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Individual House Representatives usually have high approval ratings from people who voted them in while Congress as a whole has a terrible approval rating. It's

Individual House Representatives usually have high approval ratings from people who voted them in while Congress as a whole has a terrible approval rating. It's not quite as simple as seeing historical election results and saying everybody is necessarily happy with their representation.

pdonis 3y ago
> Individual House Representatives usually have high approval ratings from people who voted them in while Congress as a whole has a terrible approval rating. Yes, that's true. (And the Senate is no different.) What does it mean? I think it means that people do not realize the actual problem. They don't see the two facts you cite as at odds with each other or connected to each other at all. But they are. The reason why Congress can have such a low approval rating while incumbency reelection rates remain high are that people think it's all those other members of Congress who are the problem--if only everyone would listen to their members of Congress, all that stuff would get fixed. They don't realize that, if you send someone to Congress to fix something, and it doesn't get fixed, you need to send someone else. You can't keep allowing the incumbents to hide behind "it's not me, it's all those others" forever.
- aldonius 3y ago
  >> Individual House Representatives usually have high approval ratings from people who voted them in while Congress as a whole has a terrible approval rating. > Yes, that's true. (And the Senate is no different.) What does it mean? Red voters tend to live in red seats & states, blue voters tend to live in blue seats and states.
  - pdonis 3y ago
    > Red voters tend to live in red seats & states, blue voters tend to live in blue seats and states. This is a tautology. It doesn't change anything I said.
    - aldonius 3y ago
      Sure. I still think it's the most intuitive way to describe the first-order explanation for why people are happy with their specific representatives, but not Congress as a whole.

pdonis 3y ago

> Individual House Representatives usually have high approval ratings from people who voted them in while Congress as a whole has a terrible approval rating. Yes, that's true. (And the Senate is no different.) What does it mean? I think it means that people do not realize the actual problem. They don't see the two facts you cite as at odds with each other or connected to each other at all. But they are. The reason why Congress can have such a low approval rating while incumbency reelection rates remain high are that people think it's all those other members of Congress who are the problem--if only everyone would listen to their members of Congress, all that stuff would get fixed. They don't realize that, if you send someone to Congress to fix something, and it doesn't get fixed, you need to send someone else. You can't keep allowing the incumbents to hide behind "it's not me, it's all those others" forever.

aldonius 3y ago
>> Individual House Representatives usually have high approval ratings from people who voted them in while Congress as a whole has a terrible approval rating. > Yes, that's true. (And the Senate is no different.) What does it mean? Red voters tend to live in red seats & states, blue voters tend to live in blue seats and states.
- pdonis 3y ago
  > Red voters tend to live in red seats & states, blue voters tend to live in blue seats and states. This is a tautology. It doesn't change anything I said.
  - aldonius 3y ago
    Sure. I still think it's the most intuitive way to describe the first-order explanation for why people are happy with their specific representatives, but not Congress as a whole.