A depressing campaign, and an election we need

Voter dissatisfaction is not a new phenomenon. In election after election, people bemoan that they merely have a choice between “the lesser of two evils.” Frustration with Washington has been the norm for quite some time.

But in 2016, an election in which both parties have fielded their “A Team” of presidential contenders has been an astonishing letdown.

For instance, the candidates leading the polls in either party — Hillary Clinton for the Democrats, Donald Trump for the Republicans — are not just viewed unfavorably by voters overall; they are the most unfavorably viewed by Americans out of all of the candidates running.

To put this in context, during the entire slog of the 2012 election, neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney sustained a brand as unfavorable as Clinton or Trump. John McCain, John Kerry and George W. Bush all enjoyed “favorables” of over 50 percent during their presidential campaigns, even though two out of the three were ultimately never elected president.

Today, only one out of four Americans think the country is on the right track. Americans continue to express deep economic anxiety, and the president’s job approval remains low, with particular disapproval for handling of foreign policy.

Given this complete rejection of the status quo, it is astonishing that there’s a chance that voters will be presented with this depressing choice: Hillary Clinton, — symbolic of dynastic elite, entrenched interests, corporate America and politics-as-usual — or someone radical like Trump, whose vision of forward progress is distinctly backward looking, as if to reclaim a bygone era by hitting rewind.

But taking America back to a different time isn’t possible, even if we wanted it to be.

Republicans may pine for the Reagan 1980s, while Democrats pine for the New Deal 1930s. But the makeup of America and the evolution of our economy means that neither is in the cards for us, nor should they be. The pace of demographic and technological change reshaping America means it is impossible to recreate the halcyon days of our own preferred ideological movements.

First, as technology improves our lives in countless ways, the ineptitude and inefficiency of Washington looks even worse in contrast.

When we now carry dozens of gigabytes in our pockets and can store a terabyte of data for a couple of bucks, the fact that the government has a cave in Pennsylvania where paper records on government retirees are stored is maddening.

When citizens can get anything from a safe ride home to the latest Hollywood blockbuster with the touch of a button, waiting weeks or months for a government agency to act or respond to a request seems even more ludicrous. We expect better services and better products and use Yelp or TripAdvisor to tell the world about our experiences, but there’s no way to give “one star” to a disastrous government policy or program.

There’s also demographic change remaking our society and shifting our policy preferences in its wake. As Republican pollster Whit Ayres writes in his book 2016 And Beyond, “The uncomfortable reality is that the Republican Party has a worn out business model for a 21st-century presidential electorate.” The growth of the Hispanic population, the decline of marriage, the rise of the millennial generation all have given rise to new challenges, new opportunities and new preferences from voters who want an agenda that meets the needs of their lives, and neither party at present seems primed to address these needs.

America has changed rapidly, leaders have failed to keep up and voter anger is boiling ever hotter.

If voters simply shrug at mediocrity, nothing changes. Reforming big things can’t happen without a catalyst, as frustration grows into the will to act. Systems, institutions and bureaucracies that for too long have failed — failed to keep us safe, failed to adapt and become more fiscally efficient, failed to educate poor children, failed to expand opportunity — may find that an angry electorate is no longer willing to tolerate failure.

A dramatically reshaped landscape, demographically and technologically, paired with deep and expressed voter anger, may mean politicians are forced before long to come to grips with tides bigger than themselves. Enough, voters are saying.

The depression of voters seems like nothing to celebrate, and a Clinton vs. Trump election is not one I’d savor. Disgust and disdain at Washington may manifest itself in a whole host of ways, for good or for ill. But like many illnesses, those unpleasant symptoms are often part and parcel of the process of being cured.

What a depressing campaign this has been. But it also just may lead to the election we need.

Kristen Soltis Anderson is a columnist for The Washington Examiner and author of The Selfie Vote.