David Harsanyi on Why Americans Won’t Boot Incumbent Politicians

Even in the most catastrophic year for
congressional incumbents, 90 percent of them will win
re-election—and most of them will do so rather easily. Many of
them, in fact, won’t even have to run a campaign. In 2010, a year
that saw one of the lowest re-election rates in decades after an
eruption of anti-D.C. populism, 9 in 10 House incumbents won their
races. After 2012, the Bloomberg Government Barometer found that 9
in 10 members of the House and Senate won their races as well.

These facts might be somewhat obscured lately, what with all the
talk of a populist insurrection. But the impending revolution has
been on a slow boil, writes David Harsanyi. This doesn’t mean
populist anger isn’t real, that the distrust won’t grow, or that
there won’t be change, he argues. It just means we rarely, if ever,
blame our own. 

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