No Further Promises: Politicians make promises which they cannot keep. It’s time to talk about ideals instead.
When we assess the performance of politicians, we often ask about what they have achieved: have they kept the promises that were made during the election campaign? Campaigns are a time of unbound promises: Obama promised near-universal health care (which has since been implemented). Romney promised to repeal Obama’s law, but has now backtracked and announced that he wants to privatize health care instead of curbing it. In France, François Hollande has promised to reduce budget deficits to zero by 2017. The list goes on.
Some promises are kept regardless of whether the situation warrants it, while others are impossible to keep. Often, too, politicians promise something over which they have no direct control. Pre-election statements regularly allude to the importance of job creation, as if workers and employees were hired directly by the government and not by private enterprises.
But voters demand such promises before making their marks on election day, and they often assess a politician’s performance based on his or her ability to keep them. Not surprisingly, this is too much to ask - and it illustrates the misconceptions we have about political life.
Politicians don’t act - they react. Political processes aren’t generally good at realizing concrete goals, achieving measurable successes, and bringing about a situation that has been identified as desirable in advance.