Mediocrity

A potential danger of partisan division

Photo by Monika Simeonova on Unsplash

Buy a new washing machine; fix a new dryer.  Where do I go to shop? Most people go to the dealer who has the reputation.  Or, if one grows up in a family that trusts a particular supplier, you go first to that provider.

However, if that provider no longer offers the products and provides the service that you think appropriate, you are likely to consider another firm.

That's true with respect to most local providers of services or products.  You establish loyalty, brand loyalty and shop loyalty, and you purchase over the years from the place which has justified your loyalty. Until ….

Daniel Elazar, in his book on American Federalism, American Federalism: A view from the states, suggests that for much of the central belt of States this is how people chose who to vote for in local elections.  Elazar calls this the “individualist political culture,” people who begin with brand loyalty to a party but are willing to shift and vote for candidates from the other party if they believed that their former party has not been providing quality candidates for local office.  They believe that qualifications matter, that experience matters and that people recognize that some candidates for mayor or for law director or for park director are more qualified than others.  That is not to say that they aren’t loyal to candidates of their traditional party brand, but they expect them to provide effective government, and depend on their party to offer qualified candidates.

Today the situation has changed, as it has periodically in the past when people become so committed to a political party that they vote for anyone that Party puts up for office, regardless of competency.  Increasingly, Democrats will not vote for any candidate identifying as Republican and Republicans will not vote for any candidate identifying as Democrat. 

This results in a genuine problem for effective local government.  If the Parties see no particular advantage in nominating quality candidates, they instead will nominate loyalists, people who need a job, or those who have attended party functions or contributed money to party causes.  Like the old political machines of 50 to a hunded years ago, their candidates need no more than a stamp of partisan brand.

This seems to me to be one of the dangers or perhaps we should say one of the liabilities of a party system that has entrenched itself to the extent that we are voting for either the “enemy of America” or the “savior of America.”

The inevitable result, it seems to me, has been a decline in competence for city government and a failure of local government to provide the best services for local citizens. In fact if the primary requirement for getting my vote is the party label under which you run, there will be no real chance for the person who has the better ideas or the better resume or the better values.  In fact under those circumstances neither the voting public nor the party leaders will pay much attention to the qualifications, the intelligence or the practical common sense, of people running for local office.

It provides an easy choice for the voter, but it also ensures that governments will be managed by the mediocre or even the incompetent.