Treat Politicians Like the Rest of Us

Brian Klaas for The Garden of Forking Paths:

Why do we hold ordinary corporate employees to a much higher standard than members of Congress?

This isn’t hyperbole. Routinely, elected officials in Congress—the 535 people who are supposed to be the best representatives of 330 million Americans—face zero consequences for behavior that would get them immediately fired from any job with a functioning HR department.

We often hear meaningless bromides about how elected officials hold themselves to a higher standard. But any objective assessment of political history shows the opposite is true. Corporate and government employees face far more professional scrutiny and accountability than the people who are, at least in theory, supposed to be our moral exemplars. (This holds true in a wide variety of democracies, not just the United States)…