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Comment by analogwzrd | Hacker News Reader

I think it's a mistake to look for leaders in our elected officials. In general, politicians poll their constituents and their platform changes to mirror what their constituents want in order to continue being re-elected. Sometimes whenever a politician "flip flops" it's because they're changing their position to better align with their constituents.

But this also means that public policy lags public opinion. If you want new (govenrment) solutions, you have to change public opinion first.

Change the public opinion and the politicians will follow but I wouldn't expect them to take the lead.

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" politicians poll their constituents and their platform changes to mirror what their constituents want in order to continue being re-elected"

Except that the EU has nothing to do with elections, and they are utterly tone-deaf to the will of the public. EU leadership are sometimes openly contemptuous to the will of the people.

Even this is from the Telegraph ... they are still actual Junker quotes: [1]

So European leaders already think they get to 'do as Europe needs without interference from pesky voters' and yet this is where we are.

I don't think the answer is in our political leadership either - they only have so much knowledge, ability.

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/1096716...

> In general, politicians poll their constituents and their platform changes to mirror what their constituents want in order to continue being re-elected

I find that in the UK the right-wing media tell everybody what they want, the BBC then takes that as rote and amplifies it. The officials then mirror that.

Take the immigration issue as a case in point to demonstrate (I am not going to argue the rights and wrongs of immigration itself so don't bother commenting, this is a meta-comment). The current PM talked about reducing immigration constantly as Home Secretary (mirroring the Daily Mail). As PM she has done the same. Recently a story came out that she tried to suppress reports that immigration was a benefit to the economy on multiple occasions. A recent report said that immigrants on average were more of a benefit to the economy than native Brits.

This seems to me nothing like mirroring public opinion, and instead they are trying to bend facts to fit the newspapers narrative, so they will get coverage.

I think we do need leadership from elected officials, otherwise 'public opinion' is lead by the press barons.

> ... they are trying to bend facts to fit the newspapers narrative, so they will get coverage.

I think we can all agree that that is politics, but not leadership. Politicians are active players in the game of politics, no argument.

So I suppose the null hypothesis is that the current PM has a large contingency of voters who don't like immigration (who are also pandered to by the Daily Mail), and is trying to represent them. I really like that one - a politician who attempts to show leadership _will_ be controversial and resisted. Democracies settle uncontroversial issues extremely quickly, then settle into an awkward status-quo with competing interest groups, where any change advantages some and disadvantages others. Someone who tries to lead anywhere new will face fierce opposition.

Are you fundamentally saying that that null hypothesis is wrong? What are you proposing replaces it?

The apathy hypothesis?

This is a very common argument and I find it weird.

I guess if you are a democrat, and at the same time have your own political ideas, the fact that many people disagree with you causes some cognitive dissonance. A nice solution is to think that the populace has been misled by the Yellow Press.

This story might have worked in the 1990s when it was the Sun Wot Won It (the 1997 election, for non-Brits). Since then, the media market has exploded and anyone can now reach thousands of alternative news sources. Simultaneously, public opinion has got much more anti-immigration. How does this data fit the theory of manipulation by press barons?

People are/were more susceptible to easy lies that made them the victim. The equilibrium shifted, and a feedback loop started.

It's not the number of media outlets, it's the number of narratives and which one is winning people's hearts and minds. And the truth be damned.

Maybe this is correct: Maybe, politicians are and should be followers instead of leaders. Doing the books, checking the stuff they propose is sane, and let other people do the great vision and inspiring. But that's not how they profile themselves today.

As I write this, a ycombinatorish analogy pops up: It seems we have Tim Cook in our governement but want Steve Jobs.

political systems are way too inefficient. It's known for long:

- snake oil campaigning

- a good chunk of the mandate is devoted to try to be reelected

- candidates are often vaguely different shades of gray

- voters cannot make a good decision, too much bipartisan reflex, not enough time to understand the complexity .. basically blind trust and group-dynamics

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