The Will of The People

What most of don't think about is that our elected representatives are under no obligation to vote in such a way that represents the will of the majority of their constituents. Sure, we can vote them out the first chance that we get, or in some jurisdictions recall them, but as long as they can portray themselves at least as the lesser of two evils, they're going to get elected again...and again.

Two good examples in Nebraska are the attempts to restrict abortion so much that it's effectively outlawed and the bill that is on its way to approval that will provide generous tax credits (not deductions, but credits) to anyone donating to a private school - sending tax dollars by a circuitous route to non-public schools, over which the local school boards and the Department of Education have no jurisdiction. In recent polling, Nebraskans support a legal right to abortion 54-46% and oppose state tax money going to private schools by over 60%. So how is the "will of the people" being so egregiously flouted?

The problem is that most voters are not informed on the issues and cast their ballots for emotional reasons, not rational ones. Emotions are inflamed by lobbying groups who use their resources to tell people what's important and paint anyone who disagrees with them as radical, extremist, traitorous, communist, anti-God. Look at our current governor - who knew what his legislative priorities would be in any detail before the election? Despite refusing to participate in open debates in either the primary or the general election on the grounds that they were political theater, his ads were not much more than him posing with a gun while wearing hunting gear and blathering about "Nebraska values". Any statements that he did make, in safe venues, concentrated on culture war issues, such as Critical Race Theory (which isn't taught in any K-12 schools), accusing the Democrats (as if we had many around here) of being socialists and ranting that "killing babies" had to stop. 

For quite a few years a significant majority of Nebraska voters have elected only Republicans in statewide elections. There's Democrats elected in Lincoln and Omaha, but that's about it. With the Trumpification of the Republican Party, especially in rural areas, Republican office-seekers win in primaries simply by being more Trumpy than the other guy. They don't even need to articulate any kind of vision, just that the Democratic opponent is...a Democrat. Once in, they can do whatever they choose. And since a moderate Republican has become virtually extinct in Nebraska, once they get in, they're going to be more egregiously right wing than previous generations of Republicans. And for the majority of Nebraska voters everything's fine until some of these reactionary laws effect them.