Timely Lessons from Across the Pond: Shorten our Endless Campaigns
On Wednesday, May 22nd, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called for a “snap” general election to elect a new parliament on July 4th. In other words, the voters across the pond in our sister democracy and mother country will use the next five weeks to decide on the future control of their government. This means it will take Americans 17 times longer to elect a president and congress than the 43 days the Brits will invest in choosing a Prime Minister and Parliament.
In case you’ve forgotten, Donald Trump formally launched his third candidacy for the White House on November 15, 2022, giving the electorate two years to decide whether they want to change their minds about him and provide a new lease on the Oval Office. Joe Biden announced his own re-election bid on April 25, 2023, and quickly began raising and spending money at a record-breaking pace to ensure that a weary electorate will give him another chance to lead the Republic.
Polls indicate that Americans are already exhausted, bored and frustrated by the ongoing, seemingly endless duel between stale old-timers (aged 82 and 78, respectively, at the time of the next inauguration). No wonder the campaign feels like it’s been going on forever, and the prospect of earlier-than-ever debates won’t do much to stir up a new surge of public excitement. The core problem isn’t the age of the contenders; it’s the sheer, mind-numbing length of the campaign.
That’s especially true because the public has already lived through one Trump vs. Biden battle royal, and the tired sequel offers little in the way of exciting new characters, or surprise plot twists. In the four full months that the American campaign will still stagger forward after the Brits have made their own fateful decision, what more could the US electorate possibly learn about the two contenders or their plans for the future?
No other nation endures a system where politics at various levels—federal, state and local—takes up so much time and distorts and distracts so shamefully from the more serious business of governing. The perpetual campaigning that absorbs nearly all office-holders or wannabes also contributes to another fundamental problem with our system as it currently functions: the obscene cost of running for office. Increasingly, candidacy for high public positions has become exclusively an endeavor for the profoundly wealthy. One candidate, David Trone, who made a fortune selling wine, managed to spend $61 million of that money to compete in a Democratic Senate primary which he lost—badly.
The tragedy is that all of the billions (literally) expended on media ads and other forms of campaigning do nothing to elevate, inspire or educate the public. In fact, because most advertising means to discredit opponents rather than glorify the candidate himself, the permanent campaign contributes mightily to negative impressions of where we stand as a nation, and where we might be going.
To get a different impression of how a democratic republic can function, we might want to go to Britain (or Canada, for that matter, or even Israel) to see how other nations limit the time they spend on election campaigns without compromising the quality of the leadership that results. Adding months, even years, to the campaign process doesn’t guarantee statesmen of greater stature, but it does favor those with a high tolerance for insults, nastiness and non-stop efforts to smear and discredit the other side.
This year, in the United Kingdom, the Labour Party under Keir Starmer is heavily favored over the battered and divided Tories under Prime Minister Sunak, but all commentators still make a point of promising that five weeks is plenty of time for a turn-around or an upset. Extending a campaign is no guarantee of more substantive disagreement or a more enlightening engagement with the issues.
For Americans, who already feel overdosed on the dreary current campaign, it’s inevitable that most people feel that our lives are too much consumed and polluted by polarizing politics. We may not be able to change the fundamental nature of the system, but it would help the country if we were force-fed less of what seems to amount to increasingly nasty and meaningless endurance contests.