After the longest government shutdown in history, voter frustration with the political system is high. Both parties are viewed negatively, and among independents, the unfavorables of both parties are close to 70% (Republicans in Congress, 25-68; Democrats in Congress, 23-68). Reflecting the frustration with the status quo, independent voters are increasing nationally and in competitive states.
In Congress, the lack of policy solutions to mounting problems is having an impact. Every cycle, we hear of retiring lawmakers who say their decisions to leave Congress resulted from no progress on issues they came here to solve. The current legislative environment shows that policy development is not the most important priority in Congress. Here are a few reasons why:
- There is a serious lack of agreement from the political parties about issue priorities
- Stoking voter anger is seen as a key to winning campaigns. This is often times seen as the most important incentive in the current political system to maximize fundraising and media attention.
- The media believes that anger is the most important element of content to generate views, and social media has increased the volume of the party bases in the political discourse.
- Parties assume that losing was not the result of issue positions but by poor campaigns, bad candidates or lack of fundraising.
In the present health care debate following the shutdown, Democrats are trying to cover for failed policies through extending temporary ACA subsidies to offset unaffordable premiums. After 15 years since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, Republicans don’t have a consensus on a direction for health care and are scrambling to come up with health care solutions. These policy problems have been brewing for years and didn’t emerge overnight.
Both parties have lost their focus on product development. In a 1995 interview, Steve Jobs described a similar problem happening in the tech industry, and how successful incumbent companies made themselves vulnerable to disruption:
“When you have a monopoly market share, the company is not any more successful. So the people that can make the company more successful are sales and marketing people, and they end up running the companies. The product people get driven out of the decision-making forums, and the companies forget what it means to make great products. The product sensibility and the product genius that brought them to that monopolistic position gets rotted out by people running these companies who have no conception of a good product versus a bad product. They have no conception of the craftsmanship that’s required to take a good idea and turn it into a good product.”
His observation was that as companies become more successful, they tend to neglect the product development that drove their initial success. Instead, they prioritize sales and marketing teams. By default, maintaining the status quo becomes the goal. Then one day, these companies find themselves in danger of becoming obsolete because as he says, companies forget what it means to make great products. This is what we are seeing in today’s political system.
For both parties to regain standing with the electorate, they need to return to a focus on product development and helping customers, not simply functioning as marketing and fundraising operations. If the current trend continues, both parties could be on the way to becoming obsolete.
