(This is an archived page, from the Patterns of Power Edition 3 book. Current versions are at book contents).
Even politicians who have failed to perform well may escape blame for a number of reasons, and some get blamed for factors beyond their control.
As previously noted (3.3.9.2), it is very hard to assign blame for economic problems because any economy is subject to external conditions and economic experts have different theories. The British Conservative Manifesto 2010 referred to “Labour’s debt crisis” (on page 9) – yet that was largely the effect of the global 2007-8 financial crisis, which had originated in America (3.3.4.3).
Political power may be distributed, so that any one politician can find someone else to blame within the political system. The American political system, for example, was designed with checks and balances to prevent presidents from having too much power, but Congress can prevent them from achieving the things they promised. Presidents can blame Congress and Congress, in turn, can blame the President – as in the Republican Platform 2016, blaming the “current Administration’s refusal to work with Republicans” (on page 23), leading to what The Economist referred to as Political gridlock.
Most people have insufficient information and cannot determine for themselves which politicians are telling the truth, so they believe those with whom they feel some kind of affinity.