american politics

I have been following American politics much closely for last 2-3 years – mainly got hooked during the last presidential primaries. Today morning saw the majority leader taking a different stance compared to the president regarding an issue, so was thinking about good and bad compared to our politics.

The good –

• Two party politics – that is the best thing. Compare that to Kerala where we have Kerala Congress A, B, C, D, E… and then coalitions that can shift not based on ideology, but based on slots in the cabinet.


• Primaries – there is a chance for people to choose candidates. For us, I think people often decide not to even vote saying no candidates is worthy – it is often true as well. The candidates chosen by party hierarchy gives in to vested interests such as shares for castes, groups within the party etc. Deserving candidates might lose out just due to lack of political capital. Having the power to choose candidates by the party registered members relieves the would-be candidates and senators/representatives from sucking up to leadership, forming cliques etc to save their seat. For us, if running those many primaries fairly also becomes election commission’s responsibility, it might become too much.


• Members of a party are not bound to follow same voting pattern dictated by the party leadership (Whip situation). Senators / Reps are free to choose to vote with or against the party interest. This can let the elected folks govern rather than unelected party leadership.


• I like the fact that people are entitled to their opinion – if you differ from party’s (or party leader’s) opinion, they cannot reprimand or throw you out. This can bring in good discussion and more ideas to be considered for a legislation.


• Polls – even though it is said not to govern to score high in polls and instead do the right thing, knowing the barometer of the country is good. It wouldn’t hurt to know that a government, CM, PM are running 20% favorability and the country thinks that it is going in wrong direction – at least if someone does something to improve the metrics, it can give some results.


• Good political reporting – profiles of politicians, tracking political stories. NY Times, Washington Post etc must be keeping score on how many politicians they throw out of office by exposing scandals.

The bad –

• Campaign financing and lobbying – even though there is some amount of transparency, the basic thing is – if you give large amount of money, you are obviously expecting something back. I feel the system has to be corrupt, even though stories that come out are less – it got much more sophisticated.


• Rules like filibuster – few lawmakers having differing opinion due to whatever pressure or ideology can deny a majority to pass a legislation – so party rule which is more like minor dictatorship when it comes to passing legislation doesn’t work.


• Extreme fringes and conscious manipulators can change the public opinion with constant harping about something and make a non-issue a big issue.


• I used to think presidential politics is better with someone having control, but learned that president can only set the direction and have little control on the actual legislation.

The ugly –

• thing president can initiate is wars and when that is initiated on flimsy evidence and to propagate their world view, it becomes a massive problem.