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this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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This assumes that representing people requires skills, experience, and expertise that can not be obtained elsewhere and can not be provided by advisers. If representing constituents interests did require specific skills, there would be pre-requisite courses. We don't elect people to design and build nuclear reactors - we select them based on their skills. There are certainly skills involved in being a career politician, but these aren't necessarily serving the public interest. I often feel like a politician's main job is convincing constituents that their preferred course of action is best, rather than simply representing constituents interests.
This doesn't make much sense to me. As in, we need to keep shitty politicians around for longer to kind of water down and spread out the shittiness over a greater period of time lest it be intensified.
That's correct. It can't be. New Representatives basically get nothing done. It takes them the two years they have to learn the ropes before they have to start fund raising for their next election. Federal Office is like Professional Sports. How often does someone just walk into it with no prior experience and succeed? It's not just about representing. It's about knowing how to negotiate and convince other representatives to care about what your constituents want. If Advisers are doing all the work, why don't they just run? You know who has all the time and money to "advise" candidates? Lobbyists.
I'm not arguing to keep bad politicians around for no reason, just observing that the reasons they're shitty in the first place are separate from how long they have to do it. If we solve the problem of politicians staying in office too long but we don't do anything about their incentives and ability to be on the take, all we've done is make their time in office maybe more urgent and valuable.
When in doubt, expect your designs to create unintended consequences- especially if they are simple and optimistic and don't deal directly with the actual source of the problem.
This is not to say that we should have septuagenarians in office- I really think we shouldn't- but fundamentally the problem is we don't vote these people out.
I know what you mean, but conceptually isn't that the point?
For example constituents work jobs and make money. Why should I give money to the government? It's the politicians job to convince the constituents.
No, no that is not the point.
Representatives are supposed to represent the interests of their constituents in the course of making laws. That's the foundational principle of representative democracy.
An individual may not want to pay tax personally, but few individuals would agree that no individuals should pay tax.
Man, I wish that were the case. Convincing other REPRESENTATIVES is the main job of a legislator. The reason why lawyers are so good at the role of legislating (the nuclear engineer equivalent in your analogy) is that they are both trained in 1. Convincing others of their argument 2. Understanding legal standings and the workings of government. These skills should be the basis for someones eligibility to be elected. The reason we select one candidate over another is the ideas and values they represent for us in the day in, day out melodrama of governing. The only reason you think the important part is convincing constituents is because that is the part you see. The real work is making the damn sausage.