Guest Post By Michael Bart-- An Immutable Law Of Physics

Michael is one of my oldest friends. He and I went to college together, spent time in Amsterdam, Finland and San Francisco and, in recent years, have been sharing vacation rentals in places from Bali to Tuscany. He shared some ideas this morning about the midterm elections, from the perspective of someone who isn't as all-consumed by politics as the regular DWT team.

Moment of (Political) Inertia
by Michael Bart

The 2014 midterm election results are in, and America has become even more unbalanced than it’d been Monday. It reminds me of an essay I began a year ago after noticing a correlation between our dysfunctional government and a principle of physics known as Moment of Inertia.

It’s become nearly impossible for today’s Members of Congress to negotiate compromise solutions due to the extreme polarization of political positions. This polarization arises from several factors, including obligations to radical donors, intransigence on hot-button issues and the lack of personal relationships between the members themselves.

Because many now spend more time in their home districts campaigning and fund raising than they do in Washington, DC, it has become easier for Members of Congress to demonize one another. Whether or not the lack of personal relationships is the primary reason for the polarization, our representatives have clearly gravitated away from the political center or, while maintaining their personal positions, the ability to negotiate mainstream compromises.

So what has this got to do with physics? The Moment of Inertia is a measure of how an object resists changes in its rotational motion. Imagine a broomstick that is uniform in thickness so that it balances exactly on the center point along its length. Now, imagine hanging a five-pound weight at each end of the broomstick. The broomstick still balances at its central point but if you try to spin it on the balance point, the weight at either end will make it more difficult to start the stick spinning and more difficult to stop it from spinning once it gets going. That’s inertia at work. As you move the weights closer towards the center, the broomstick still weighs the same but becomes easier to start and stop.

This principle seems relevant to our current political situation. As our political center migrates to the fringes, the Moment of Inertia makes government a very unwieldy tool for addressing problems that arise quickly and require equally quick responses. In fact, it has now become nearly impossible to begin any movement at all, to the point where we see a Congress that is standing virtually paralyzed even in the face of issues that threaten our national future.

At the risk of seeming naïve, it’s time to restore balance to the political process. The time for adjusting the political Moment of Inertia is now, before permanent inertia sets in. This is not to say that issues don’t matter or that we should compromise our principles, but hardening our stances will inevitably lead to total stasis.

Rather than allowing ourselves to be manipulated into voting for simplistically framed narrow self-interests, we should be committed to electing a thoughtful and balanced Congress that will act as an effective tool to address the moving targets that challenge us. However, that requires a thoughtful and mentally balanced electorate. What we have today is a population with near-zero political literacy that whipsaws between hope and rage. The immutable laws of physics will soon put an end to us if we don’t act now.