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The idea is simple, and rests entirely with the American voters, NOT with the Congress. VOID advocates that voters consider voting for a challenger from their own party, or another, if they are not happy with the performance of Congress at large. VOID postulates that even if voters like their own representative, the fact that the same voters disapprove of Congress' performance, means their own representative is, at least, ineffective in bringing about the changes the voter hopes for.
VOID the Congress
One of the stranger contradictions of the duopolist mentality is the disconnect between people's views of the Congress as a whole (largely negative) and their views on their own individual Congressional representative (largely positive). There are likely a great many people out there in these United States who believe that the Congress is filled with lying crooks and ignorant buffoons, but maintain that their representative is both honest and intelligent. What results from this is the institutionalization of incumbency. At Watchblog's Third Party and Independent site, David R. Remer makes the case for Vote Out Incumbents Democracy (VOID):
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4 comments:
I don't know if the mentality you decry can be blamed on the duopoly or bipolarchy rather than the simple fact that constituents expect their representative to provide for them but resent other representatives providing for their constitutents at "our" expense. Voters know enough about the system to dislike the idea of trading in an incumbent's seniority for a newcomer's presumed powerlessness. The problem may be inherent in representative government, or at least in a constituency-based system -- or it may be rooted in citizens' own contradictory expectations of government, in which case VOID will have to be only the beginning of a long re-education campaign.
I'd assume that many Republicans blame the Democrats and the RINOs for the state of the Congress, but believe their own guy is just swell, while Democrats blame Republicans and DINOs for undermining their guy's honest efforts.
Which is to say, the duopoly mentality reinforces the logic that my representative is just fine, but the Congress as a whole is filled with lying crooks.
Duopolism is probably a minimal factor, but when people give a low rating to "Congress" they pretty much have to be passing judgment on both parties -- while exempting their own representative. If partisanship were a stronger factor, Congress's rating would fluctuate more than it does when the balance of power shifts.
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