Status Quo Voting

I've written too many words about the lack of civic engagement and how I wish it would reverse course; there are too many extremists involved in all levels of politics and civic organizations.

But I have a new theory to explain the decline: most people do not want to vote. They just want to live their lives and not be bothered. The only thing that can motivate them to change their plans—so that they drive to their local voting location and cast their ballot—is the fear that if they don't, something will fundamentally alter their lives. Let's call it status quo voting.

• The Lewinsky scandal and Gore's stiff, elitism turned many non voters into status quo voters who just wanted a regular guy who would have a beer with them. 
• When Regular Guy George W. Bush started an unpopular war, became a polarizing figure, fought against growing-in-popularity marriage equality, and his regularness started coming off as dumb, newly-formed status quo voters supported Obama. They wanted an intellectual, a uniter, someone dovish and progressive.
  (I have trouble explaining what happened next but I'll do my best.)
• Many non partisan doves disliked Obama's foreign policy, and believed Trump's nationalism would be less likely to engage in future wars. That was part of the Trump coalition. Many thought Clinton was too elitist/woke and continued to ignore the effects of automation. A lot of people just didn't like the Clinton brand and voted against it. 
• There were also probably a good number of non voters for whom status quo means fewer immigrants, no more "press 1 for English", and a return to calling the town's "Holiday Tree" the "Christmas Tree". Status quo means the 1950s and Trump was the first candidate to promise such a thing. Yes, racism. I'm talking about racism.

The natural impulse of status quo voters is to vote for the candidate who most opposes the things they hate about the other party. But there is a better solution that doesn't come to us so intuitively.

Instead, status quo voters should vote for moderates in the party they hate. They will do a better job of watering down the extremism. Voting for extremists to fight the party you hate will only motivate other status quo voters to support extremists that fight back. Scott Alexander found this phenomenon while researching the effects of extremist candidates on voter turnout.

This goes back to my equilibrium problem. Things are better when there is equilibrium within institutions as opposed to among institutions.

So if you don't vote but you hate the AOC-style woke brigade, don't turnout for someone like Ted Cruz, vote for someone like Katie Hill, Abigail Spanberger, or any of the new moderate Democrats who "are less interested in a 70 percent top tax rate or a Green New Deal than they are in passing targeted fixes to protect the Affordable Care Act and lower the cost of health care, promoting renewable energy, and maybe looking for an infrastructure deal to fix crumbling roads and boost rural broadband to speed up slow internet in their districts."

If you don't vote but you hate Trumpian nationalism, Randian libertarianism, or McConnell's stubbornness, don't vote for the Squad, vote for someone like Suzanne Collins, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, or some new Republican challenger in the same vein.

You're more likely to find something resembling the status quo by moderating the thing you hate than emboldening somebody to fight it. Otherwise you get stuck in a ping pong match of over corrections.