Elections | Think again: Whose choice, whose will, whose responsibility?

State, Market, Society

In a couple of weeks, we’ll see two sets of elections. One is the American presidential election, of which there is a lot of coverage around the world. The other is a state election in Bihar. These are very different contests, with different stakes and consequences, but despite their wide contrasts there are some common lessons, too.

The harshest truth about representative democracy everywhere is that voters often don’t think there is a big correlation between their choices and the consequences. There is a general sense that “the politicians are all the same” and that “there is not much I can do with my single vote.” Given this, the lofty ideals of this form of government are no longer at the top of our mind even on election day, let alone at other times.

A number of people telling reporters that they do not plan to vote for Trump this time, although they did the last time, aren’t sure if they knew what they needed to know about him in 2016. That’s very convenient, but it’s also very revealing. They’re claiming that they are not responsible for anything he did in the last four years, even though they chose him the last time. “We did not think he would be like this,” they say.

Trump is an extreme case, but that sentiment is quite common. Take the voters of Bihar. In the last 30 years, they have voted back and forth for two groups that have both kept the state among the poorest in the country. Looking at the data, if there is one thing that can be said with certainty, it is that both JD (U) and the RJD are really good at ensuring continuing last-in-the-nation status. But very few of those who voted for them will admit that this is what they expected.

Some will even delude themselves to a greater extent, claiming that “in some ways, things have got better” during some years and not during others. If you set the bar low enough, any political party or leader can meet it.

The other thing that dominates elections is spectacle. It’s a show, and that’s one reason why a showman like Trump can win. He understands, like several others now and before him, that if you tell the voters what they already believe, then they will vote for him, and then he can do things that they may not have thought of while choosing him.

Is there a fix for this? Is there something we can do to get closer to a point where people see their votes also as their choices and accept that the consequences of their choices are also their responsibility? It’s not a new question; it’s probably as old as democracy itself.

The theory of democracy is written without room for motives. The way it is worded in most Constitutions and textbooks, it works like this -- the people have a right to choose their leaders, they do this through elections, after learning about the candidates during campaigns, and the elected leaders go on to represent the choices that the majority have preferred.

The practice of democracy, on the other hand, is written almost entirely with motives. Candidates contest elections with personal and other goals, too, in mind, and they tell voters only a subset of these other things they plan to do. They’re trying to win, and therefore trying to influence people to choose them. They’re not leaving it to the voters to merely pick; they’re doing everything they can to guide each pick.

Does Trump really see it as a business interest for him to be President? Is he just attracted to the fact that the presidency is a bigger stage for his showman act than any other? One could ask questions like these endlessly, but unwaveringly come to the same conclusion again and again -- there’s no way to know, and the voters prefer it that way!

In the process, we have made the institutions of government easy to capture. Voters don’t think they’re responsible for this, but who else could be? Our first instinct is to respond to this by saying that the candidates are the problem. But in a very literal sense, that’s not true at all. The candidates are the only ones acting with purpose.

Elections are an intersection between the State and society. But they’re also a point of divergence. Until voting day, people are encouraged and inclined to think of a connection between themselves and their votes. But this is only a fleeting concession. The larger reality that both candidates and voters are comfortable with is that the people are not responsible for their choices.

The price of that concession is that the winners cannot be held responsible for subsequent actions. The distance that voters maintain between their votes and their consequences becomes a tool after polling day, as whoever wins insists that everything they do represents the will of the voters who have chosen them, and it is therefore the people who are responsible.