Pledge Not That We Be Not Pledged

Politicians are liars.  Who would dare dispute the essence of this sentiment (excluding those who merely take exception to the specious generality of it)?  This does not bode well for democratic governance, of course, which is predicated on the fealty of public servants to the interests of those who elect them.  And though the democratic formula is generally desirable, the well-established affinity for mendacity common to those who seek elected office can be counted as among its many flaws (democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others which have been tried, as Churchill famously said).  Where does a population, faced with a slew of prevaricating schmoozers jockeying to "represent" it, find a proper leash to keep them in line?

Enter the "pledge."  A growing movement in US democracy favors binding politicians to various commitments before they win office, often by means of a written pledge to do, or not to do specified things.  The hapless candidate-signatory voluntarily dons a "straitjacket," to use the term applied by Time magazine's Alex Altman (which not so subtly conveys the crooked image of American politicians).  Of late, political pledges are the subject of much partisan fulmination.  As the Nation approaches the "fiscal cliff," we hear thunderous condemnation of the "narrow-minded" conservative pledge not to raise taxes, and calumnious attacks against Grover Norquist, the conservative figure behind the decades-old anti-tax pledge, which has been adopted by the majority of Republicans in the House and Senate.

Such ire is misplaced.  Today, American democracy is built upon pledges.  American political campaigns are, in fact, little more than a series of pledges in which candidates advertise immodest promises to potential voters.  The voter is an ideological entrepreneur who makes a political investment in the candidate whose promises most closely align with the voter's personal preferences.  The voter-investor model does face a serious problem, however: what sort of cretinous investor bequeaths his trust to a chameleonic politician whose first--and sometimes only--allegiance is to his own quest for power?  Politicians "will say anything to get elected," as the saying goes. 

Think of the pledge in this context.  Nettled by the consistent misrepresentations of elected office, the voting public--or, if you prefer the Orwellian pejorative, "special interest groups"--devised the pledge as a means of reprimanding mendacious politicians, thus ensuring that the process of voting more closely resembles that of making sensible investments, where some safeguard is in place against the malfeasance of the chosen vehicle  The pledge is the voters' method of ensuring that the lofty guarantees of candidates are effectuated once in office. 

If we ask Time's Alex Altman, the problem with this is self-evident.  The "straitjacket" in which the pledge binds the politician militates against good governance.  The purchase price of fidelity is flexibility.  This sentiment is echoed by many others, who feel that there is an element of myopia in "tying the hands" of a politician before election.  These metaphors--"tying the hands," "straitjacket"--are merely cacophonistic representations of methods aimed at ensuring political accountability.  If voters don't want higher taxes, and they invest their votes in a candidate who pledges not to raise taxes, from what scorn for democracy is criticism of this pledge borne?  It seems this kind of pledge is merely the democratic process operating effectively.  Hostility for democracy is thus embedded in criticisms of the pledge itself.  More justifiable acrimony must target the root of the problem.

As STRATFOR's George Friedman wrote earlier this year, "[t]he American presidency is designed to disappoint."  Friedman was remarking on the wide gulf between the quixotic promises of candidates and what it is possible to achieve within the constraints of elected office.  Friedman's observation is true of American politics generally.  Candidates insist on promising the world to voters in order to secure office, knowing they can find lubricious ways to justify themselves when they inevitably fail to deliver.  President Obama's lamentation of the mess he "inherited" when confronted about his broken promises is a typical example of this.  In short: the root of the problem, out of which the pledge is borne, is a serious lack of accountability in American democracy. 

As voters, we partially inflict this problem on ourselves.  We appear unduly credulous when we receive, with great frisson, the lofty and unrealistic promises of political candidates.  We know, or we should know, that firm promises are stupid.  Ultimately, only circumstance will--and should--decide whether a politician can abide by his promises or not.  In some cases, it may be disastrous for a politician to rigidly adhere to his promises or pledges--the "fiscal cliff," for example.  If voters refused to tolerate heedless promise-making on the campaign trail, and repudiated candidates who engaged in it, we might attract more accountable, more responsible candidates.  We also might not see so many of the promises we place our faith in broken before our eyes.

Candidates, of course, also play their role in this sordid game of nonsense-peddling.  In order to reduce instances of pledge-making, and free their own hands, candidates should refuse to condescend to voters by offering firm commitments that may be unachievable.  Candidates should treat voters like adults by framing promises as goals, and by honestly informing them of the variables at play in determining whether those goals will be met.  Candidates should avoid empty slogans like "change we can believe in," which might win marketing awards but which do not amount to responsible democratic conduct.  If the problem is a race to the bottom, in which candidates fear their opponents will engage in this behavior if they opt-out, thus securing an advantage, the candidate should respond not by stooping to the level of prevarication and demagogy, but by illustrating the folly of the opponent's tactic.  In other words, treating voters like adults.

Criticizing the pledge in and of itself is anti-democratic and absurd.  What possible reason could there be, if one accepts the logic of democracy, to scorn measures aimed at ensuring the accountability of politicians to the voting public?  But pledges are dangerous when they produce inflexibility and rigid obstinacy.  The dangers of pledge-making should be confronted by reducing the influence of the root cause of it: a condescending electoral process.  If this shift occurs, fewer promises will be broken and voters will less often feel betrayed.  This is the proper way to root out "pledges" in politics.