You don't hate Congress. You hate losing.

Losing in a democracy sucks. And you usually lose.

News flash: Congress is not popular. In the April Gallup poll, Congress had an approval rating of 16%, which was actually up from it’s 11% number in February.

Nor is Congress ever popular. Here’s the Gallup congressional job approval question from 1974 to the present:

This is an average approval of 28.7% over the period of 1974-present. And although there are fluctuations, Congress is rarely over 50%, and only once significantly so: the 84% approval achieved in the October 1, 2001 poll in the wake of 9/11. Which reverted downward back toward the norm almost immediately over the following three months. Thing have been particularly bad for Congress’ approval since 2010, with Congress routinely below 20% and occasionally down below 10%.¹

Congress is never popular.

If you ask people, why they hate Congress, you’ll hear complaints across a host of different dimensions:

• productivity (“they don’t do anything”)

• corruption (“it’s just greedy politicians”)

• atmosphere/conflict (“i wish they would work together”, “all they do is fight”)

• self-interest (“they only want to get reelected”, “they only care about politics”)

• unrepresentative (“they’re out of touch”, “they only care about special interests”)

When I talk to groups about Congress, I almost always ask people why they hate Congress and I almost always hear all of the above answers. And I don’t doubt that people are being sincere when they say these things. I mean, I’ve been the kid on the other end of the phone in a congressional office. People hate Congress, and the passion they bring to hating it is genuine.

But my strong hunch is that all of these answers you hear are actually proxies for a single underlying thing people actually hate.

They hate losing.

Losing in a democracy stinks

There’s no two ways about it. Losing in a democracy stinks. It stinks in Congress. It stinks at the PTA meeting² It stink at the HOA meeting. It stinks in the church basement budget meeting. It stink when you are deciding where to go out to dinner with your family. It stinks when you are trying to decide what movie to watch with your brothers. Anytime you are in a group decision-making situation—and look, Congress really isn’t any different than a PTA meeting—it’s just not fun to lose.

And it’s stinks twice as bad to lose when you know you were right but you got outvoted by idiots. When my kids were little, my wife and I would routinely take them out to dinner on Friday night. When I asked them where they wanted to go, they would invariably answer “Chick-fil-A.” Now, I like Chick-fil-A as much as anyone—I’m a big fan of the Spicy Chicken Deluxe—but I don’t want to go there every Friday. So my wife would often gently say something like, “girls, why don’t we go to Taco Bamba tonight?” and my oldest daughter would usually snap back with “let’s just vote.”

So many different group decision-making venues where idiots can outvote you!

And this is why you might not want to have three kids. It forces you to decide between promoting good small-r republican values with your children, and going to dinner on Friday night somewhere besides Chick-fil-A.

Now look, the solution with small kids is easy enough: you roll them procedurally.³ Just set the agenda unilaterally, don’t ever offer a vote, and tell them we’re all going to Taco Bamba for dinner. Every parent and defense attorney learns this lesson really quickly; don’t ask questions if you aren’t sure you are going to get the answer you want.

But using agenda-setting power and making group decisions without holding votes doesn’t sit well with adults. As much as losing stinks, and as much as losing stinks when you know you are right but get outvoted by idiots, nothing stinks more than losing when know you are right, know you have the votes, but get rolled by someone with procedural power. That is the truly explosive trifecta.

A friend of mine was trying to amend the COVID regulations at our neighborhood pool back in the summer of 2021. We had back-to-back meetings of the pool board and then the general membership. When my friend tried to raise his amendment at the board meeting, the pool president asked him to hold off until the general meeting.

At the general meeting half an hour later, when my buddy tried to bring it up, the pool president told him such an amendment was only in order at the board meeting, then next one of which was in a month, basically after the swim season ended. “Did I just get rolled by McConnell junior?” my friend asked immediately afterward, not even yet livid because he was still in a classic procedural loser daze.⁴

You are going to lose, a lot

Most of the time when you lose in a democracy, you don’t actually lose a vote. The most common way people lose at Congress or the school board or the PTA is that they don’t take up your issue. “When are these idiots going to get around to gun control?!?!?” There is only so much time in a two-year Congress and only so much time on Monday night at the PTA meeting, and there are a heck of a lot of things on the potential agenda, and in all likelihood the issue that you care about most is not going to be high on the priority list.

Of course, sometimes they do take up your issue. And you can lose in the classic fashion, getting outvoted by idiots. “Did you see what Congress did about guns?!?!?! What a bunch of idiots.” But many people get similarly upset when Congress takes up their issue, does what they want, but just doesn’t do enough of it. “We finally get control of Congress, they take up guns, and this is what those idiots do?!?!!??!” Even compromises bother a lot of folks. Some people say they want Congress to “work together.” Often, they’re being disingenuous. They just want to win.

And look, you are going to lose a lot, because in public policy—Congress or the PTA—there are always winners and losers. There’s no way around it. If you take the most simple definition of politics—Who. Gets. What?—you are describing a situation that necessarily involves winners and losers. Don’t like conflict, you say? Well, I have bad news for you: group decision-making is nothing more than the civil adjudication of conflict. Hate it when your uncles are fighting over politics at the Thanksgiving table? Congress is a public Thanksgiving table that never ends.

As James Wallner loves to say, legislative politics is the “negotiation of the non-negotiable.” It’s either this or fistfights. Politics or war. Those are the choices. If someone tells you a public choice doesn’t involve winners and losers—that everyone can win—they are deluding someone, either you or themselves.

And let me be crystal clear about this one: Congress is not in the business of doing unpopular things. I promise you. The vast majority of what Congress does is like 70% popular. No joke. Given how hard it is to do anything in our separation of powers Madisonian system, how could it be any other way? Of course anything that passes in Congress is widely popular. Yes, you can find long-standing party objectives that only poll at 48% or whatever, and corporate tax cuts that don’t poll well, but most of what Congress does is done with massive supermajorities. Like 290+ votes in the House and 65+ votes in the Senate.

Of course, if 70% of people favor a policy, that still means 30% of people don’t. And why don’t those people favor the policy? Probably because they believe they are losing. Maybe they wish Congress was doing something else. Maybe they disagree with the policy. Maybe they agree with the policy but wish Congress would do more on the issue than they are doing. But you can bet they perceive the policy to be bad for them, or for the country, and you can bet that they are sure they are being outvoted or out-maneuvered by idiots.

But it doesn’t really get heated until it gets personal. Do you ever think about federal goat milk subsidies? No? Neither do I. Couldn’t even tell you what Congress has done on the issue. Ever. Seriously, who cares. Goat milk subsidies? Dude.

But know this: there is someone in the United States of America, right now, who is livid about what Congress has done (or not done) about goat milk subsidies. Like can’t-sleep-at-night, won’t-shut-up-about-it-at-breakfast, scream-at-his-neighbors livid. He just got off the phone with some poor kid in his Member’s congressional office, who had to listen to scream Who are you people and why are you idiots running our country?!?!?

Surely, these young staffers are being pleasantly thanks for all they do

Why? Because he knows about goat milk subsidies, cares about goat milk subsidies, and he lost on goat milk subsidies. Maybe the Agricultural Committee never took up the issue. Maybe they took it up and didn’t do what he wanted. Maybe they took it up, did what he wanted, but just not enough of it. But in any case, he lost. Either because he got outvoted by idiots, or the power that be set the agenda and it never got a vote. Honestly doesn’t even matter how.

Now, think about the public policy you care about most. That’s your goat milk subsidy. That’s the issue where if Congress doesn’t take it up, or takes it up and doesn’t do what you want, you are going to go nuts and tell everyone you know what a bunch of idiots run our country.

You get a goat milk subsidy, and you get a goat milk subsidy, and you get…

One iron law of legislative politics is that there is a wild asymmetry between the positive value of doing something good and the negative value of doing something bad. Like, if you are a member of Congress and you do something good for someone on their goat milk subsidy, or if you handle a casework request for them (maybe expediting a passport), they’ll be pretty happy. They might even tell a few friends or neighbors about what you did and how they were happy about it. But if you go against someone on their goat milk subsidy, they are going to tell every single person who will listen what a moron you are and what a bunch of idiots run our country.

A constituent at a town hall meeting, probably upset about his goat milk subsidy

This very much complicates things for Congress. If I listed on a chalkboard 100 things the 117th Congress did—and it did a ton, you definitely can’t charge that Congress with not doing anything—90 of the things on the list you would have never heard of. It’s like the real goat milk subsidy. Who cares.

Then there’d be the 10 other things, and because Congress is not in the business of doing unpopular things, statistically you’d like 6 or 7 of them. Great.

And then there would be those last 3 things. That you know about, care about, and you lost on. And they would drive you insane. And then you could add in 2 or 3 more things that you know about and care about and Congress didn’t bother to take up in the 117th. And that would drive you double insane.

And so when the pollster calls you up and asks you if you approve of Congress, do you think you are going to think about the 90 things you have never heard of? That would be really weird. Are you going to think about the 6 or 7 things Congress did that you like? Probably, that was nice. Are you going to think about the 3 or 4 goat milk subsidies you lost on, and the other 2 or 3 that Congress never even bothered to get around to dealing with? You betcha.

And why are you so angry? Probably because those greedy politicians who don’t think about the voters and only want to get reelected and just cater to special interests and don’t do anything and are just so partisan and all they do is fight and why can’t they just work together.

That’s what you’ll say. But in the end, you’re mad because you lost.

And the catch is that everybody has a different rank ordering of those 100 things. A different 90 they don’t know about, a different 7 they liked, a different 3 goal milk subsidy they lost on, and a different handful of issues Congress never took up. Congress can go around doing things that are 70% popular on a whole lot of issues, and still very easily make everyone mad. It’s baked into the group decision-making cake.

All of this, of course, is exacerbated by the core truth of our system of government: even when you have a huge majority, you can still lose. This gripe—that the system is structured for inaction—is fundamentally true.

Ours is not a majoritarian system, and while knowing the majority of people and/or majority of representatives are on your side might be morally satisfying, it sure as heck isn’t even to ensure you get your goat milk subsidy. And boy, losing a vote when you have the majority—like when a motion fails in the Senate, 53-47—is a recipe for lighting peoples’ hair on fire.

Now, the same logic does prevent Congress from doing things you don’t like when you are in the minority. So it’s not a pure goat milk subsidy loser structure. But it’s also a reminder that a fair number of our complaints about Congress are about Congress the parchment system of constitutional and chamber rules, not Congress the collection of people making group-decisions.

1. As Senator McCain would say, “down to just friends and family.”

2. More on this tomorrow!

3. Like eleven people will find this sentence funny, but those who do will find it incredibly funny.

4. He never did actually get that angry. One reason was that he wasn’t even sure if he had the votes, and based on the people who were there, he came to the conclusion he would have probably lost. But mostly he just couldn’t get past his begrudging admiration that the pool board president had so brazenly rolled him procedurally. He had to credit the hardball tactic.