Partisanship is an anti-pattern in trying to solve problems
nomic.aiThe amazing takeaway for me from this data driven story is that if you care to actually solve a problem in today's political climate the BEST thing you can do is to try and make it as non-partisan as possible. The WORST thing you can do if you're actually trying to solve a problem is to make it partisan or to inflame partisan divisions.
Partisanship as an anti-pattern in trying to actually solve problems.
The challenge, I think, is that when you are non-partisan, you have no allies.
When a problem is partisan, you have ~50% of people on your side, and ~50% deeply opposed. When you're non-partisan, you're on your own. Instead of facing bitter opposition, you're facing a vast wall of apathy.
It's hard to find anything that's so overwhelmingly popular that people will be on your side just on the merits of the proposition. If it costs any money, somebody will be opposed. If it benefits somebody more than others, somebody will be opposed -- even if it's a benefit to them, but a smaller benefit than somebody else. Some will oppose it just because they dislike you personally.
And because of partisanship, they have allies, who may be apathetic but will support them just because they care. Now you've got ~0% of people on your side and ~50% of people bitterly opposed.
Being non-partisan is a lonely, frustrating business. You don't see much of it because it has a very poor track record.
It would be great if we could ditch all of our existing alliances. But new ones would form almost immediately, because you need them to get anything done. The resulting web of connections might be different, but the level of partisanship will be similar.
You’ll raise more money and get more earned media making it partisan, though. Principal-agent problem.
Money, media, political footballs, lots and lots sure... but to actually solve the problem? Partisanship is an anti-pattern.
> to actually solve the problem? Partisanship is an anti-pattern
Sure. The point is there are people incentivised to drive partisanship. Because people respond to it. It goes back to Plato’s criticism of Athenian democracy: demagoguery works.