Everyone talks about the political polarization, but apart from radical changes (for example, the abolition of the right to abortion) which also do not affect everyone, how much does a change of the presidency (Democrats replace Republicans and vice versa) affect your daily life? (asked by a non-American)
27 comments
Local? Sure. State? Maybe. Federal? Eh.
The federal govt affects people a whole lot less than their local and state does, partially because a lot of legislation is passed through state and less through feds.
The priorities of the federal government changes, but most peoples daily life changes very little.
That’s what’s funny, the federal government has the least affect on your daily life, but gets the most attention. The exact opposite is true for local elections.
local yes, state yes, federal sometimes. the federal government does a lot of sort of big strategic things, so you don’t always feel them in the short term. But over the long term it’s just as important.
Like right now, there’s a lot of money going into infrastructure thanks to the BIF. Not everybody is going to see the new construction and think “oh, that’s thanks to the federal investment in our aging infrastructure”, but it is still an important strategic thing that does affect our everyday lives.
Things like food safety and aviation safety are also good examples — you don’t think about it very often, but you’d notice real quick if the federal government stopped doing that. So if a change of government endangered that, it would have real effects on everyday life.
It doesn’t. The vast majority of the time, it’s just a side show and theater. The people actually in control owns both parties.
Not by much. The system is designed so it’s not all replaced all at once. It’s like Theseus’ Ship
For rich white Christian men not much negatives, they’re the ones making all the decisions for both parties, so they’re not going to hurt themselves.
For minorities, women, sick people, poor, non Christian could be a lot positives or negatives.
For instance health care changes can mean a tremendous difference in your life for chronic conditions, going bankrupt, having healthcare.
Abortion for women as you stated.
Gay rights can mean you can transfer wealth legally to your offspring, or legally have adoptive kids to begin with or even get married to begin with.
For minorities that could mean the loss or gain of affirmative action.
For poor people could mean housing, food stamps, Healthcare positives or negatives
The bureaucracy below the very top levels doesn’t change and the laws don’t change at that moment so there is a lot of continuity. Of course, over time, more things can change. But keep in mind, a president of one party can be elected at the same time both houses of Congress have a majority from the other party, so there’s likely even less effect in that case. More compromises have to happen.
It’s always been recognized that the biggest changes are possible in foreign policy because, under the Constitution, that is the president’s job primarily. He has much less direct oversight by Congress there, although not none. So he can chart a new path easier.
Once cabinet heads (nominated by the president) have been confirmed, which need approval from Congress, even in opposition, then those heads can start to implement new ideas and directions in the bureaucracy, but not always as effectively as you might assume. The bureaucracies are large and many people working there are in career positions so they have quite a bit of built up influence. Many have watched lots of presidents come and go and they are still there.
So, yes, it does make a difference, especially if the president and Congress are from the same party and they can pass new laws easier, but most things stay mostly the same because most of government is technocratic and does repetitive administrative tasks. But every president tries to make some kind of immediate impact with some signature policy changes.
It changes the news cycle. Legislation is written by aides, not by elected representatives anyway. The President largely does what his aides and the professionals tell him to do. It’s just a matter of which side is cheering various mundane government actions and which side is cursing them.
Quite a lot. 40 million people just became felons over the weekend thanks to Biden’s ATF.
It really just depends. A person feels the most impact from changes in their local/state. eg: abortion bans that went up as soon as Roe v Wade was overturned while the fed government didn’t/can’t do much to stop that. However, the fed gov always has the most potential to impact someone’s daily life. A thing to watch in the coming future could be a showdown between Dems and Republicans over the debt ceiling limit where vital social services like SNAP, medicare, social security, WIC, etc. could face getting cut/temporarily stopped due to differences over the debt limit.
Yes, but it takes time for changes to filter through because our government is slow by design.
Your governor and major are more important
The biggest difference is a change of party, but even a different leader or lawmaker from the same party as the previous can make some difference. For example, Democrat Josh Shapiro was sworn in today as Governor of PA and he has at least one Republican in his cabinet. As far as I know Tom Wolf (also a Democrat) had none. For a federal example Democrat John Fetterman replaced Republican Pat Toomey as the junior Senator from PA when the new Congress was sworn in on January 3^rd and now that the House has a Speaker we can see what the big guy will do.
Many Americans spend their entire life completely ignoring politics.
Yes, all levels change. For instance, under one president, women lost the right to reproductive healthcare and thousands of Americans died from a botched response to COVID.
Definitely, especially when it comes to judges.
It depends. Growing up my dad was in aerospace, so defense spending decisions quite literally uprooted our life and sent us across the country once. Specifically the cancellation of most planned B-2 production, in that case.
I dont understand. You are asking if it makes a difference but in your very first sentence you acknowledge that it causes radical changes…
Historically the changes can be slow and generally mild with respect to the impact on daily life. However COVID brought out extreme differences that had significant impacts on people’s daily lives.
Places with democrats in power were subjected to very strong restrictions, rules, mandates, policies – etc and many of these things lingered for years, and some of the policies were almost comically detailed and draconian. My favorite was the video of the park director in New York explaining how to “safely” play tennis without touching each others balls my marking dots on them. Even outdoor things like golf were banned in California.
Republican areas had some of these things too but they tended to be much less rigorous and short lived.
The President’s partisan affiliation is important, but the overall dynamic and the personalities involved is also important.
Are you asking if federal policy influences a person’s life? How could it not?
In terms of the legislative branch at the federal level, not a ton. The system is set up essentially to where things can only pass the Senate with 60 yes votes thanks to the filibuster, and it’s highly unlikely either party will get that large of a majority any time soon, so the only stuff that can pass is things with some level of bipartisan support. So if, say, Republicans wanted to ban abortion nationwide, they’d probably need 60 Senators to make it happen, and then hope that all 60 toe the party line (not all Republicans favor a total ban,) which makes it highly unlikely to happen.
At the state level, this is rare, because one party having total control of everything is quite common.
It’s different for everyone and depends on what you have going on in life. For me, who the president is doesn’t affect my life at all.
It doesn’t. The policies actually followed by our two parties don’t actually differ to any great degree; at most, short-term changes are proposed to rally the base against the opposition, and they’re flip-flopped back and forth. It’s the long-term stuff that’s slow and inexorable.
I don’t know what it’s like in other countries, but the political system in the US is a gigantic scam that’s designed to make people feel they’re winning victories constantly yet content with not getting the things they want.
The so-called elites of both sides are 2 sides of the same coin. They are corrupt as hell. The changes if any are usualy minute.
I remember once being quite huffy and upset about George Bush being president and invading Iraq and how everything was crap now.
I perchance happened to watch the evil FoxNews for some reason which was asking if peoples every day lives were better or worse than 4 years ago.
Realistically, ignoring the awful things in the world, yeah my daily life was slightly improved.
I don’t know if this is a trick question designed to make us ignore awful policy or designed to put things into a little more perspective. But it did make me stop and think a little bit.
I still don’t like the policies from that era though.
So anyway, to answer this question – for a lot of people, nothing really changes, no. For others, some policy changes can potentially mean a difference between life and death.