Political Reform 2: Reconciliation
An idea that would make our elected officials actually represent what we want
This essay is one of a series, you can see the previous one here.
When someone is elected to an office in most US systems, they are supposed to represent a whole bunch of people who didn’t vote for them. Almost no candidate gets the vast majority of their constituents’ votes. Most elected representatives (at any level) don’t even get a majority. Our systems (though they vary greatly) are generally set up so that the person with the most votes wins, meaning they don’t even need a simple majority, just more than anyone else. To illustrate, President Biden was elected with about 81 million votes. There are about 258 million adults in the US. That means only 31.4% of the US adults actually picked him, and now he represents 100% of us. [Yes, I know about the Electoral College. This is just an example of voter numbers.] Doesn’t seem so democratic, even though it looks democratic. This is a problem with our voting systems. You can read more about those systems and better alternatives here.
We need to fix those for sure, or at least upgrade them, but that’s a long and difficult process (though Andrew Yang is trying). What this essay is about (as all in this series will strive to be) is easier to do. What’s the problem with an elected official who’s supposed to represent an entire constituency, most of whom didn’t vote for her? It’s all those people who didn’t vote for her. How is any system supposed to be representative of most, or even 49% or 15% of the people who are represented by a person who didn’t want her? Definitely doesn’t feel representative to them. Those people feel like they have no voice. This, among many other things, helps to drive our political polarization. When the system is winner-take-all, why wouldn’t we harbor resentment for those that “defeated” us?
How can we change this? Reconciliation. I’m not talking about the process that the US Senate uses as a tool to circumvent the 60% majority needed to pass a bill. I’m talking about the dictionary definition: the act of causing two people or groups to become friendly again after an argument or disagreement. Talk. I don’t mean here that you, the voter, should talk to the people whose candidate won, though you should definitely do that, too! I mean each elected official should, as immediately as possible after winning an election, hold some kind of reconciliation conversation with the constituents that didn’t vote for her. Notice I did not say she should give a speech. No one wants to hear “I know you didn’t vote for me, but I’ll work for you, too!” and no one wants to say it, probably.
If you win an election as mayor of a small town, hold a town hall as soon as practical and invite everyone who didn’t vote for you. Ask them about their concerns. Listen. No one expects you to change your mind from your campaign positions, but there’s an outside chance you will since most of the people you were listening to during your campaign were probably your supporters, and you might hear something during reconciliation you wouldn’t hear from supporters. That can help with our ideological or political bubble problem. At a minimum, it lets people who otherwise would’ve felt unheard by you feel heard. That can go a long way to lowering the temperature of our politics, decreasing polarization, and making your town feel like one community.
This is probably not something that can or should be mandated. A great politician should take on this reconciliatory practice as part of her job. But, even without amazing politicians who do this on their own initiative, everyone can help by creating an informal process that elected officials are pressured into by their constituents, especially those that voted for them. In so doing, constituents signal their desire for their elected officials to build stronger communities and address common concerns, not just partisan ones. If this were to become a new social norm, it would help improve our sense of common identity and common cause and help identify politicians that aren’t interested in such commonality and community.
