Why We Need More Humility in Politics

Too many claim to know what ‘real Americans’ want. But Americans don’t speak with one voice on anything.

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What if elected politicians actually did what the American people want them to do?

Now, you might respond: “Isn’t that what they already do?” or “Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work in a democracy?”

The answer to both of these questions is: “No.” Let me explain.

“The American people” is not the same thing as “voters.” The share of Americans who vote is always smaller than the population. Some people, like kids, can’t vote. More importantly, lots of people don’t vote. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Jason Gibson

    good civics lesson

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  2. Mary Stine

    So. Well. Said. thank you Jonah for writing this. Most of these realities get very little attention.
    You've just shown us where true common ground lies. Now it's up to the rest of us to keep drawing attention to that and fighting to defend it.
    For most of my life American politics has been veering into a zero sum game that virtually eliminates cooperation or even coordination. As a result our talking heads and politicians are now obsessed with making a show of "fighting the enemy", not solving real problems or performing their real duties as outlined by the Constitution.

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    CynthiaW

    This is a good article, as far as it goes, and there's nothing wrong with a short column's having a limited thesis and examples.

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    Bill Nelson

    The key to good governance is the ability to bring the electorate around to what is ultimately a better decision. But that ability is not sloganeering, it requires serious scholarship and the ability to reason and clarify differences. I don’t see anyone with that ability, Trump being a counter example.
    For example abortion. The choice favored by the majority does not have a solid underlying philosophical basis, other than practicality. To address this, a politician must relate their position to that of the spectrum of the electorate. A daunting prospect.
    The problem, or a problem, is that none of this generates sound bites. This is why the Federalist Papers were written so in-depth. In the end, the politician must trust the voter.
    “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” - Churchill

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  5. JohnO

    Politicians need more humility (though don't hold your breath) I agree. But part of the underlying assumption about polls to measure popularity of public policies is that it shouldn't matter how much people support/oppose a policy, just whether they do or not. Some polls attempt to measure intensity of opinion by 'strongly agree' v 'somewhat agree' etc. but it's very crude.

    One vote for Biden or Trump, whether you really liked one of them or just found the other one too intolerable to sit it out, is one vote, end of story. That's just how it works, I doubt a system of 'ranked voting intensity' would ever work. But I'm not sure we should care that much if for example a significant majority support this or that minor gun control measure like 'expanded background checks' and 'assault weapon' bans in a poll when the minority who opposes it *virulently* opposes it. Seems to me a kind of default mushy center-left mindset to think of it as 'undemocratic', if those measures can't advance against intense minority opposition (I'm assuming you can craft a poll question to back an 'assault weapon' ban, you certainly can with 'background checks', that term has more of a feel good 'nobody loses' vibe to it than banning something you know many people want). The people who want these things can build up equally intense support if they want to get them done (for the record I'm 'meh' about either, it's a PITA to get a gun in NJ by US standards already, and we have a state 'assault weapon' ban albeit with comical loopholes, nor do I think either measure as actually enacted would have any national effect enough to really care about, sue me if you're fervently for or against either).

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    John Parker Ford

    For those interested, the AP released a new poll on abortion today. It is one of the clearest abortion polls I've seen in terms of fairness/simplicity of questions. 65% of Americans believe abortion should be illegal outside the first trimester with the typical exceptions that even most Republicans agree to. https://apnews.com/article/only-on-ap-us-supreme-court-abortion-religion-health-2c569aa7934233af8e00bef4520a8fa8

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      Kmregan7

      Of course, the problem with that is that if a law passed outlawing abortion after the first trimester (yes, with exceptions -basically codifying Roe's trimester framework instead of leaving it up to states) there's too many people who would then pass MORE legislation making it that much harder to get the legal abortion. There's a reason the slippery slope arguments are so common - those who are hardline anti-abortion won't compromise. The majority of abortions that happen after the first trimester is because of something going horribly wrong. But there are plenty that happen BECAUSE of abortion restrictions that have closed clinics (MS being most famous for having only one in the state) - which requires travel, housing, childcare, time off work, etc. Waiting periods make that even longer. We'd see those restrictions on steroids in many places.

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      1. CatoTheElder


        Kat, you say “those who are hardline anti-abortion won’t compromise.” Do you think the “hardline” pro-choice crowd are more malleable in their positions and willing to compromise? I honestly don’t see much of that in either group.

        Of the approx. 9-10% of abortions performed after the first trimester, you say that the majority occur “because of something going horribly wrong”. I’m not aware of good data on this topic, nor any study presenting data supporting this conclusion in particular. In a recent WaPo article (2019) on the subject of “late-term abortions” (their own quotation marks), a leading OB-GYN researcher of abortion is quoted, “[t]here aren’t good data on how often later abortions are for medical reasons.” I think it fair to assume that all or nearly all instances of “something going horribly wrong” would fall into the category of “medical reasons”. In contrast, a study of reasons given for having abortions performed later than the first trimester described most as being associated with cost, availability, knowledge regarding the procedure and its availability, and other socioeconomic variables, rather than medical reasons. Some of these later abortions are no doubt late simply due to relatively sparse and greatly distant facilities wherein abortions can be safely and legally performed. But it does not seem to be the case that most late-term abortions (a term usually used to denote abortions occurring at later than 20 weeks—nearly two months after the end of the first trimester) are done for medical reasons—i.e., to protect/preserve/save the life of the mother, or in the presence of severe fetal anomalies precluding survival or what some would call “a reasonable quality of life”. (This last is a matter I will not address here—it’s got its own thorns to deal with.)

        Finally, I’d like to note that even though the overwhelming majority of abortions—let’s say 91%, because, if I recall correctly, that’s the number that Planned Parenthood likes to use—are performed during the first trimester, that still leaves 9% or so that are performed after the first trimester. Of those, the overwhelming majority are performed before 20 weeks of gestation, with only about 1% of all abortions being done beyond 20 weeks of gestation.

        The most recently available CDC data indicate that approximately 19% of pregnancies in the US end in abortion. Nine percent of 19% is 1.7%. Which means that 1.7% of all pregnancies in the US are ended by abortions performed after the first trimester. That turns out to be approximately 60,000 abortions per year performed after the first trimester—not a small number, even though the percentages getting us there seemed unimpressive.

        As I said above, I’m not familiar with data supporting a conclusion that most abortions performed after the first trimester are undertaken because of things gone “horribly wrong”—however one wishes to define the term. If you are aware of some reliable data indicating otherwise, I’d like to see it, and would appreciate a reference, if possible. It is possible I’m incompletely informed.

        I’ve said in other circumstances that I’d like to see abortion in the US be “safe, legal, and rare”, to use a phrase made famous by a Democratic president a couple decades back. It’s been safe and legal, at least in the great majority of circumstances, it seems, for nearly fifty years. But it remains far from rare. Maybe “relatively infrequent” is the best we as a nation can do, but I hope not. This all said, I think it’s important that both “sides” consider some sort of deal-making if we’re to see the situation improve—i.e., fewer, and still safe and legal, abortions.

        Final note: the deleted comment near this one is the result of my having deleted a premature post of this comment; my clumsiness resulted in a post of this well before I was done; I cut & pasted it into a “new” comment, which is now complete. I hope I’ve been respectful in my post. Thanks.

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          Kmregan7

          I'm sorry....I believe that percentage came from Guttmacher and since I've been a volunteer for pro-choice organizations in the past I've talked with women and paid attention to their stories, so I know SOME of the reasons why. That's obviously anecdotal. The reason I would say those on the "hardline" pro-choice side won't compromise is that we (I'll include me) simply don't trust those who are anti-abortion. It seems simple (to me) to say, we'll compromise and have legal abortion in the first trimester and exceptions for those later on....but we're working with a crowd who will make sure all regulations will then be piled on even more during the first trimester, pushing women to be forced to carry a pregnancy they don't want but can't get the first trimester abortion they DO want because of those regulations.....AND we'll get restrictions in the 2nd and 3rd trimester that will end with women dying because even if they want an abortion, even if they would be allowed one technically, under the law, doctors hands will be tied with fears of prosecution by some zealous anti-abortion prosecutor. Savita Halappanavar comes to mind specifically in this instant. But there are others. What, exactly, is the ideal number of abortions anyway? The anti-abortion crowd would say none. THAT'S why compromise is so difficult. Those on the pro-choice side don't seem to have a number - less than what we have now because if women are choosing abortion for any reason other than "do not want to be pregnant (now or ever)" but would choose to carry a pregnancy to term otherwise then it's not a free choice. Very few decisions in life though, are free of coercion of some kind. Address why women get abortions (unwanted pregnancies) and solve those. Watch abortion numbers drop. Model the policies and actions that places that have extremely low abortion numbers but have legal abortion. I'll link to the sources for the reasons for later abortions.
          https://www.npr.org/2019/04/30/718546468/opponents-fight-efforts-to-protect-late-term-abortion-rights
          https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2013/11/who-seeks-abortions-or-after-20-weeks

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          1. CatoTheElder

            The NPR report is actually more disturbing. They begin with a brief note about a woman undergoing a third-trimester abortion in the face of a situation in which the child’s quality of life seems to have been confidently predicted to be very poor. I think few people would argue that, if such cases were the only non-first-trimester abortions occurring, something must be done to halt them. But such is not the case; as is mentioned elsewhere, the great majority of 13+ weeks abortions are done between 12and 20 weeks, and not, as best we can tell, for medical reasons. Even the NPR report concludes with the brief story of a third-trimester abortion performed because the pregnant woman only discovered very late that she was pregnant, and did not want to have the baby. A very difficult situation, no matter how it’s looked at.

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          2. CatoTheElder

            The Guttmacher study is the most well-known, which, frankly, is disappointing; it is neither especially large nor well done. Its conclusions are essentially those I mentioned: difficulty with availability, knowledge, transportation problems, etc. It’s also important to note that it does not address abortions from 13 thru 19 weeks of gestation, which is the time frame in which the large majority of non-first-trimester abortions occur.

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    Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

    My only quibble is that far too may polls take questions where positions lay along a spectrum or continuum, and force them into binary choices. Jonah acknowledges that with abortion, but not on the other issues he raises.

    Most major issues politicians yammer about lie along a continuum, despite what the MSM would have you believe.

    Historically, we saw this with slavery. There were over a dozen different mainstream positions on slavery, but we boiled it down to pro and con, losing much of the substance over issues. And for the record, I am anti-slavery, before any of you nitwits accuses me of not....

    Consider prohibition. In reading my children's history texts, two of the different texts neglect to discuss the equality issues presented behind it. As a result, the prohibition forces seem silly in their depiction.....

    I'm all for humility, but nuance is pretty valuable as well.

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    1. Ingenero.lux

      The tie to suffrage is often missed, as are the arguments about the impact of alcohol on women and children when having to deal with a husband coming home angrily drunk and hard to hold accountable under the law…

      It was still a bad idea, but the context makes its passage much more understandable. As was the reaction of many Midwestern immigrants - hard liquor? Sure, outlaw that, people drink too much of it and act badly. Beer? That’s not alcohol. What do you mean you think it’s alcohol? We banned beer? Are you insane? We’re not banning beer.

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      1. Greyjoy

        Of course, those Midwestern immigrants had never knocked back a modern craft brew. It’s getting hard to find ones with less than a 7-8% abv, and many of them are hovering around 9-10%. Now *that’s* insane!

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        1. Ingenero.lux

          Yeah, some of them are rather insanely strong. Though still less than wine, which I don’t think had a bad reputation either (I don’t get the impression the US was a big wine imbibing nation until recently - beer, hard cider, whisky, and rum were the old standbys, and hard cider didn’t have a bunch of Germans who didn’t want to give up their bier). But the real old school stuff, like real Budweiser beer (Czechovar in the US), was usually on the low end of modern beer alcohol content, and small beer was given to kids, it’s usually something like 2.5% ABV or less and still sold as a soft drink in some countries. It’s much harder to get drunk off of the lower ABV stuff.

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  8. Val Xavier

    The point of this column underscores everything that’s wrong with National Civics.

    Let me amplify Jonah’s point:

    “WE NEED MORE HUMILITY IN POLITICS.”

    Repeating myself - None of us, not one of us, or even a faction of us, has *all* the answers. And I am pretty sure now that none of us has any of the answers, because to get to them, we have to stop and listen and learn from each other. That requires humility.

    And Jonah’s making an extremely valuable point that such humility is a requirement for sustaining a vast continental republic.

    Humility, my friends. Humility.

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    John Parker Ford

    To make a piece like this work, the writer must actually commit to highlighting issues about which both sides of the aisle are out of line with popular opinion. Jonah's done that here. The article is better for it and worthy of serious consideration by Republicans and Democrats. Well done, and here's hoping everyone gives it a fair shot.

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    George.Skinner

    Politicians and their base no longer have the patience or wisdom to accept incremental gains and long term strategies. You can see this clearly in the progressive base, where any achievement short of their maximalist gains is condemned as a failure greater than the status quo. Part of the problem is wanting everything immediately, rather than accomplishing what's feasible in the next step. Another aspect seems to be lack of confidence in one's position - a fear that if they can't get the more ambitious aspects of their program passed when attached to the more popular elements, they'll never be able to see them realized. On the right, the refusal to compromise seems to be driven by muddled recollections of Margaret Thatcher. However, they've missed the nuance in Thatcher's position: "If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing." That's quite different from a simple refusal to compromise. We're in an age of poorly educated, shallow political hacks who lack the habit of thinking.

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