The Invisible Contest Beneath Our Elections

It’s 2023, and what felt like a colossal midterm election now feels far, far behind us. As we move into this new year, it’s been interesting to observe how quickly our public discourse has hopped from one election cycle to the next (hello, 2024).

But is the contest between candidates really as big and newsworthy as the contest that undergirds it? The contest I’m talking about isn’t about an election – it’s about the rules of the game, not the players. And it isn’t getting nearly enough attention.

Historically and still today, our popular discourse is focused more on the people in power than the structures of power themselves. It’s understandable. Look at the types of headlines that dominate our news cycle. “George Santos Spars with Drag Queen. ” “Is Marjorie Taylor Greene Pivoting Away From Jewish Space Lasers? ” We read these articles because they’re relevant (and because… space lasers), but new research from the Culture Change Project points to the idea that we pay so much attention to individual political actors because of how our brains think about government.

According to our latest findings, Americans tend to view government not as a complex system of rules, policies, actors, and institutions, but as a collection of individual leaders. We refer to this as “person-centric thinking.” What’s to blame for racist policies? Bad, racist politicians. The solution? Vote them out. What’s to blame for decisions being made that go against the views of the majority of Americans (e.g., overturning Roe v. Wade )? Ideological judges. The solution? Elect people who will appoint better ones.

But what would happen if we changed the conversation? What if the surround sound all around us were focused less on things like a tight Senate race in Nevada and more on why a state with a smaller population than Los Angeles gets equal representation in the Senate as the entire state of California? What if our discourse were focused less on the moral character of Clarence Thomas and more on how it came to be that nearly half of the justices on the bench were appointed by presidents who never won the popular vote?

It’s not that person-centric thinking is inherently bad or wrong. We do need to elect good leaders and pay attention to elections. The problem is that the exclusive focus on the people in politics assumes that our political system is generally just and well-designed. Spoiler alert: it’s not.?We need an information environment that is better balanced between the need for new leaders who will reduce harm and improve outcomes for people right now, and the fundamental democratic redesign that is necessary for real, enduring change.

So as we look ahead to 2024, let’s not miss an opportunity to look at what’s beneath our elections and create some buzz for better politicians and a better system for them to govern.

Post written by Nat Kendall-Taylor, FrameWorks Institute CEO