Do politicians know what you want?

October 5, 2026

OPINION by RON CUFF

Americans aren’t nearly as divided as the press wants you to believe. On several of the biggest issues facing the country, voters across party lines have spoken with unusual clarity.

The problem isn’t that politicians don’t know or care. It’s that they know you’ll vote for them anyway. Doing nothing while blaming the other party is nearly always the safest way to get reelected.

Stock trading bans for sitting members of Congress poll between 86% and 90% support, across party lines. That’s a strong consensus. Yet members of Congress continue to trade individual stocks while writing the laws that govern the industries they’re invested in.

The reason nothing changes is simple: it would require members to vote against their own financial interests.

Federal term limits have held 83% support for three decades. The barrier is structural: a constitutional amendment requires Congress to wear its own leash.

Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t. There is a constitutional path around this called an Article V convention of states, where amendments can be proposed without congressional approval, and then ratified by the states. It’s written plainly in the Constitution. Very few elected officials have the courage to support it.

If this is new to you, you’re not alone. Most people have heard of Article V, but couldn’t tell you what it actually says. Search “Article V amendment process” at the National Constitution Center website. It takes ten minutes, it’s written in plain English, and it might be the most useful thing you read this election season. The Founders put it there for the exact situation we find ourselves in.

The $40 trillion debt is where voter frustration and political cowardice meet in the middle. Voters say they want it reduced, then oppose every specific mechanism: cutting Medicare, cutting defense, cutting Social Security, raising taxes.

Politicians read that correctly as permission to do nothing. A promising model exists: the base Realignment and closure (BRAC) process used in the 1990s, where an independent commission recommended military base closures and Congress agreed in advance to accept or reject the package whole, with no amendments and no carve-outs.

A similar commission applied to all federal spending could break the deadlock. Make no mistake. Without something like a BRAC of the entire government, we are drifting toward a fiscal crisis serious enough to threaten the republic itself.

Immigration is the one area where genuine common ground is available and nobody is harvesting it. Most Americans support immigration and, with the border situation more stable, voters on both sides want legal immigration streamlined.

An application for legal residency that takes years to resolve is a broken system. Weeks, not years should be the standard. The technology to quickly process immigration applications exists.

Waste and fraud may be the most clarifying issue of all. Voters don’t appreciate the theft of their money. Yet meaningful federal oversight consistently meets legislative resistance.

The most plausible explanation is that the same interests defrauding the public are also financing the campaigns of the people who could stop it. That’s not cynicism. That’s just following the money.

Speaking of money, the only way to eliminate “pay to play” political donations is legislation that would make all campaign contributions anonymous. Voting is a private matter. Supporting a campaign financially should also be a private matter. Yes, the money spent on campaigns would drop dramatically, but so would corruption.

Politicians don’t become courageous on their own. Most act in their own self interest, but they will also act when pressured. If your representative doesn’t know where you stand on term limits, stock trading bans, a spending reduction commission, or campaign finance reform, that’s on you. Write a letter to the editor.

Make a call. Meet with your representative. Show up at a town hall or public meeting. The job of citizen isn’t just to choose between the bad options on a ballot. It’s to tell the people who want your vote exactly what it’s going to take to get it.