The Twisted Logic of Politicians

They Might Not Be as Clueless as they Seem

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

A common complaint about politicians is that they are corrupt, liars, or stupid. Even former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney remarked that the problem in American politics is “We’re electing idiots.” There are plenty of people who agree with Ms. Cheney.

Almost anywhere on social media or televised political news channels, you can find people railing about how insanely illogical or evil the other party is. There is the assumption that if only the other politicians were smarter or more moral, they would see things our way. But this whole notion really obscures the real issue, because while you would think a politician’s motive was doing what is best for the country, this is not the exactly the case. Their rationality is mainly based on attracting donations, getting elected, and staying elected.

Those politicians are just mouthpieces for their constituents—but not all of their constituents, just the ones who go to the polls.

It’s About the Voters

Consider one of the country’s most outlandish Congresspeople, the representative from Georgia’s 14th district, Marjorie Taylor Greene. Here are just a few examples of the numerous falsehoods she has perpetuated over the last two years.

• In January 2021, Greene was temporarily suspended from Twitter for expressing racist views and supporting QAnon conspiracy theories online.

• The mass shootings at the 2022 Independence Day parade in Highland Park were a plot to convince the GOP to back gun control.

• Global warming is healthy for us. Greene said: "We have already warmed 1 degree Celsius and do you know what has happened since then? We have had more food grown since then, which feeds people."

How does she get away with that? It is because her district comprises 75% Republicans, and that’s what a lot of them believe.

Now I’m not saying all Republicans believe all those conspiracy theories or that conservatives are the only voters who believe in conspiracy theories. Research has shown that both liberals and conservatives believe in conspiracy theories—just not the same ones. However, a large percentage of Republican voters do believe the specific conspiracy theories that Greene touts. For example, a survey reported in U.S. News found that about 25% of Republicans believe in the core tenants of QAnon. Those core tenants include that the government is secretly controlled by a ring of pedophiles. As you can see from the summary of a YouGov survey in the chart below, Republicans tend to align not only with the QAnon core ideas but with other conspiracy theories that Greene mentioned as well.

Adding to the propensity of Republican voters to believe messaging like Greene's is that a lot of them believe falsehoods spewed by right-wing media and politicians. Research by R. Kelly Garrett and Robert M. Bond from Ohio State University showed that conservatives were more likely than liberals to believe false information, possibly in part due to the prevalence of it in right-wing media and political talk. They stated,

For example, conservatives have been shown to hold less accurate beliefs about climate change, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and where President Obama was born, all of which have been the subject of misleading statements by high-profile members of the Republican party.

This kind of messaging works because it gets certain voters to participate in the elections process. As Pew Research in the chart below shows, more extreme voters, especially consistently conservative ones, are more likely to go to the polls and donate money.

Extreme Candidates are Even Frequently Funded by the Opposing Party

Not only do candidates reflect the views of their more extreme constituents, but sometimes extreme candidates are funded by the opposing party. For example, The Washington Post disclosed that the Democratic party funded far-right candidates in the lead-up to the 2022 mid-terms. The Post reported:

Democrats have spent nearly $19 million across eight states in primaries this year amplifying far-right Republican candidates who have questioned or denied the validity of the 2020 election

Why? Because research has shown that once extremists get selected as the candidate it motivates the opposing voters to go to the polls so the extremists tend to lose. Researchers Andrew Hall and Daniel Thompson of Stanford University analyzed two years of elections to the House of Representatives and found:

When the more extreme candidate won the primary, the party did far worse in the general election: Its share of votes fell by between 7 and 15 percentage points.

In addition, a greater proportion of the people who turned out to vote were members of the opposite party. So, say a more extreme Democrat barely defeats a moderate in the primary. The research suggests that the Republican share of voters who turn out would be 5 to 10 percentage points greater than if the moderate had been nominated — and that the Democrats are much more likely to lose because they nominated the more extreme candidate

This strategy was used by the Democrats in 2022 and is widely credited for helping Democrats win control of the Senate and prevent a “red wave” in the House. Interestingly, a study led by David Brockman of Stanford found that local party leaders have a different perspective, which leads them to prefer extreme candidates. The Brockman study states:

Given the choice between a more centrist and more extreme candidate, they strongly prefer extremists: Democrats do so by about 2 to 1 and Republicans by 10 to 1. Likewise, in open-ended questions, Democratic Party leaders are twice as likely to say they look for extreme candidates relative to centrists; Republican Party leaders are five times as likely. Potentially driving these partisan differences, Republican leaders are especially likely to believe that extremists can win general elections and overestimate the electorate's conservatism by double digits.

Experienced political consultant Mark Mellman explored the reasons for this in an article for The Hill. While he agreed that the local party officials might overestimate the conservatism of voters, Mellman also suggested:

• The party chairs hear more often from extremists and this might distort their view of the general population

• Party leadership might be infiltrated by “ideological activists whose central goal is not winning elections (as, in theory, party leaders should be) but advancing their ideological agenda.” 

Congress is Getting more Extreme than the Voters

Although there is evidence that voters are getting more polarized around the central liberal or conservative themes, a more shocking finding is that Congress is getting more extreme than voters.

As the Pew Research chart shows, Republican politicians have moved considerably to the right, while Democrats have moved a little to the left. The issue is that this shift does not directly correspond with the overall voter’s perspective. Dan Abrams of Northwestern University led a study that found that

The two major political parties have been getting more and more polarized since World War II, while historical data indicates the average American voter remains just as moderate on key issues and policies as they always have been.

Abrams’ team developed a model to explain this phenomenon. Their model suggests that the moves of politicians to the extremes can be interpreted as attempts by the Democratic and Republican parties to minimize overlaps of constituencies. This avoids fighting over the same group of voters.

The researchers noted that segregating voters is not the sole cause of elected legislators taking more extreme positions. Other factors include getting better donations from extremists and the effects of gerrymandering.

Does it affect voting behavior to have more extreme candidates? Abrams argues,

"People aren't perfectly rational, but they're not totally irrational either," Abrams said. "They'll vote for the candidate that's good enough -- or not too bad -- without making fine distinctions among those that meet their perhaps low bar for good enough. If we want to reduce political polarization between the parties, we need both parties to be more tolerant of the diversity within their own ranks."

The Power to Vote

So we are left with Congresspeople who talk in increasingly in extreme terms to attract a unique base that will more likely donate and go to the polls. They do this by telling these constituents what they want to hear and making the other side seem as scary as possible. This extreme talk can include perpetuating falsehoods among the voters. Although, I focused mainly on Republicans—where the data shows that the move toward extremism of politicians is more pronounced—similar dynamics happen on the Democratic side as well.

Stranded in the middle and subjected to what seems like an increasingly chaotic public discourse are a large number of moderate voters who don’t pay much attention to politics and are often unsure of their positions or know much about the candidates. Confused by a seemingly non-rational, extreme, or conflicting flood of political positioning statements, moderates continue to shun political involvemnt Instead, they mostly follow their party line, leaving it up to inspired turnout by the other party to reject extreme candidates that are put forward.

This bizarre—yet apparently effective—logic of politicians focuses on leveraging the foibles of human nature rather than logic to get people to vote for the candidates. Politicians know they don’t have time to convince people of new ways to look at current problems. It is a consequence of a system that gives power to the people yet a lot of the people don’t take an interest in using their power. It gets the politician elected at the expense of creating gridlock in government and public opinion. But voting still matters, so it’s up to each of us to consider our responsibility to civil society in knowing the issues and using our power to vote.