Every election year, Americans are promised a revolution that never comes. Candidates declare the government has failed, that “the government has let you down,” or that they’ll “meet you where you are.” Then, after the applause fades and the votes are counted, the promises dissolve into the familiar rhythm of partisanship, excuses and stagnation. As we enter another election season, a year removed from a historic vote, we must hold our representatives accountable. Whether electing a governor, attorney general or any other official, accountability is not optional.
The question isn’t merely why politicians break their promises, but why we keep believing them. Most voters recognize that politicians often fall short. Yet each cycle we return, disillusioned but hopeful, buying into the next wave of slogans promising salvation from the system that sustains them. Why do they make these promises, and how can we use that knowledge to better serve the public good?
Political science offers two explanations. Public choice theory, developed by James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, holds that politicians act out of self-interest like anyone else. David Mayhew’s theory of the electoral connection explains what that self-interest entails: the desire to be reelected. Both theories reveal that even the most idealistic rhetoric often masks a practical motive, maintaining office.
Understanding this reveals only half the problem. The other half is ours to solve: What can we do about it? The answer begins not with politicians or parties, but with ourselves, through civic education. By educating ourselves on policy, learning how institutions function and seeking equitable, evidence-based solutions, we gain leverage over those in power. Without this grounding, we remain oblivious to the idealistic framing and anti-intellectual rhetoric dominating politics today. Candidates exploit emotion, presenting the people’s voice as infallible and the government as irredeemable, while offering few workable solutions.
This anti-intellectual trend isn’t confined to one ideology. Many associate it with the right, but both parties have been guilty. When politicians on the left say they will “meet people where they are,” or populists on the right declare “the elites are your enemy,” they’re echoing the same instinct to flatter the voter rather than challenge them. But how can a teacher educate by insisting that students already know everything? How can a doctor heal by declaring that every patient is perfectly healthy?
Civic ignorance is fertile ground for manipulation. The less we understand government, the easier it becomes for politicians to redefine truth to fit their agenda. We become dependent on slogans, not substance; outrage, not outcomes. History offers countless warnings, from the demagogues of ancient Athens to the populist strongmen of modern Europe, showing how the decay of civic virtue precedes the decay of liberty itself.
This reform cannot come solely from politicians, guided by self-interest and unlikely to prioritize an educated electorate. It must begin with the people. Nearly 250 years ago, this nation was built not only on the proposition that all are created equal, but on the expectation that all will challenge themselves, seek virtue and wisdom independent of the state’s approval. A democracy’s strength lies not in what the government does, but in what its people demand. Civic education leads to informed reform. Informed reform creates a more knowledgeable public. And a more knowledgeable public can narrow the framing that politicians hide behind. When representatives fail to deliver, we exercise our right to vote them out.
That is how we restore the cycle of accountability envisioned by the founders. The Constitution did not seek to create a perfect government; it sought a system that assumes imperfection and gives the public the tools to correct it. The ballot box, the press and civic participation were meant to be instruments of renewal, not merely symbols of ritual frustration. The alternative is cynicism, the belief that the system is broken beyond repair. Cynicism is the ally of corruption. It replaces the duty of citizenship with the comfort of complaint. But education, even in its simplest form, is the antidote to distrust. It allows citizens to recognize manipulation, distinguish competence from charisma and view disagreement not as treason but as the natural language of democracy. Only then can we move toward a more perfect union, one in which corruption and self-interest are not fatal flaws, but forces kept in check by an enlightened citizenry. Only then can the great experiment of democracy truly succeed. For the health of a republic depends not on the purity of its leaders, but on the vigilance, virtue and understanding of its people.
Michael Butkiewicz, a Maryland native studying political science at Penn State University, is the author of “A Nation of Mothers.”
