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Cognitive Madisonianism Part Deux
On divided government, protecting the filibuster, and voting for hypocrites.
Four years ago, The Dividist shared his thoughts on the 2016 election in a post entitled “Cognitive Madisonianism, splitting tickets, the 2016 Senate race, and why American voters are smarter than pundits and political scientists.”
The Dividist was enthralled to discover the phrase “Congnitive Madisonianism” and eager to put it to use. As explained then, it is a political science term for the simple concept that American voters, in their collective wisdom, prefer and vote for divided government. That concept being the raison d’etre for his blog, the reader can appreciate the Dividist’s enthusiasm.
In that post we assessed the current state of the election and made some predictions about the likelihood of maintaining our happily divided government across the new year:
“In 2016 the GOP will keep the House majority, the Democrats will keep the Executive branch and our government will stay happily divided regardless of what happens in the Senate. The dividist voting heuristic strives to Keep It Simple Stupid and walk the simplest path of least resistance to keeping the government divided. In 2016, that path is to vote Clinton for President (or -at the least- not vote for Trump), and vote…
