In past blogs, I’ve discussed the insidious and potentially deadly long-terns effects of the “now” mentality, particularly on American business, and how the emphasis on immediate profits, immediate dividends, or immediate increases in stock prices, if not all three, have had a devastating effect not only on the economy, but all across the society of the United States.  There is another area of American society where the “now” culture has had an even more negative and more immediate effect – and that’s on American politics and government.

Years and years ago, one of my political mentors made the observation that, in running a campaign, you had to give the voters a good reason to vote for a candidate.  Back then, that reason was tacitly assumed to be, except in certain parts of the south, positive.  Today, if one surveys political ads, campaign promises, and the like, that reason is overwhelmingly negative.  Vote for [Your Candidate] because he or she will oppose more federal government, more spending, more gun controls.  Or conversely, vote for [Your Candidate] because he or she will oppose cutting programs necessary for children, the poor, the disadvantaged, the farmer, the environment, etc. 

The synergy between the “now” culture and the ever more predominant tendency of American voters to vote negative preferences is an overlooked and very strong contribution to the deadlock in American politics. People want what they want, and they want it now… and they don’t want to pay for it now, despite the fact that anything that government does has to be paid for in some fashion, either by taxes, deficits, inflation, or decreases in existing programs in order to maintain other existing programs.

 In addition, as a number of U.S. Representatives and Senators have discovered over the past few elections, voters no longer reward members of Congress for positive achievements.  They primarily [pun intended] vote to punish incumbents for anything they dislike.  So a member of Congress, such as former Senator Bob Bennett of Utah, can vote for 95% or more of what the Republicans in Utah want and make two or three votes they don’t like, and be denied renomination. At a time when federal programs are vastly underfunded, the combination of voter desires not to lose any federal benefits/programs, not to pay in taxes what is necessary to support those programs, and to punish any member of Congress who attempts to resolve those problems in a politically feasible way, such as working out a compromise, results in continual deadlock.

Then, add to that the fact that politicians want to be re-elected, that over 90% of all Congressional districts are essentially dominated by one political party, and that thirty-one of the states have both Senators from the same political party, and that means that the overwhelming majority of members of Congress cannot vote against the dictates of their local party activists on almost any major issue without risking not being renominated or re-elected. 

Yet everyone decries Congress, when Congress is in fact more representative of American culture than ever before.  We, as a society, want, right now, more than we’re willing to pay for.  Likewise, our representatives don’t want to pay for trying to fix things because they want to keep their jobs, right now, regardless of the future consequences.  But it’s so much easier to blame that guy or gal in Washington than the face in the mirror.