# "Vote all you want. The secret government won’t change."
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [October 29, 2014, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830 "2014-10-29T03:31:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/1 "2014-10-29T03:31:40Z")
[Professor Michael Glennon argues that the U.S. President has less power than is thought.](http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/10/18/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-change/jVSkXrENQlu8vNcBfMn9sL/story.html?p1)
> [@](#):
>
> Why did the face in the Oval Office change but the policies remain the same? Critics tend to focus on Obama himself, a leader who perhaps has shifted with politics to take a harder line. But Tufts University political scientist Michael J. Glennon has a more pessimistic answer: Obama couldn’t have changed policies much even if he tried.
> …
> The presidency itself is not a top-down institution, as many people in the public believe, headed by a president who gives orders and causes the bureaucracy to click its heels and salute. National security policy actually bubbles up from within the bureaucracy. Many of the more controversial policies, from the mining of Nicaragua’s harbors to the NSA surveillance program, originated within the bureaucracy. John Kerry was not exaggerating when he said that some of those programs are “on autopilot.”
> …
> The ultimate problem is the pervasive political ignorance on the part of the American people… The people have to take the bull by the horns. And that’s a very difficult thing to do, because the ignorance is in many ways rational. There is very little profit to be had in learning about, and being active about, problems that you can’t affect, policies that you can’t change.
Glennon focuses on defense and security. I wonder if similar arguments apply to financial misregulation.
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### Author:  [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/2 "2014-10-29T03:56:41Z")
I’m sorry, is this news to anyone? George Carllin was [saying pretty much the same thing fifteen years ago](http://shoqvalue.com/george-carlin-on-the-american-dream-with-transcript/).
“It’s called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
God, I miss the Bard of Profanity.
Stranger
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/3 "2014-10-29T04:50:15Z")
I hate to point out the obvious. But we get the government we want. Not the government we say we want; the government we really want.
If we really wanted change, we’d have it. But what we actually want is the same system with a change of sides. We complain about how the other side is doing something and then we do the same thing when we get a chance.
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### Author:  [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/4 "2014-10-29T06:18:21Z")
Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but I’m not getting how this aspect of government is “secret.”
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/5 "2014-10-29T06:48:47Z")
> [@Leaper](#):
>
> Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but I’m not getting how this aspect of government is “secret.”
I don’t either. I just copied the website’s title.
The effect Glennon talks about (rule by bureaucracy) isn’t the same Carlin talks about (rule by the rich), though Carlin’s is closer to my concern about financial misregulation.
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### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/6 "2014-10-29T07:40:47Z")
When Dwight Eisenhower won the 1952 election, Harry Truman allegedly said something like (quoting from memory from a biography I read some years ago):
“Poor Dwight! It won’t be anything like the military. He’ll sit in his chair and say ‘Do this! Do that!’ And _nothing will happen!_”
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### Author:  [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/7 "2014-10-29T09:06:14Z")
One of the standout features of most elections is that in a two party race each party tends to get about 50% of the vote. From one angle this seems strange: you have two different candidates, why doesn’t one come out way ahead? Voting on other non-political things, say songs or cars or whatever, often produces a very clear winner. Why is politics so evenly divided?
The reason is that politicians in general and presidential candidates in particular are not formed independently of voting, they are instead shaped entirely by voting. On all major vote changing issues both candidates adopt the position supported by the majority of voters. Each party jockeys their position towards a central position, adopting all popular positions to the greatest extent they can without losing more votes than they gain. The result is that the parties mirror one another in most respects, and the election is fought out on minor points or personality.
It’s easy to overlook the essential commonality of positions because elections are not fought out on issues over which politicians agree: there is no point in the candidates talking about things which don’t distinguish them from the opposition. So elections are an endless re-hashing of noisy sideshow issues over which politicians can safely bicker because they know their position won’t lose them more votes than they gain.
I agree with what Glennon says, but his answer to the question “Why did the face in the Oval Office change but the policies remain the same?” is only a part (and maybe a small part) of the story. The other part is that the policies remain the same because:
- for the most part any policy that a clear majority of people support has already been implemented, and
- any policy not supported by anything less than a clear majority won’t be pursued because people are more aggravated by change than by problems with the status quo, so there is a bias against change.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/8 "2014-10-29T12:12:41Z")
We do need to take the bull by the horns. But it’s a big sweaty bad-tempered animal and probably would just toss us in a steaming heap of political manure, where only the flies of special interests feast.
Sadly, liberty has been thrown under the bus. The boots of ordinary citizens need to be on the ground made sacred by our forefathers in order to effect real change. Voting is for saps.
Wake up, sheeple! It’s time for a double espresso of reality!!!
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/9 "2014-10-29T12:34:39Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Why did the face in the Oval Office change but the policies remain the same?
It comes down to the fact that making soundbites on the campaign trail is a lot easier than enacting policy.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/10 "2014-10-29T12:54:44Z")
There are really 3 issues here. Various posters have mentioned most of them.
1. Politically, the positions staked out by the 2 parties are not that far apart. They talk a more disparate game than they actually play. And the media further amplifies the talking disparities.
2. The executive branch is a large & therefore inherently unwieldy bureaucracy which responds only slowly and incrementally to direction from the sitting President.
3. The executive branch is not all-powerful. Congress & the courts have a huge say in both what can and can’t be done, and also what the priorities are between various permissible activities.
a. The outside world also sets a lot of the agenda. Imagine how much more either GWB or Obama could have gotten done domestically if absolutely nothing significant had happened in the Middle East, China, or Russia since about 1998.
Ultimately, the office of the President is an influencer, not a controller. A uniquely powerful influencer, but an influencer nonetheless.
It is amazing to me how many Americans seem to lust for a dictatorial President whose Word is Law planet-wide. Funny how they always seem more comfortable with the idea of President-as-Dictator when he’s of their party. IMO, if you think you want the President to cut through all the red tape and opposition and “just make it happen”, you fundamentally don’t understand what the United States stands for.
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/11 "2014-10-29T13:44:43Z")
The other thing is, some people can’t understand that the real-world President Obama that actually exists is a different man than the fantasy President Obama that they’ve created in their dreams. He’s not a stealth leftist anticolonialist marxist who has been either fortunately or unfortunately prevented from carrying out his radical agenda by the powers that be. He’s a middle of the road centrist by temperament.
It’s not surprising that Obama hasn’t enacted his radical agenda when you realize he doesn’t have and never had a radical agenda. Only in the context of Fox News does “Maybe we don’t get involved in so many wars?” seem radical.
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### Author:  [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/12 "2014-10-29T13:48:54Z")
Part of the problem with Prof. Glennon’s thesis is that some in the public have projected their own views onto Obama, and assumed that because his slogan was “change” that he automatically embraced their own particular views, regardless of his actual stated positions.
For example, Obama surged more troops into Afghanistan. Some of his supporters felt betrayed by this policy, because they believed Obama would get us out of foreign wars. In reality, Obama’s positions during the 2008 campaign were crystal clear: wrap up in Iraq and send more troops to Afghanistan. The problem is that some of his supporters simply were not listening. It seems that Prof Glennon would tend to blame this “secret government” for policies such as the surge, but let’s get real – the disconnect is that many people simply projected their own views onto Obama.
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### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/13 "2014-10-29T14:24:15Z")
What the government does is with the consent of the electorate. But the mass of classified and secret documents, which might otherwise expose what the government does, seems to be measured by the cubic mile. Voters have no idea what they are consenting to when they elect a government. No congressman (nor his staffers collectively) has read more than a small fraction of the content of the bills upon which he votes.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/14 "2014-10-29T15:03:41Z")
> [@Princhester](#):
>
> The other part is that the policies remain the same because:
>
> - for the most part any policy that a clear majority of people support has already been implemented, and
>
> - any policy not supported by anything less than a clear majority won’t be pursued because people are more aggravated by change than by problems with the status quo, so there is a bias against change.
Good points. But there’s another important point.
- People generally simplify issues when they’re talking about them. But when you actually try to do something about the issue, you have to address the entire issue and not just the easy parts people talk about. People say they want a change but they often balk at the costs and consequences and difficulties associated with that change.
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### Author:  [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/15 "2014-10-29T15:40:16Z")
I answer a question with a question. If voting didn’t matter, would people be expending so much effort to keep you from doing it?
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### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/16 "2014-10-29T16:16:43Z")
> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> When Dwight Eisenhower won the 1952 election, Harry Truman allegedly said something like (quoting from memory from a biography I read some years ago):
>
> “Poor Dwight! It won’t be anything like the military. He’ll sit in his chair and say ‘Do this! Do that!’ And _nothing will happen!_”
This is awesome. I’d love to see the exact quote–any chance you remember what book it was or anything?
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/17 "2014-10-29T16:43:25Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#):
>
> I answer a question with a question. If voting didn’t matter, would people be expending so much effort to keep you from doing it?
Super point! And why would political advertising get so many millions of dollars?
That’s where I see the problem: we’re swayed by the ads! A big, flashy, multi-million dollar ad campaign actually changes the outcome of an election. It’s our own damn fault that we let those damn things influence us.
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### Author:  [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/18 "2014-10-29T17:09:01Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> I hate to point out the obvious. But we get the government we want. Not the government we say we want; the government we really want.
>
> If we really wanted change, we’d have it. But what we actually want is the same system with a change of sides. We complain about how the other side is doing something and then we do the same thing when we get a chance.
This is it in a nutshell.
As individual voters we all say that we want change, we want to see our issues addressed and we want our elected politicians to _get things done_. That is what we tell ourselves when we talk about politics and the way government works. This is our motivation for voting. Doesn’t matter which side of the aisle your preferences are, that is what we say we want. We want to change different things at different times for different reasons, but dammit, _change that shit_!
But what to we really want? What do we vote for time after time?
Gridlock, that is what we want!!! And that is what we get. We hate and distrust change and we love gridlock. What, you say? That’s crazy! As individual voters we think gridlock is wrong but if you think of the entire voting public as a Borg-like collective mind, that collective wants little change and loves gridlock.
We are about to perform this same cycle again in a week. The Executive branch is in control of the Democrats and so the collective mind will vote both houses of the Legislature to the Republicans. What happens should a Republican be elected president next cycle, do you think the Legislature will remain in Republican control? Oh, hell no, at least not for long, the Democrats will regain control of one or both houses.
These cycles act as an anchor or brake to slow down changes that might be destructive if allowed to happen too fast. What gets through the system is a watered down version of the original intent that pleases nobody.
Our collective voting mind seems to prefer this set up. And I tend to agree with the collective mind. The difference between the Democrats and Republicans is mostly cosmetic. Like the difference between a Camaro and a Firebird, 98% of the parts are interchangeable, made and financed by the same people. Choose the trim level you prefer because you are going to get the same thing either way.
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### Author:  [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/19 "2014-10-29T17:23:28Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> 1. The executive branch is not all-powerful. Congress & the courts have a huge say in both what can and can’t be done, and also what the priorities are between various permissible activities.
(snipped by me)
This is something a lot of people don’t seem to understand. I have relatives who are convinced that if only they could get the right person elected president abortion would be outlawed the next day but no president has had the moral fiber to do it.
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### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-t-change/702830/20 "2014-10-29T17:37:18Z")
> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> When Dwight Eisenhower won the 1952 election, Harry Truman allegedly said something like (quoting from memory from a biography I read some years ago):
>
> “Poor Dwight! It won’t be anything like the military. He’ll sit in his chair and say ‘Do this! Do that!’ And _nothing will happen!_”
Ironic coming from a man who had a plaque on his desk saying “The Buck Stops Here!”…
> [@Jackmannii](#):
>
> Sadly, liberty has been thrown under the bus. The boots of ordinary citizens need to be on the ground made sacred by our forefathers in order to effect real change. Voting is for saps.
The problem with that is that the boots of ordinary citizens often march to _maintain_ the current system, or even expand its powers.
Wasn’t there an apocryphal story about Obama being ushered, soon after his election, into a secret meeting with the top bureaucrats? And that he exited that meeting with a pale shade of green on his shocked face?
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