run. Welcome to reality.
  - immibis 3y ago
    The fact that people given a choice between "abortion is illegal" or "poors don't starve to death" choose "abortion is illegal" doesn't mean they want poors to starve to death (although they do want that); it just means they want abortion to be illegal more. Okay, it was a bad example because those kinds of hardliners do want all the bad things to happen. People given a choice between "close the military base and lose your jobs" and "keep your jobs, but we drop more bombs on brown people" don't necessarily want to drop more bombs on brown people, but they do want to keep their jobs.
    - pdonis 3y ago
      > given a choice between "abortion is illegal" or "poors don't starve to death" What are you talking about? No voter is faced with that choice. > those kinds of hardliners do want all the bad things to happen Who are these "hardliners" you speak of? > People given a choice between "close the military base and lose your jobs" and "keep your jobs, but we drop more bombs on brown people" No voter is faced with that choice either. Closing the military base in a particular district doesn't mean the military downsizes. It just means the base gets built in some other district whose representatives were better at getting pork for their constituents. None of these things have anything to do with the basic problem I described.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    You implied that the majority of voters want Something To Be Done and so keep reelecting the people who do this. In fact what happens is that the majority of voters don't even know that this issue exists, but some interest group wants it and captures a representative whose district isn't going to notice or care what their representative is doing on this and then trades votes on other issues their district also doesn't care about to get what they want from other representatives. There are existing laws that couldn't command majority support in any district much less a majority of them but remain on the books because the representatives who support them continue to be reeelected for independent reasons.
RationalDino 3y ago
No, that doesn't measure that they are doing what we want them to do. That measures how effectively they can convince us that the other candidate would be worse, so you should vote for the lesser evil. On most topics, there is NO candidate who is for doing things outside of the current Overton window. If, for example, you don't like our AML laws, you probably don't have a viable candidate on the ballot who wants to change our AML laws. Therefore your vote can't show your support for changing AML laws.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > On most topics, there is NO candidate who is for doing things outside of the current Overton window. Sure there is. They aren't likely to be a major party candidate, but then, that's pretty much true by the definition of the Overton window -- if it is supported enough to be a tolerable position for a major party candidate that isn't an extreme outlier within the party, then it is not outside the range of acceptability than the Overton Window refers to. (Of course, the major point of the Overton Window is that, in a system with elected lawmakers, laws largely aren't set by lawmakers preferences, but by forces, largely external to lawmakers -- including both concentrated interest groups and grassroots activists -- that shift the Overton Window and set the bounds for what it is practical for lawmakers to support.)
- pdonis 3y ago
  > that doesn't measure that they are doing what we want them to do. That measures how effectively they can convince us that the other candidate would be worse If we are convinced, then they are doing what we want them to do--because they convinced us that there is no point in wanting anything else. > On most topics, there is NO candidate who is for doing things outside of the current Overton window. Yes, but what is the Overton window? It's the range of policies that most people will accept. So by definition only policies within the Overton window can possibly be what the people (or at least a majority of us) want.
  - immibis 3y ago
    It's actually the range of policies that we won't literally riot about if they push on us.

by pdonis 3y ago

immibis 3y ago

Mostly we vote based on our personal biggest issue, no matter what they do on the other issues. A lot of Republicans vote Republican because they claim to hate abortion, and they literally don't care about the rest.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> The fact that we the people continue to vote in our incumbent representatives at rates over 90 percent is a direct measure of the extent to which those representatives are doing what we want them to do. This is an artifact of the districting system. A given district wants the local military base to stay open, or tax credits for the local industry. Their representative gets them that, so they get reelected. To get them that they screw over the general public in a thousand ways -- mostly by trading other representatives for the things that aren't in the public interest but their districts want -- but none of them are big enough for the people in the district to change their vote, and most of them couldn't have been prevented by a single representative anyway. So the bums fail to get voted out.

pdonis 3y ago
> This is an artifact of the districting system. Which in no way contradicts what I said. The fact that what the people want (or at least a voting majority of us) actually screws over the general public does not mean the people don't want it. It just means that what the people want is not actually good for all of us in the long run. Welcome to reality.
- immibis 3y ago
  The fact that people given a choice between "abortion is illegal" or "poors don't starve to death" choose "abortion is illegal" doesn't mean they want poors to starve to death (although they do want that); it just means they want abortion to be illegal more. Okay, it was a bad example because those kinds of hardliners do want all the bad things to happen. People given a choice between "close the military base and lose your jobs" and "keep your jobs, but we drop more bombs on brown people" don't necessarily want to drop more bombs on brown people, but they do want to keep their jobs.
  - pdonis 3y ago
    > given a choice between "abortion is illegal" or "poors don't starve to death" What are you talking about? No voter is faced with that choice. > those kinds of hardliners do want all the bad things to happen Who are these "hardliners" you speak of? > People given a choice between "close the military base and lose your jobs" and "keep your jobs, but we drop more bombs on brown people" No voter is faced with that choice either. Closing the military base in a particular district doesn't mean the military downsizes. It just means the base gets built in some other district whose representatives were better at getting pork for their constituents. None of these things have anything to do with the basic problem I described.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  You implied that the majority of voters want Something To Be Done and so keep reelecting the people who do this. In fact what happens is that the majority of voters don't even know that this issue exists, but some interest group wants it and captures a representative whose district isn't going to notice or care what their representative is doing on this and then trades votes on other issues their district also doesn't care about to get what they want from other representatives. There are existing laws that couldn't command majority support in any district much less a majority of them but remain on the books because the representatives who support them continue to be reeelected for independent reasons.

RationalDino 3y ago

No, that doesn't measure that they are doing what we want them to do. That measures how effectively they can convince us that the other candidate would be worse, so you should vote for the lesser evil. On most topics, there is NO candidate who is for doing things outside of the current Overton window. If, for example, you don't like our AML laws, you probably don't have a viable candidate on the ballot who wants to change our AML laws. Therefore your vote can't show your support for changing AML laws.

dragonwriter 3y ago
> On most topics, there is NO candidate who is for doing things outside of the current Overton window. Sure there is. They aren't likely to be a major party candidate, but then, that's pretty much true by the definition of the Overton window -- if it is supported enough to be a tolerable position for a major party candidate that isn't an extreme outlier within the party, then it is not outside the range of acceptability than the Overton Window refers to. (Of course, the major point of the Overton Window is that, in a system with elected lawmakers, laws largely aren't set by lawmakers preferences, but by forces, largely external to lawmakers -- including both concentrated interest groups and grassroots activists -- that shift the Overton Window and set the bounds for what it is practical for lawmakers to support.)
pdonis 3y ago
> that doesn't measure that they are doing what we want them to do. That measures how effectively they can convince us that the other candidate would be worse If we are convinced, then they are doing what we want them to do--because they convinced us that there is no point in wanting anything else. > On most topics, there is NO candidate who is for doing things outside of the current Overton window. Yes, but what is the Overton window? It's the range of policies that most people will accept. So by definition only policies within the Overton window can possibly be what the people (or at least a majority of us) want.
- immibis 3y ago
  It's actually the range of policies that we won't literally riot about if they push on us.